Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, WalterMooreForMayor.com

Mayor Villaraigosa has delivered on his promise, from his 2005 mayoral campaign, to uphold Special Order 40, the policy that makes Los Angeles a sanctuary for illegal aliens. 

As a result, Jamiel Shaw, Jr. is dead, and his parents’ hearts are broken.

Villaraigosa’s policy -- set forth in the LAPD Manual -- has made our city a sanctuary for illegal aliens in gangs.  Senator Diane Feinstein issued a report in 2005 stating “an estimated 80 percent of [the 18th Street] gang’s members [in California] are illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America.” 

Likewise, Heather Mac Donald, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, testified before Congress in 2005 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimates illegal aliens make up the “majority” of Mara Salvatrucha’s membership, while “police officers, by contrast, assert that the gang is overwhelmingly illegal.” 

MacDonald concluded, “Sanctuary laws are a serious impediment to stemming gang violence and other crime.”

These gangs, moreover, do not limit their activities to “traditional” crimes like extortion and drug-running:  they also engage in “ethnic cleansing.”  On October 30, 2007, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles announced he had indicted members of “the Florencia 13, a street gang,” for “shootings of African-Americans in neighborhoods the gang claimed to control.”

Villaraigosa’s “sanctuary city” policy has thus turned America’s second-largest city into our very own Bosnia.

So it came as no surprise that Jamiel Shaw, Jr., an African-American teenager whose future looked exceptionally promising, was, according to police, murdered in L.A. by an illegal alien gang member -- a gang member who had already been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon.

Enough is enough.  We’ve had enough of Villaraigosa’s “sanctuary city” insanity. 

It is time for Jamiel’s law.  It is time for a new ordinance that prohibits the Mayor, the Chief of Police and all other city officials from applying the “sanctuary city” policy to gang members.  Instead, the LAPD officers should investigate and arrest gang members who are in this country illegally -- regardless whether those gang members have committed any other crimes.

Entering our country illegally is a crime, punishable by six months’ imprisonment.  There is no legitimate reason to give illegal alien gang members a “pass” on our immigration laws, and wait for them to commit some other crime before prosecuting them.

Other jurisdictions -- including the County of Los Angeles -- cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce immigration laws.  Our city should, too.  We should have “zero tolerance” for gang members who are illegal aliens, so federal authorities can prosecute them for the crime of entering the country illegally.

Jamiel Shaw, Jr. is not the first Angelino whose murder could have been prevented by enforcing our immigration laws.  But Jamiel should be the last.

Don’t bother asking Villaraigosa to let our police arrest illegal alien gang members for violating our immigration laws.  He has declared publicly that “there are no illegal people.” 

Instead, contact your City Council Member and urge them to adopt Jamiel’s law.