Newsom vetoes bill on immigrant arrests

California, a sanctuary state, prohibits law enforcement officers from aiding federal immigration agents and will outlaw privately run immigrant detention facilities as part of its phaseout of private prisons.

But legislation that would have closed off another avenue of statesanctioned immigration enforcement — barring private security agents from entering California prisons to arrest migrants — has been vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

AB1282 by Assemblyman Ash Kalra, DSan Jose, would have prohibited state prison officials from allowing security companies under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take into custody inmates who were about to be released and transport them to immigration detention.

The measure, which passed both houses along party lines, was aimed at preventing ICE from using private companies to sidestep the state’s sanctuary law, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2017.

That law bars prisons from allowing federal immigration agents to enter their facilities and prohibits state and local agencies from holding immigrants in custody beyond their scheduled release date for transfer to federal agents or from taking part in immigration enforcement. The Trump administration has sued to overturn the law, saying it interferes illegally with federal immigration policy, but a federal judge and a U.S. appeals court have upheld the law.

On Friday, Newsom signed legislation to close all privately operated prisons in California, including private immigration detention centers, by 2028. But he vetoed Kalra’s bill on Saturday.

“I am concerned that provisions in this bill would negatively impact prison operations and could hinder and delay needed transfers between facilities for myriad situationspecific reasons such as medical care and court obligations,” the Democratic governor said in his veto message.

The message bewildered one of the bill’s sponsors, Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Attorney Angela Chan said state regulations already allow prisons to transfer inmates for medical or courtrelated reasons and would not have been affected by AB1282.

One such rule bars transfers of inmates within 90 days of their scheduled release “except for emergencies or for special housing.” The bill would have made that regulation a state law and, according to legislative staff, would not have prevented transfers for medical care or court obligations.

“This came out of the blue,” said Chan, the group’s policy director. She said Kalra’s staff had told her neither Newsom nor state prison officials had requested any amendments or expressed any objections to the bill while it was pending.

She also said federal law already prohibits ICE from commissioning private companies to make immigration arrests, although the agency continues to do so.

Kalra made the same point Wednesday in a statement expressing disappointment with the veto.

AB1282 would have made sure that the state “complies with federal law by prohibiting private security guards from masquerading as federal immigration officers in California prisons,” the assemblyman said. “We cannot continue to allow our state to be intimidated by an administration whose immigration policy is based in unlawful and hateful actions.”

The principal contractor that would have been affected by the bill is G4S Global Solutions, which has a contract with ICE to transfer immigrants from one detention facility to another.

In a lawsuit in May, four immigrant women accused G4S of “brutal and inhumane treatment” while transporting them from the Bay Area to a detention center in Bakersfield in 2017, a trip they said took more than 24 hours. They said they were confined for hours in shackles in a windowless, broiling van, with no access to food, water, medication or a restroom, and that G4S employees shoved and kicked them.

G4S has denied the allegations. The company did not respond to a request for comment on Newsom’s veto.