A Trump Administration order to investigate and prosecute state and local officials who defy its immigration enforcement policies spurred immediate and defiant pushback from California politicians, lawyers and immigration advocates Wednesday.
“Come after us,” State Sen. Jesse Arreguín said during a news conference in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. “You want to arrest us for protecting our community? Come after us.”
The U.S. Justice Department directive, first obtained by the Washington Post, comes just days into Trump’s second presidency, won in part on promises to “launch the largest deportation program” in history.
Sanctuary states such as California and counties and cities in the Bay Area and beyond have passed their own regulations restricting state and local law enforcement officers from helping federal agents with immigration enforcement activities, from assisting ICE raids to detaining undocumented inmates at local jails.
During Trump’s first term in office, California successfully fought off his administration’s legal challenge to the state’s first sanctuary law known as SB 54 and will surely challenge efforts to enforce this new order. But this one marks the first time the Trump Administration is threatening to prosecute “local actors” who defy its policies.
“Wrongful threats of prosecution are not going to stop the County from standing behind policies that represent the county’s values,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said in a statement Wednesday. “We believe in the dignity of all members of our community, and we strive to create a welcoming and safe environment for everyone to visit county healthcare facilities, report crimes to local law enforcement, and use other county services without being fearful.”
On Wednesday, Kevin de Leon, the former state senator who authored SB 54, posted on the social media platform X that “California’s sanctuary state — Senate Bill 54, 2018 — law is airtight,” and “as its author, I ensured it would survive the most rigorous legal challenges — even earning the approval of Trump’s SCOTUS.” He added that “local govts looking to participate in deportation raids will be violating this law, and must be prosecuted.”
That drew a clapback from Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher, who argued it has frustrated legitimate law enforcement.
“It’s a dangerous law that provides sanctuary to criminals who violate the rights of our fellow Californians,” Gallagher said. “The politics of stupidity are over.”
State and local sanctuary laws provide for exceptions, especially involving violent criminals. State prisons, including San Quentin in Marin County where serious felons are housed, are allowed to release inmates to federal officers. Local law enforcement may partner with federal agencies in targeting terrorist groups, human traffickers and criminal enterprises operated by people in the country illegally.
“Our role in these joint public safety efforts is all predicated by criminal acts, not immigration enforcement,” Pleasanton Police Chief Tracy Avelar, who is also president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said in a statement from the association Wednesday.
Exactly how the new order will unfold is uncertain, she said.
“Anytime there is a major shift in public policy, it takes time to realize the practical impact,” Avelar said.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong said that she would be gathering with other county leaders to provide “clear communication and expectations to our law enforcement.”
“We would never obstruct a valid criminal investigation,” she said, “but we would never also share information against county policy.”
The Justice Department’s three-page memo argues that “federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands.”
The memo, written by Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, ordered U.S. attorneys’ offices to “investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution,” including for harboring an immigrant illegally and failing to share information about a person’s immigration status with federal agents, both crimes that carry potential prison terms.
The memo bases its arguments in part on the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause — an argument that failed when the government sued California over SB 54 during the first Trump presidency. Back then, the administration argued that California “obstructed and frustrated” the enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.
But the state’s legal team convinced the lower courts that the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that states cannot be required to enforce federal immigration laws. Lawyers for the state also argued — as police chiefs and sheriffs continue to do — that cooperating with federal ICE agents make communities less safe when people fail to report crimes for fear of deportation. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 declined to hear the case, thereby leaving SB 54 intact.
Ever since Trump’s victory in November over Vice President Kamala Harris, an Oakland native, Bay Area law enforcement officers and state officials have been holding numerous news conferences and community meetings at churches and schools to try to reassure immigrants that they would not help federal officials if Trump’s threats of massive ICE raids come to pass.
Earlier this month, Santa Clara County Sheriff Bob Jonsen was forced to counter false claims spreading on social media that his department was collaborating with federal agents in East San Jose when, in fact, his deputies were serving search warrants related to retail theft.
At the Oakland news conference Wednesday, local politicians and nonprofit leaders gathered to denounce the Trump Administration’s threats of mass deportations and make plans to harden state laws.
Arreguin said his introduction last week of Senate Bill 81 would prohibit health care facilities from collaborating with or providing patient information to immigration officials, building on Senate Bill 48, which would similarly prohibit school personnel from collaborating with ICE.
“We are ready, we are prepared,” said Monique Berlanga, executive director of Centro Legal de la Raza, which provides legal services to immigrants facing deportation. “We are not going to let fear or threats control us.”