BORDER/CALIFORNIA/SANCTUARY CITIES/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “President Trump ventured into what his team regards as enemy territory on Tuesday [3-13-18], and it was not a peace mission.
In his first visit as president to California, the blue bastion of liberal resistance, Mr. Trump unloaded on Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, and called on Congress to punish jurisdictions in the state that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. ‘Governor Brown does a very poor job running California… They have the highest taxes in the United States. The place is totally out of control. You have ‘sanctuary cities’ where you have criminals living in the sanctuary cities.’
His broadside escalated a feud between the United States’ chief executive and the most populous state in his country, an argument rooted in ideology, culture, race and sensibility. Mr. Trump’s administration has filed a lawsuit against California over immigration policy, while the state’s attorney general has filed dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration on a variety of fronts.
Mr. Brown said last week that Mr. Trump was waging war against the state, and Mr. Trump did nothing on Tuesday to disabuse that notion… Mr. Brown used the president’s favorite medium to fire back. ‘Thanks for the shout-out, @realDonaldTrump,’ the governor wrote on Twitter. ‘But bridges are still better than walls. And California remains the 6th largest economy in the world and the most prosperous state in America. #Facts.’
Shepherded around in his armored cars and Marine helicopters, Mr. Trump was largely insulated from the dissenters in a state that he lost by four million votes in 2016 and where just 30 percent approve of his performance today. But his trip generated strong feelings that were on display in his wake as he visited San Diego before heading to Los Angeles for a fund-raiser.
A few miles of freeway to the west from the border zone he visited, Mr. Trump’s opponents gathered in the parking lot of a hilltop church overlooking Mexico. His supporters assembled at an industrial park off in the distance.
The separation was by design: Organizers from each side said they wanted to stay apart and avoid clashes. As much as each place represented opposing views of a polarized United States, many of the same emotions were on display — anger, resentment, sadness.”
-Peter Baker and Tim Arango, “In California, Trump Attacks Jerry Brown and ‘Sanctuary Policies’,” The New York Times online, Mar. 13, 2018