Sacramento’s sheriff

Many are seeking to gain political advantage by criticizing President Barack Obama’s executive order. Notable among them is the Sacramento County Sheriff, Scott Jones, who in an unfortunate intervention used the killing of two officers by an undocumented criminal to rail against the expansion of the deferred deportations.

Jones filmed an 8-minute video a day before Obama’s address in which he mentioned the tragic killing of officers Danny Oliver and Michael Davis Jr. in the hands of Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamontes, who used an AR-15 assault rifle which is prohibited in California.

The Sheriff stopped short of blaming Obama directly for the killings. But he made him responsible for the fact that the criminal had been able to reenter the country numerous times after being deported, and that they had been unable to identify him previously because of his undocumented status – supposedly due to lax immigration laws enforcement.

Finally, he said Obama is the only “singular person” who can achieve immigration reform, and deemed the fact that it has not happened his “failure.”

By blaming Obama’s inaction, Jones shows a convenient lack of knowledge about the large immigration debate of the past years.

This lack of knowledge doesn’t end here. While he opposes the deferral of deportations, he also complains that he doesn’t know who has papers and who doesn’t.

Precisely, Obama’s action will help identify millions of people who today don’t appear in any register. This will increase public safety and will help better identify —when necessary— who is here legally and who is not.

The purpose of Jones’ message is to project a tough-guy image. His office has already had problems enforcing the California Trust Act, and admitted to secretly spying on private cell phones. In both cases he wasn’t entirely straightforward.

Jones could have publicized how the killer got his hands on the banned rifle that killed his agents. But surely gun control is not as convenient to attack Obama for the kind of audience he is catering for. It’s saddening that Jones has no qualms about using the officer’s tragedy that way