California’s just sanctuary law
Gov. Jerry Brown has signed SB54, the controversial legislation that restricts state and local law enforcement’s ability to help the federal government deport undocumented immigrants within California’s border.
Following extensive negotiations between the Governor’s Office, the bill’s author, state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, and California law enforcement groups, SB54 is not the wild-eyed “sanctuary state” law that some critics have accused it of being.
SB54 won’t protect every undocumented immigrant. Prior convictions for any of more than 800 crimes, including some misdemeanors, exclude immigrants from the protections in the bill. Federal immigration agents still will be able to interview immigrants in jails, and the California Department of Corrections is exempted from the measure.
These provisions were part of the negotiations Brown and de León worked out with local law enforcement organizations.
SB54 also won’t spare California the social and economic cost of seeing families broken up over Washington’s poisonous immigration policy. It can’t.
What it will do is make the job of federal agents far more difficult here. It prevents state and local law enforcement agencies from inquiring into individuals’ immigration status, and prohibits new contracts to use California’s law enforcement facilities as detention centers.
Because federal agents lack the manpower and the local connections to track down every undocumented immigrant, their deportation activities could be severely curtailed in California.
That will be a fight. In response to Brown’s decision to sign SB54, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Tom Homan said his agency will “have no choice” but to conduct arrests at work sites and in California neighborhoods. Depending on how determined ICE is, the results could be ugly.
Still, SB54 is the right move for California.
The Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies threaten to break up hard-working, law-abiding families without real cause. They also threaten the economy of a state that depends heavily on the labor of immigrants in industries ranging from agriculture to health care. An estimated 10 million immigrants live in California, about 25 percent of whom are thought to be undocumented.
Instead of disrupting California’s communities and its economic dynamism, Washington could pass comprehensive immigration reform that acknowledged the realities of the 21st century. Until then, California must protect the people who live within our state’s borders.