As President-elect Donald Trump takes office and gains the power to enact a threatened mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, officials who run Bay Area jails say they will uphold state laws that keep them out of immigration enforcement actions.
Citing state laws passed during Trump’s first term, several law enforcement leaders over the past two weeks said they don’t plan to aid federal immigration agents seeking access to county jails — seen as a ripe target, since undocumented immigrants may already be in custody on suspicion of U.S.-based crimes — or provide personnel to round up people for deportation.
Still, immigrant advocates and their attorneys say it remains anyone’s guess what might happen across the country after Trump is sworn into office Monday, when the president-elect can begin making good on campaign promises to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Even if Trump’s threats of deporting some 11 million undocumented residents from the United States doesn’t come to fruition, his rhetoric from the campaign trail appears to have instilled a palpable climate of fear among immigrants across the Bay Area and the nation — even among those here legally, and who have formally requested political asylum.
California was home to an estimated 1.8 million unauthorized immigrants as of 2022, the highest number of any state, according to a study by Pew Research. The Bay Area had more than 449,000 unauthorized immigrants excluding counts of Napa and Marin counties, according to an estimate compiled by the Migration Policy Institute for 2019.
“There is a lot of uncertainty,” said Lourdes Martinez, immigrant rights co-directing attorney with Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland’s Fruitvale District. “But based on what happened in the last Trump administration, what we know is that chaos is about to ensue.”
Trump made cracking down on immigration a central pillar of his latest run to the White House — proposing mass deportations, an end to birthright citizenship and eventual rollbacks in Temporary Protected Status designations.
In California, a recent three-day operation by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Kern County — done days before Trump even takes office — led to 78 arrests and numerous unsubstantiated rumors of additional immigration raids elsewhere in the state.
Closer to the Bay Area, several immigrant advocates have already voiced concerns that the recently-shuttered federal Dublin Women’s Prison in the East Bay could be converted into a detention facility, providing an easy drop-off spot for Bay Area roundups.
Still, federal immigration agents could encounter more difficulty here than in other parts of the nation.
Laws passed during Trump’s first term are expected to act as a bulwark from many potential immigration actions during Trump’s second act, advocates said. Those initiatives include Senate Bill 54, which was passed in 2017 and significantly limited how police and sheriff’s offices can work with federal immigration agents.
State lawmakers also in 2017 passed legislation aimed at protecting workers from immigration raids at their jobs. Other legislative provisions enacted during Trump’s first term scrutinized how public and private immigration detention centers contract with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement when authorities are seeking space for immigration detainees.
In Santa Clara County, a sheriff’s spokesman said the agency would continue to abide by SB 54 and the county’s position as a sanctuary jurisdiction, which was reaffirmed by the Board of Supervisors in 2019. That means not inquiring about immigration status or complying with ICE requests to detain people “solely for immigration enforcement,” absent a serious criminal threat.
“I understand that the fear of immigration enforcement can hinder trust and cooperation with local law enforcement,” Sheriff Robert Jonsen said in a statement to this news organization. “We believe that by not inquiring about an individual’s immigration status, or collaborating with ICE, we can build stronger, more trusting relationships within our community.”
Jonsen added, “We want all residents to feel comfortable reporting crimes, seeking assistance, or interacting with our office without the fear of immigration-related repercussions.”
Sheriff’s spokespersons in Marin and Alameda counties echoed that sentiment. The only way ICE agents could remove someone from county jails would be by first receiving permission from a federal judge, said Capt. Ray Kelly, who oversees the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Jail staff are required to tell inmates that ICE agents had inquired about them and educate those inmates on the options they have at their disposal.
“The days of ICE marching in here and walking out with 20 people are over,” Kelly said.
Representatives from the Contra Costa and San Mateo sheriff’s offices did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
Legal groups aligned with the incoming president already have signaled a willingness to battle with local law enforcement agencies over any perceived foot-dragging or lack of cooperation with ICE. America First Legal, which touts itself as a counter to the American Civil Liberties Union, recently issued letters to police leaders in Los Angeles and San Diego lampooning their reluctance to aid immigration agents.
Its letter to the Los Angeles Police Department went so far as to suggest police leaders face criminal prosecution for not fully cooperating with federal immigration agents.
“The American people have spoken through their representatives,” the organizations’ letter said. “Your jurisdiction’s sanctuary laws or policies therefore make a mockery of American democracy and demonstrate a shocking disrespect for the rule of law. For these reasons alone, you should abandon them.”
For local immigrant advocates, the only certainty in the incoming Trump administration’s rhetoric is the fear it appears to be creating among local immigrants.
“People who are already living in understandable fear are going to be more fearful,” said Ellen Dumesnil, executive director of the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area. “Creating this uncertainty is a tactic to create and foment fear in already some of the most vulnerable populations in our community.”
Dumesnil added that her organization had been in communication with local law enforcement agencies and “I don’t think that at this point we have specific concerns” about the counties where they operate, which include Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, San Francisco, Sonoma and Napa counties.
“The reality is we really can’t separate out the threats and the saber-rattling from what really is going to happen,” Dumesnil said.
Staff writer Caelyn Pender contributed to this report.