CalMatters
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
By Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters
Hospitals. Schools. Shelters.
Those are some of the places that California lawmakers want to shield from immigration arrests and raids. They advanced a package of bills this week as President Donald Trump’s administration continues its ramped-up deportation campaign around the country.
The Democratic-dominated Legislature can’t block federal agents from entering places where someone has allowed them to be. They also can’t stop ICE from going where officers have the legal authority to be, such as immigration courthouses. But the bills the state Senate passed Monday push local officials to limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to require agents to get a warrant to enter.
One bill would bar immigration agents from entering “nonpublic” parts of schools without a warrant. Another would do the same in hospitals, and prohibit health care providers from sharing patients’ immigration status with federal authorities unless they have a warrant. Another would limit immigration agents from accessing homeless or domestic violence shelters.
Other bills limit information sharing. One would require California health departments, when issuing birth certificates, to shield the parents’ countries of birth from the publicly viewable portion of the document. Another would require cities and counties that license street vendors — a business dominated by immigrants — from sharing information about licensees with federal authorities.
Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat who authored the schools bill, said she was responding to a recent string of highly publicized raids and other enforcement operations that have rattled immigrant communities and threaten to send workers, students and patients into hiding.
ICE last week raided two San Diego restaurants in a search for workers allegedly living in the country illegally, setting off a confrontation with protesters outside. Immigration agents in April showed up trying to speak with students at two Los Angeles elementary schools; school administrators turned them away. That month they also detained a group of day laborers in the parking lot of a Pomona Home Depot.
The lawmakers’ proposals sailed through the Legislature so far, and passed the Senate this week with near-unanimous support from Democrats. They now head to the Assembly.
“Every student, regardless of their immigration status, should be given the right to a free and fair education,” Gonzalez said.
Sen. Jesse Arreguin, a Berkeley Democrat who authored the hospitals bill, said it was “about making sure that people can access health care in California without fear of being arrested or deported.”
Though Republicans generally opposed the bills, some acknowledged they were concerned about the widespread fear sown by the sight of federal agents. For Republicans, the politics of a flashy GOP-led immigration crackdown remain delicate in California, where more than one in four residents is foreign-born.
Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, a Modesto Republican, criticized Democrats for what she called overblowing “a problem that is very real” and said she was worried school officials would be stuck between state law and complying with federal agents’ requests or orders.
“I definitely believe we have a problem in this state, and we exacerbate that problem by continuing to instill fear in young people,” she said during debate about Gonzalez’ schools bill. “When we talk about ICE agents in masks and instill fear that way, we are doing a disservice to the educational system.”
Her Republican colleague Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh joined Democrats in voting for the bill limiting law enforcement access to schools. She opposed the other bills, including one requiring school officials to notify parents, staff and community members if immigration agents come to campus.
“When someone enters the school we always want to make sure they’re official,” the Redlands lawmaker said. “Putting in statute knowing and asking whether or not someone has a warrant or has an official capacity to enter the school, is really a no-brainer.”
California resists Trump’s immigration crackdown
Kevin Johnson, an immigration law professor and former dean of the UC Davis School of Law, said he expects the legislation, if enacted, would have a limited effect on ICE operations, given that the state is already engaged in a yearslong back-and-forth with the federal government over whether to cooperate with immigration authorities.
The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are both trying to withhold federal funding from California over its sanctuary law that prohibits state and local police from arresting immigrants on behalf of ICE, and limits their cooperation in transferring detainees to immigration custody. Federal courts upheld the law during the last Trump administration.
In his second term, Trump is further pushing the boundaries in an aggressive effort to curb both illegal and legal forms of immigration. That includes everything from rescinding a longstanding policy of avoiding arrests in “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools and hospitals, to arresting immigrants when they show up for required check-ins or immigration court hearings, to seeking to deny U.S. citizenship from immigrants’ American-born children.
The state may have the authority to shield babies’ parents’ birthplaces from public view, Johnson said, but he theorized that if the U.S. Supreme Court allows Trump to repeal birthright citizenship, the federal government could require people to show proof of their parents’ birthplace to become an American citizen.
“They can only do so much to limit what the federal government can do,” Johnson said of the state. “We’re in the middle of a long, protracted skirmish between the state and federal governments on immigration.”
Still, he said, forcing federal agents to get warrants to search for or arrest someone could help immigrants feel safer going out in public.
“We at least have to get the federal government to think about complying with the law, as opposed to just sending out hordes of ICE agents wherever,” he said.
Immigrant aid groups set to lose funding
The effort to protect vulnerable immigrants comes as California nonprofits are scrambling to respond to increased enforcement and competing for limited resources.
California spends $60 million a year on immigration legal aid and in a special session in December gave that fund a one-time boost of $10 million.
Some Democratic lawmakers this year have backed advocates’ requests to further increase that funding even as the state stares down a $12 billion budget deficit. Gov. Gavin Newsom has already proposed other cuts to immigrants’ social services to address the shortfall.
One program that would run out of money without new funding is the Children’s Holistic Immigration Representation Project, a pilot program started in 2022 to provide lawyers and social workers for unaccompanied minors facing deportation.
Originally slated to last through summer 2024, the program has helped about 800 immigrants who arrived as children. The California Department of Social Services has kept it going with a one-time $4.2-million boost in money originally budgeted for other immigration legal services. That money will run out at the end of June.
This year, advocates and legal service providers say they’re not expecting there to be any extra money to go around.
When California made $5 million of the legal aid funding available this year, organizations across the state applied for six times that amount, said Lisa Hoffman, co-executive director of the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant in Berkeley.
Hoffman said state funding helps her nonprofit pay caseworkers and attorneys to represent 50 young immigrants between ages 17 and 22. The clients, many of whom fled violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, get help with their cases and assistance enrolling in school, securing transportation and going to the doctor.
“By investing in these services now, it prevents much more serious, longer-term problems,” she said. “Even if they are allowed to stay, but they drop out of school or don’t get the support they need, it’s going to create much bigger and more expensive problems down the road in terms of homelessness, mental health challenges.”
Fight the fascist kakistocracy.
Leave hard-working, tax-paying, albeit undocumented immigrants alone! These masked ICE cowards are the lowest of the low. Going after the easiest to find/catch and least resistant immigrants.
What’s the ratio of actual (convicted or even record having) criminals to hard working and law abiding immigrants being deported or just sent to prisons in countries other than their own? Anyone know?
ICE is randomly picking people up through profiling. Statistically, if they picked up the same number of US citizens and imprisoned them it would do more to push the overall crime rate down than deporting illegal aliens.
It’s not about crime of public safety.
ALEX it’s never been about public safety or anything they say “it’s about.” Pure, evil bigotry, greed and revenge (“owning the libs”) is all this administration is about. Trump could give a flying fish about average Americans and their safety, health or education.
Yep, eff em ALL.
Yep, and Trump’s group of zombies and puppets will cheer while his Prime Minister of hatred, Steven Miller, manufactures violent conflict on Los Angeles in order to exercise violent Federal power in a place where his Gestapo are neither needed or wanted.
Bu…bu….but….State’s rights!! Not when MAGA is in power.
And, MAGA faithful, don’t bother looking behind the curtain to see what Palantir is doing to create profiles of every single citizen. Remember when you dorks didn’t want “big government and a deep state.”?
They’re either too racist or too poorly educated to understand what is happening. There is no other rationale.
To cheer for the pardoning of white convicted, violent criminals who beat up cops as they tried to overthrow the will of the people and then now cheer for violence against Latino protestors who are throwing rocks at military-style police who are kidnapping non-criminals off the street is proof positive of a lack of critical thinking ability or just flat out racism. Judging by many comments online, the latter is predominant.
As for LA, I have had a feeling for a week or so that this summer will be violent. Most people in this country are opposed to these latest ICE tactics. People are rising up against this. I fear LA maybe be the beginning of what will likely be a violent revolution.
So be it.
All countries have laws.Country laws need to be respected like them or not. The United States clearly has a pathway for legal immigration which are ignored unfortunately by many, therefore disrespecting our country and our laws.
HAMMONDS – so why are ICE and Trump going after the people trying to do it the “legal” way? They’re perched outside immigration courts where immigrants are complying with our laws. They’re canceling the refugee status of hundreds of thousands of refugees who were here LEGALLY.
Why?
Funny how laws don’t matter to or for the orange moron.
Hammonds, as soon as you make it clear that you believe the law should apply to all, including Trump and his legion of sewer rats, you’ll have some credibility. Until then, keep carrying water for a fascist.
This was predictably all in the master plan and simply being implemented. Immigrants are no longer going to be able to “fly under the radar” as has been the case for many many years. Huge spotlight on the problem and it’s not good for any immigrant who hopes to stay in the US without permission. Now, we have full-blown riots with the National Guard being called in to stamp it out. It does not help that the rioters are burning vehicles of random passerby’s and throwing chunks of cement at LE. Shutting down major roads and freeways does not help gain support for any cause, no matter how right/noble. The same thing in LA is what’s happening to Greta Thunberg and her “flotilla” of aid in Gaza right now.
No “full blown riots,” just angry protestors who are right now being shot with tear gas and rubber bullets by the National Guard.
What is happening in Gaza with the attempt to bring aid to the starving, innocent victims of attempted ethnic cleansing is not the same as LA.
“rioters are burning vehicles of random passerby’s”
Nope. ONE car was set on fire by someone. ONE.
Funny how real time video proof says you are wrong. Nothing new, your job here is to kick the Hornets nest.
TNKY – when I posted this comment 5 hours ago, there was only one. Yeah, now they’re burning the driverless cars.
But hey, this is what happens when you escalate a protest by bringing in the national guard WITHOUT authorization of the governor. This is Trump’s dream. Violence in the streets of his nemesis’ state giving him an excuse to violate our laws and send in the military to kill people over immigration.
He’s been waiting all spring for this. Mark my words, there will be more violence. But hey, sometimes, there’s no other option when you have boots on your necks.
You just repeated what I just wrote. “Angry protesters” and an angry/passionate person from Sweden (was lucky enough to have visited Sweden a couple of times) are getting shut down by “the authorities.” Nothing more and nothing less. Not at all saying that either the protesters or Greta is wrong.
Hard to tell with you, BEES.
Just bend the knees, and Bends Knees will assure you that all is well.
I wonder why the Trump administration has not released the numbers of actual criminals that ICE has detained and deported? I mean, people with actual criminal convictions, not just photoshopped tattoos.
No one, NO ONE, opposes the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants who have been found guilty of violent crimes. Announcing the numbers of these individuals would go a long way to bolster support.
Then again, if those numbers are minimal in comparison to the numbers of hard working, tax paying law abiding undocumented immigrants who have been ripped from their families, homes, jobs, then you get what you’re seeing now.
Maybe that’s why TACO is too scared to release the data. He wants this. He wants to send troops to CA and start a civil war. It’s always been the plan.
TNYDK – DUIs, rape, murder are all crimes. Being here without proper documentation, by itself, is not a criminal offense. Crossing the border illegally after being already deported is a criminal offense, but not all undocumented immigrants are in that category.
Further, murder, rape, etc are violent crimes against innocent members of society. Coming here without correct documentation to work hard, pay taxes for things you aren’t even entitled to, contributing to your community and living without fear of corrupt, murderous gangs and police (well, up until now), is NOWHERE NEAR the level of criminality (if at all) as the crimes you mentioned.
Most of these people are hurting NO ONE. Yet many of them get treated worse than rapists by ICE as they’re ripped from their families and detained and in many cases deported without due process. Remember, they’re not just arresting/detaining/deporting (or human trafficking) non-citizens. US citizens that “look like” undocumented immigrants are being jailed as well.
It is cruel, illegal and inhumane how most of these people are being treated. It inexcusable and shameful that so many “Americans” support this behavior.
Blah Blah
Sanctuary cities are illegal to begin with.
No BS you can toss will change that.
JOE BIDEN is the idiot you should be upset with.
No, you fascist puppet, it’s American citizens supporting a criminal administration that we should be upset with. Now get back to dinner.
PNKY – “Blah Blah Sanctuary cities are illegal to begin with.”
Not all illegal actions are crimes. Just curious how you felt about the 1500 ACTUALLY VIOLENT criminals that are pardoned on Day 1? You know over 600 of them were convicted of assaulting cops, right? Beating them in the head with fire extinguishers, etc. Cool, right? Did you also know that many of those VIOLENT CONVICTED CRIMINALS who were released into our communities had prior charges for rape, spousal abuse, CHILD MOLESTATION and other violent crimes?
If you cheered for their release and now you cheer for this violent, cruel and in many cases ILLEGAL treatment of non-violent, tax-paying immigrants, then guess what that makes you?
Tnky was out there screaming “Hang Mike Pence” with the rest of the criminals.
I couldn’t resist the “click bait” title was to spot on… “So, Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/arrest-me-let-s-go-newsom-punches-back-at-trump-border-czar/ar-AA1Gl0vE?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=e1a15e60b63a4c37aeb166cd548b44d4&ei=112
🚲