President Donald Trump has made it known that he will not tolerate liberal cities like New York and Los Angeles openly stymying federal authorities’ efforts to arrest illegal immigrants. Since taking office, he has threatened to slash federal funding while ICE has circumvented local authorities to arrest undocumented immigrants during enforcement blitzes like September’s “Operation Safe City.”
But come January 1st, the administration will need to broaden its efforts now that California is set to become the first “sanctuary state” in the US after Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 54 – aka the “sanctuary state bill” – into law on Thursday.
The bill was drafted by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) and would stop state and local cops, in every town across California, from helping the feds enforce immigration law. Under the measure, ICE agents would no longer be allowed to go into jails to deport undocumented prisoners, and they’d have restricted access to state databases. Meanwhile, jail officials would be allowed to transfer inmates to federal immigration authorities only if they have been convicted of certain crimes.
And in the latest sign that arrests of undocumented immigrants – which have under Trump eclipsed even the all-time enforcement peaks seen under former President Barack Obama – will continue in California despite the state’s efforts to fabricate a legal justification for obstructing federal law enforcement, the head of ICE said Friday that his agency will have “no choice” but to continue arresting illegal immigrants in California’s neighborhoods and worksites, according to Fox.
Homan cautioned the bill helped protect illegal immigrants from deportation and made the state a “magnet."
"Ultimately, SB54 helps shield removable aliens from immigration enforcement and creates another magnet for more illegal immigration, all at the expense of the safety and security of the very people it purports to protect," Homan warned.
Those arrested would also likely be placed in out-of-state detention centers, ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan said in a statement.
Brown has acknowledged that the law does not bar ICE from operating in the state.
"They are free to use their own considerable resources to enforce federal immigration law in California," he wrote in his signing statement.
Under threat of possible retaliation by the Trump administration, Gov. Jerry Brown signed landmark “sanctuary state” legislation Thursday, vastly limiting who state and local law enforcement agencies can hold, question and transfer at the request of federal immigration authorities, in what has been perhaps the most strident expression of the state’s defiant, secessionist tendencies during the Trump era.
Brown took the unusual step of writing a signing message in support of SB 54. He called the legislation a balanced measure that would allow police and sheriff’s agencies to continue targeting dangerous criminals, while protecting hardworking families without legal residency in the country.
“In enshrining these new protections, it is important to note what the bill does not do,” Brown wrote.
“This bill does not prevent or prohibit Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security from doing their own work in any way.”
Rather than allow states to set their own immigration agendas, Federal authorities have stepped up enforcement in jurisdictions that have refused to cooperate with them. Last month, “Operation Safe City” specifically targeted some of the fiercest opponents of President Trump’s immigration policies, including New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Washington. By the end, nearly 500 undocumented immigrants had been rounded up.
To be sure, the divisiveness of Trump’s immigration rhetoric has emboldened pro-immigration activists, who’re pouring resources into pro-bono legal funds to fight deportation efforts, creating a massive backlog of deportation cases in the federal court system. According to the Washington Post, there are now 600,000 backlogged cases, which has caused the number of deportations to drop, even as apprehensions have risen.
Meanwhile, it appears would-be migrants are taking Trump’s warnings seriously. Data show that the number of people attempting to sneak across the US border with Mexico fell dramatically in the months following Trump’s inauguration, reducing the supply of easy-to-deport immigrants and making the types of urban raids that have become commonplace under Trump increasingly necessary.
California is believed to be home to 2.3 million illegal immigrants.