Sherman R. Frederick
Marin Local News
My favorite progressive government, Marin County, will give away half a million in taxpayer dollars to help illegal aliens stay under the law.
The county’s moms and dads are doing this, as they say in a press release, because of the “heightened federal immigration enforcement across the nation,” adding this gem of liberal theology: Every person in Marin County, legal or illegal, must “feel seen, valued, and supported.”
Taxpayers should be equally seen, valued, and supported.
Many local jurisdictions in progressive pockets around the country spend money like Marin is doing. And look, we can argue all day about the need to care for strangers in our communities, but some of what’s going on now crosses the line of proper governance.
The issue isn’t the need to help people who have illegally crossed into the United States and feel fearful they will be discovered and returned to their home country. They should be worried, and they will need help.
But in Marin County and any number of other progressive jurisdictions, it’s not just about food and shelter; it’s about helping human beings avoid detection so they may continue to live in the shadows as modern-day servants to the rest of us.
That’s the ugly bottom line, isn’t it?
To keep the illegal servant class, Marin will fund “free immigration legal services … including legal screenings, representation, and removal defense.”
It will also support a 24-hour alert hotline … “to assist community members seeking real-time support during immigration enforcement actions.”
Using tax dollars to thwart law enforcement is a misuse of funds, period.
If private individuals want to donate to a modern-day Underground Railroad dedicated to hiding illegal aliens from lawful deportation, then fine, donate early and often.
But taxes are collected for stuff like roads, police, and fire. If there’s money left over after that, then cut the tax rates and give people a break.
That’s how I’m seeing it, anyway, on Nov. 5, 2025. If there’s a better way to see it, let’s discuss it.
(You can reach Sherman Frederick at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)
Mr. Frederick, I normally agree with your writings and find them rational and well-spoken. However, I, even as a small-government libertarian who supports conservative values, must point out that the logical end of your argument is absurd. You deem there to be a “servant class” of illegal immigrants in Marin, which is effectively an acknowledgment of a racial caste system within Marin County, with Latin Americans and other foreigners who illegally enter the United States at the bottom of this caste. You also seem to claim that such a system is unfavorable and should be prevented or eliminated. However, your solution is to essentially encourage “lawful deportations” that remove them from the system entirely. In other words, your logic appears to follow that, to eliminate a form of oppression, the oppressed should be removed.
The same blanket solution could be applied to any oppressed group at any point in history. There would be no slavery if the slaves were removed; there would be no repression of women if women did not exist; there would be no persecution of conservatism in Marin if the conservatives of Marin were to cease existing. It is an utterly absurd conclusion that the solution to the “illegal servant class” in Marin is to remove the illegal servants. Would it not be more effective to provide resources to the “illegal servant class” to allow them to exist legally (e.g., legal representation, which you disagree with in this article) and to no longer be servants, i.e., to be provided with opportunities, subsidies, etc. to pursue a life of gainful employment and contribution? Of course, this would only be if you truly believe the “illegal servant class” to be a bad thing in Marin, which many Marinites do not appear to.