Despite continuing threats from the Trump administration and federal immigration enforcement officials, city leaders are committed to keeping San Jose’s status as a “welcoming city” while avoiding the politically charged “sanctuary” moniker.
Ahead of a formal vote by the City Council on a resolution focused on the rights and safety of immigrant communities next week, City Manager Jennifer Maguire, Mayor Matt Mahan and San Jose Police Chief Paul Joseph released a statement reaffirming that police would continue to focus on enforcing local — not federal — laws regardless of a person’s immigration status.
“The city of San Jose will continue to serve all people regardless of immigration status and explore ways to further the aspirations of those who call San Jose home, including, but not limited to, people of color, women, people with disabilities and LGBTQ+ individuals,” the statement read. “We aim to prioritize the safety, well-being and dignity of everyone who lives and works in San Jose.”
In 2022, San Jose received the “certified welcoming” status from Welcoming America, which meant that the city implemented practices and policies reflecting a commitment to immigrant inclusion. As of 2024, 24 cities and counties across the U.S. had received the status.
While there is no official definition of a sanctuary city, it generally refers to jurisdictions that place limits on how they cooperate with different federal agencies’ immigration enforcement efforts.
California is also one of 11 states in the U.S. to become a sanctuary state after a bill was passed in 2017 that included provisions such as prohibiting law enforcement officers from inquiring about immigration status and holding undocumented individuals until they could be transferred into federal custody.
A welcoming city is not necessarily the same as a sanctuary city, or vice-versa.
San Jose has long valued the contributions of immigrants as the city’s diversity is built on immigration, with more than 40% of Santa Clara County residents born in another country, according to U.S. Census data, and a large portion of businesses are minority-owned.
The city has maintained a policy that it will not get involved in immigration enforcement since 2007, when the City Council passed a resolution in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps in the Bay Area and helped co-found the Rapid Response Network, a community defense project that protects immigrants from deportation threats, during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. The policy, however, does not contain the word “sanctuary,” which officials have said could carry a stigma or misrepresent the city’s actions.
Much like Trump’s first term, tensions are rising within the immigrant community, with Trump promising that federal immigration officials would conduct massive deportation operations.
Fearing the potential impacts of Trump’s policies, a coalition of nonprofit groups and City Councilmembers Peter Ortiz, Domingo Candelas, Pamela Campos and David Cohen called on San Jose to increase protections and support for the immigrant community, including passing the resolution that will be heard Tuesday.
“This city is obligated to ensure that all of its residents, regardless of their country of origin, the color of their skin or their legal status, can thrive in safety and dignity within its boundaries,” Ortiz said. “… False sightings of ICE are spreading on social media, sparking terror in our communities, especially on the Eastside. The incoming administration has proposed a variety of harmful policies, threatening mass deportation, family separation, and, of course, cruel detention. That fear risks decreased cooperation with law enforcement, which is so vital, withdrawal from schools and refraining from seeking healthcare with reverberating consequences for our entire community and, of course, our city.”
This week alone, federal agencies have arrested or lodged detainers for thousands of undocumented individuals around the country, including conducting much smaller enforcement operations in San Jose.
Deportations are not the only threats the local governments may have to respond to, as members of Congress have warned them from hindering federal immigration enforcement efforts.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called on leaders from four cities — Chicago, New York, Denver and Boston — to testify at a public hearing in February after initiating an investigation into their sanctuary city policies.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said local law enforcement officials were given a courtesy notification of ICE’s targeted enforcement operation in East San Jose last Sunday but did not participate.
In interviews with national media outlets, Mahan did not take issue with the operations targeting criminals, noting it would lead to improved public safety.
“My general view is if you are in our city or country and you’re undocumented, and you’re committing serious or violent crimes, you should be deported — and I don’t think that’s very controversial,” Mahan told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say we want to have a secure border or know who or what’s coming in and out of the country.”
Mahan, however, expressed hope that immigration officials would limit their operations to criminals and not the law-abiding immigrants, including those who had long been members of the community.
Mahan instead blamed the federal government for failing to provide an avenue for them to stay and those looking to achieve the American dream.
“For decades, we have had thousands of families in San Jose, who are otherwise law-abiding, hard-working, raising their children here (and) contributing to society,” Mahan said in the CNN interview. “We need a way of rationalizing people’s existence here, bringing people out of the shadows, whether it’s a pathway to citizenship, it’s a work permit (or) it is some way of getting into a formal process and paying your dues, paying a fine (or) whatever it is.”