By Joshua Arnold

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) issued an executive directive on Friday ordering city departments not to cooperate with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations and in fact to steer resources toward “families impacted by federal immigrant enforcement actions.” Those resources would include providing those families cash cards loaded with a “couple hundred” dollars, reminiscent of the “Angelino cards” former Mayor Eric Garcetti issued during the COVID lockdowns, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles government will reportedly not supply funding for the cash card initiative directly but through non-profits such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), which spoke alongside Bass at a Friday press conference. CHIRLA is responsible for organizing some of the radical protests against ICE agents and has received millions of dollars in government funding, Breitbart reports. Los Angeles cannot directly support this cash scheme because it currently faces a deficit of nearly $1 billion.

No details are available on how a family would qualify for the program, but presumably, the cash would go to family members of illegal immigrants arrested by ICE and processed for deportation.

Bass’s non-cooperation directive came one day after ICE officers raided two southern California cannabis farms, rescuing 10 minors and arresting dozens of illegal immigrants, as well as anti-ICE activists who obstructed their law enforcement efforts. Federal authorities are now investigating the farm at which the minors were found for illegal child labor practices, and they are also searching for one of the activists who reportedly fired a gun at law enforcement.

At its root, the relevant issue here is whether the laws apply equally to every person present in the United States. Everyone who is illegally present in the United States has broken the law, either by entering the country illegally or by refusing to leave by the time they were required to do so. If law is to have any authority, such individuals have no right to expect that the law will not be enforced against them. ICE is the federal law enforcement agency tasked with enforcing that law.

Undoubtedly, there are illegal immigrants who have dwelt in America for long enough to put down roots, such as marrying and having children. As Bass highlighted, it is admittedly tragic for a wife and children if their breadwinner is suddenly arrested, transported across state lines, and ultimately deported. The situation is rendered more tragic if the wife (and therefore the children also) is an American citizen who did not know she married an illegal immigrant, making her and her children innocent of the whole affair.

Yet we must not let an emotional appeal sweep away our reason, justice, or respect for law. From the family’s perspective, the hardship is equivalent to a situation in which an American citizen commits a crime and is sentenced to years in prison. Even if his wife and children knew nothing of the crime, they must now deal with the fact that the husband and father have been removed from their family life, potentially for years. Bass is not rolling out cash cards to support those families.

Thus, aside from the questionable economics of local governments handing out cash, Bass’s cash card initiative commits a more fundamental error in that it subsidizes and incentivizes a certain kind of lawlessness. If someone breaks U.S. immigration law and is caught while living in L.A., city organizations will give their families a small stipend. The conditions to win this money have nothing to do with justice. They thus create a perverse incentive for lawbreaking — while at the same time not even providing significant support to those they are supposed to help.

This continues a pattern of misplaced priorities by L.A. officials. After being M.I.A. during wildfires that ravaged outlying areas of the city, destroying 16,000 homes in January, Mayor Bass has done little to nothing to help Californians rebuild. By the end of March, Los Angeles had approved only four permits to rebuild destroyed or damaged homes. By last week, 145 permits had been issued.

Mitigating circumstances include California’s onerous permitting process, which requires home builders to first clear away waste, ash, and contaminated soil. By California standards, L.A. is issuing permits “quicker than we’ve ever seen before,” one developer said. But building permits do not inherently take months to approve; in Florida, residential permits are approved in an average of five business days, and can take no more than 30 business days. Thus, local and state officials in California could have done more to slash red tape. Rebuilding permits have issued so slowly that Governor Gavin Newsom (D), whose presidential aspirations are evident, stepped in after six months to finally slash through red tape — all while boasting “the fastest major disaster cleanup in American history.”

The point is, governments must make choices about what they will prioritize and who they will work for. Los Angeles has done very little to aid residents who lost their homes to fire. But they will bend over backward to not only help illegal immigrants evade the law, but even subsidize their families when they get caught.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.