[quote=@Fabricant451]MCSO has been doing immigration and immigration–related enforcement operations even when it had no accurate legal basis for doing so.
[/quote]

I recall there being a federal lawsuit against Arizona, brought by the Obama admin, for their enforcement of immigration law. Then again I also recall Obama admin having the highest rate of deportation in (recent?) history, so it's not like they were totally scuttling the whole border-security effort. 

Anywho. I don't wanna sound like I'm endorsing the methods here. The concept I have in my head is, here's this old curmudgeonly let's-just-assume-he's-a-racist guy is out there doing his job. The court, and not the legislature, tells him that he has to do a different thing, and he says "no, the law says I do X," so he does X. The court predictably convicts him of doing X, and Trump then pardons him for doing X. That part [i]and only that part[/i] makes perfect sense in my head. 

X, assuming your assessment is on the level, is pretty gross. I mean people have been pardoned for worse, but not in the first year of the first term of a presidency. That's an odd tactical decision. The only way I can make sense of the administration's message here is if I assume that equation above -- "If X is the law, we do X." Still shaky though. 

More generally, I fall into that camp where like, if California wants to set California policy, I think that's swell. I'm not in California, they can do what they want. Federal lawsuits to muscle state policy are, by their nature, offensive to me, and that is [i]probably[/i] endearing me to the wrong moral side of this case. That's my bias, that's the only reason Sheriff Joe has my tacitly-implied non-condemnation here. I don't wanna sound like an apologist.