In a rebuke to President Trump, Gov. Newsom pardons refugees facing deportation
By Phil Willon and Anita Chabria
May 13, 2019 | 6:10 PM
| Sacramento
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday pardoned seven former felons, including two Cambodian refugees the Trump administration wants to deport, in his first acts of clemency since the Democrat took office in January.
Newsom adopted a policy of his predecessor, former Gov. Jerry Brown, to use his state constitutional authority to issue pardons to shield immigrants targeted by federal immigration officials.
The pardons are an unmistakable rebuke to President Trump, whose fiery anti-immigrant rhetoric and demands for giant wall along the U.S.-Mexico border have been central to the escalating political feud between Newsom and the White House.
Newsom took another shot at Trump just hours before announcing the pardons while speaking to members of Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Assn., a national nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization based in Sacramento. Newsom compared Trump to the anti-immigrant “demagogues†in San Francisco who championed the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 — the nation's first immigration ban on a specific group of people.
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https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-pardon-immigrant-trump-20190513-story.html