Down at the diner in my town, when somebody you don't want to see parks outside, you do what any reasonable adult does. You finish your eggs and leave through the front door. Monterey County, California, looked at that same situation Tuesday and decided to lock the whole jail.

Not the diner. The jail. Their own jail. With people inside it.

Here's what happened, per KSBW and Monterey County Now. Federal immigration agents parked outside the Monterey County Jail in Salinas for what one described on camera as a "targeted operation," waiting to take one or more people into custody when they were released. About 50 people showed up to protest. And at about 5 p.m. the Sheriff's Office put the jail on lockdown for roughly three hours, suspending new bookings, inmate releases and public visits, except for attorneys.

Let that marinate like a pot roast. The county's plan to keep the feds from picking anybody up at the jail was to make sure nobody could leave the jail. That's a little like keeping the raccoons out of your garbage by never taking out the garbage. It works, technically. The kitchen just gets real interesting.

Then came the part folks will be quoting at the feed store for a decade. County Supervisor Wendy Root Askew walked over and told an ICE agent, "Tell you they're probably not coming out. I've spoken with the sheriff." The agent asked whether holding people who would otherwise be legally released violated their Fourth Amendment rights. Askew answered, "They will not be released in a location where ICE is present."

So to review: an ICE agent stood in a California parking lot defending the civil liberties of county inmates, and a county official explained why they'd be staying put. If you'd told me that a year ago I'd have checked your coffee for whiskey.

Askew also clarified, "That's not the county policy. The county policy is just about staging of immigration enforcement." Back in September, supervisors adopted a rule saying county property can't be used as a staging area, processing site or operations base for civil immigration enforcement, with exceptions for judicial warrants and criminal enforcement. Which means a gravel lot behind the jail is now a no-fly zone for one federal agency, and every other federal agency is presumably welcome to tailgate.

The Sheriff's Office later said nobody scheduled for release was actually affected and everything went out on schedule. The agents left around 6:30 p.m., after several hours, according to Monterey County Now. So the three-hour lockdown accomplished exactly what three hours of doing nothing would have accomplished, which in government counts as a successful pilot program.

Sheriff Tina Nieto said they'll keep working with county leaders "to ensure the safety of everyone." Fair enough. Next time, maybe start with the guy at the counter who just wants to visit his cousin and got told the jail is closed for politics.

Where I come from, if you don't want company, you turn off the porch light. You don't barricade the house with the family still in it.

This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.

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