‘Sanctuary’ politics
As AG, Brown opposed the idea, but have time — and Trump — changed his mind?
SACRAMENTO — If Gov. Jerry Brown ends up signing a pending bill to make California a “sanctuary state” for undocumented immigrants, it will be an about-face for the governor, who publicly opposed the idea of sanctuary cities several years ago.
While it’s often difficult to predict Brown’s actions, many Capitol observers expect him to approve it, given both California’s political landscape and strong Democratic antipathy toward President Donald Trump.
The governor’s office declined to comment on Senate
Bill 54, but there are clues to his sympathies. During a March interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Brown said: “I’m following a very fine line here. I want to work with him (Trump) where there is something good, but I’m not going to turn over our police departments to become agents of the federal government as they deport women and children and people who are contributing to the economic well-being of our state, which they are.”
But as the state’s attorney general in 2010, during the Obama administration, Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle: “I don’t support sanctuary cities. ... Just opening up the cities and saying our borders don’t mean anything, as the state’s chief law enforcement officer, I’m not going there.”
His views appear to have moved over the years — not unlike those of many of his fellow Democrats.
“We are in such a heightened political environment that even despite his instinct or what he might think is good or bad policy, he would have a difficult time sending that back when this Legislature is doing everything it possibly can to strike a defiant tone,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant.
The bill, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, would bar local and state law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement or using any of their resources to do so, under almost all circumstances. Critics say it ties the hands of local sheriffs and police chiefs when dealing with violent and serious felons.
The bill has already won Senate approval with a vote along party lines, and it is expected to clear the Assembly. Initially, the Legislature’s Democratic leaders tried to pass the bill with an urgency clause, meaning they needed a two-thirds vote in both chambers. They have since abandoned that effort and thus need to muster only a simple majority.
The bill is one of several the Legislature’s Democratic leaders are supporting to counter Trump, who has made the stepped up ejection of undocumented immigrants a central goal of his nascent presidency. He has threatened to deny federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions and labeled California “out of control.”
Brown’s changing comments are reflective of shifting California political and public attitudes about sanctuary and undocumented immigrants in the state, experts say.
“He does appear to have an aversion to any declaration of sanctuary, but at the same time he is clear that he thinks state and local law enforcement should not be the puppet of federal law enforcement authorities,” said Kevin Johnson, dean of the UC Davis School of Law.
In addition, experts point to Brown’s choice for attorney general as a harbinger of his evolving take on immigration issues. In March, his pick for the job, Xavier Becerra, filed a brief in support of Santa Clara County’s challenge to Trump’s executive order, which went after sanctuary jurisdictions. A federal judge in San Francisco recently upheld that challenge.
Brown isn’t the only California Democrat who has opposed sanctuary status in the past. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor in 2018, is another.
When Newsom was mayor of San Francisco, the chilling murder of a father and his two sons by an immigrant gang member raised criticism over the city’s sanctuary status. The shooter had been released by the juvenile system years earlier, after committing other crimes. Newsom, who had been a sanctuary supporter, responded by requiring juvenile authorities to start reporting undocumented minors to federal immigration authorities after a felony arrest. The Board of Supervisors balked, passing an ordinance allowing such reporting only after a felony conviction. Newsom vetoed that, and when the supervisors overrode his veto, he nonetheless refused to enforce that expansive sanctuary policy, saying it violated federal law.
“We have to keep recalibrating sanctuary policy,” Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle in a recent interview. He recalled attending funeral services for the victims in that 2008 case, and called it “a difficult time for me back then, politically and personally.”
But now Newsom emphasizes his support for sanctuary status, saying “we know that sanctuary counties and cities are safer than nonsanctuary locations. These policies advance safety by building trust between communities and the police.”
Bill Hing, a law professor at the University of San Francisco, said while the Trump administration is stirring up palpable fear in immigrant communities, this bill gives the governor the opportunity to push back.
“California needs to counteract that fear, and I believe the governor understands that need and will actually sign this bill in spite of what he said six or seven years ago,” Hing said. “The governor understands we are dealing with a different world. The state needs to send a more reassuring message to its residents.”
But Brown has not been a go-along governor, so many observers add the caveat that there is still a slight possibility he would veto the bill.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
In 2012, Brown vetoed the first version of the California Trust Act, although he said he agreed with the bill’s intent to protect undocumented immigrants with minor offenses from being detained by local police at the request of the federal authorities.
“Under the bill, local officers would be prohibited from complying with an immigration detainer unless the person arrested was charged with, or has been previously convicted of, a serious or violent felony. Unfortunately, the list of offenses codified in the bill is fatally flawed because it omits many serious crimes,” he wrote in his veto letter.
He went on to say, “I believe it’s unwise to interfere with a sheriff’s discretion to comply with a detainer issued for people with these kinds of troubling criminal records.”
Two years later the governor signed a modified version of the Trust Act. It prohibits local law enforcement from holding undocumented immigrants charged with most lowlevel, nonviolent offenses for transfer to federal authorities. It does allow local authorities to detain, for federal immigration enforcers, those with felony convictions, those charged with some types of felonies, and those who have committed multiple misdemeanors.
During his State of the State address in January, Brown promised to stand behind the Trust Act.
This year’s proposed sanctuary bill, however, goes further. It would prohibit local police agencies from asking about immigration status, and it mandates they do not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — including for those charged with serious or violent felonies. There are some exceptions such as transferring some individuals if there is a judicial warrant or a previous conviction of a violent felony.
Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, calls the bill “bad policy” that would allow serious criminals to evade immigration enforcement. He also says it will cost local jurisdictions that contract with ICE as holding centers, including Yuba County, millions of dollars.
Gallagher points to the 2015 murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant and repeat felon who had been deported five times.
“We need to have the flexibility to work with our federal partners to ensure that illegal immigrants who are committing crimes here against everybody in our community are properly detained or deported,” Gallagher said. “The governor has often been a reasonable check on legislation. I’m hopeful that he can see some of the same problems that many of us are identifying and if this were to pass through the Legislature that he could be the one, the adult in the room, to say ‘This is not the right way to go.’ ”