It appears that far-left Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom learned a lesson from the shellacking his party took from President Donald Trump and the GOP on November 5.
The first sign that Newsom had absorbed the implications of the loss was his agreeing with conservative celebrity Charlie Kirk that permitting men to play women’s sports is unfair. “Trans women” and their allies flew into a curler-tossing rage.
Today, Newsom demonstrated his newfound wisdom again. Responding to social media rage over the imminent release of an illegal-alien killer who served just three years in prison, Newsom announced that the state Department of Corrections will honor a detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold Mexican illegal Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano until ICE can arrest him.
The governor announced the cooperation with ICE hours after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and a top U.S. attorney said the Department of Justice will prosecute Ortega-Anguiano for illegally reentering the country after being deported.
Newsom’s two moves are a clear sign he’s trying to move the party away from some of its deranged obsessions.
DOJ to Prosecute
In November 2021, a drunk and stoned Ortega-Anguiano was hurtling down the road at 100 mph. He crashed into two 19-year-olds, Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin, Fox News reported. The two burned alive. In 2022, Ortega-Anguiano was convicted of two counts of gross vehicular homicide while driving under the influence. He landed a 20-year prison sentence.
Fox News’ Bill Melugin explained that the illegal has previous felony convictions, which means he should have been deported. But, alas, that never happened.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed a detainer with North Kern State Prison, Delano, California, June 9, 2022, on Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano, 43, of Mexico.
He is serving time after being convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. His previous criminal convictions include burglary in 2005; vehicle theft in 2007; and battery on spouse with kidnapping in 2014….
An immigration judge ordered Ortega removed Nov. 3, 2014; he filed several unsuccessful appeals and was taken into ICE custody Dec. 2, 2016, and removed to Mexico the same day. Ortega attempted to reenter the United States Feb. 2, 2018, near Otay Mesa, California by presenting a counterfeit document; he was paroled into the U.S. pending criminal prosecution for illegal reentry after removal. An immigration official issued Ortega an expedited removal order and removed him June 1, 2018, to Mexico; after his latest removal, he again illegally reentered the U.S. on an unknown date and location. ICE issued a detainer with the Orange County Jail, California, Nov. 27, 2021, where he was being held on vehicular manslaughter charges at the time.
Understandably, the victims’ families were enraged when they learned on Easter that he was to be released on July 19. Melugin wrote on X:
[T]he families fear, even if he is deported, he will just re-enter the US as a gotaway, as he’s done twice before.
Melugin’s report invited almost immediate replies from U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi and Bilal Essayli, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. Message: Ortega-Anguiano won’t be deported only to return again, and, perhaps, kill someone else in a drunken stupor.
“This is absolutely unconscionable,” Bondi wrote on X:
What about Justice for these teens? What about the rights of their parents?
@TheJusticeDept will work with ICE to make sure this illegal alien receives full punishment for his crimes.
Wrote Essayli, “My office has filed a felony immigration charge against this defendant. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted for 8 USC 1326.”
Newsom Replies
The dust-up apparently alarmed Newsom, who’s trying to lead his party out of the fever swamps of the crackpot Left.
Blaming the sentence on a Republican district attorney who “gave him a plea deal instead of pursuing 2nd-degree murder,” Newsom reported that the state “will again coordinate with ICE — as they have w/ 10,000+ inmates — to transfer him before release.”
Fox News noted that the state routinely cooperates with ICE on detainers.
Kirk Interview
Newsom’s stepping into the social media tornado is no surprise.
In the premiere edition of his podcast, This is Gavin Newsom, he agreed with Kirk that permitting “transgender women” — men who pretend they are women — to compete in women’s sports is unfair to the women who work so hard to become top athletes. They spend years rising to the top of the sport, only to see mediocre — but much faster and stronger — men defeat them.
Kirk and Newsom discussed a high-school “trans girl” called AB Hernandez. He had crushed his girl competitors at a track meet.
“You as the governor should step up and say no,” Kirk told Newsom.
The 2028 presidential prospect obliged.
“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that,” Newsom said. “So that’s easy to call out, the unfairness of that. … I totally agree with you.”
The reaction was predictable. Politico reported that “major LGBTQ+ organizations immediately made clear they’re looking at trans athletes as a litmus test for ambitious Democrats.”
Newsom is considered a top contender for the Democratic presidential ticket in 2028. Just yesterday, he told NBC News that “we are as dumb as we want to be,” referring to the party’s expecting a hero to revitalize it.
Noting the criticism he received for hosting Kirk and conservative podcaster Steve Bannon on his program, Newsom “appears to be committed to learning from Trump’s victories in two of the last three presidential elections,” NBC reported:
He was particularly struck by Trump’s advantage with young men, which he attributed to the attention the current president paid to them — which was demonstrated in part by appearing on podcasts and YouTube shows popular with that cohort.
“He had no policy to back up for young men, how to take care of these kids,” Newsom said. “But he at least expressed that — I see you, you matter, I care.”
