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WASHINGTON – Two days after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, California Senate President Pro Kevin De Leon canceled his flight to Germany and called his executive staff for a meeting.
They have begun analyzing countless ways Trump “severely hurts Californians” through policies and actions relating to the environment, freedom of choice and immigration.
The groundbreaking legislative framework for immigration – Senate Bill 54 – was born a few weeks later.
“We knew we needed to do something to protect immigrants. It wasn’t something about social media platforms or hashtags,” recalls Deleon. “I needed something with real teeth.”
Immigration agents rely on national and local law enforcement agencies to help identify and arrest foreign migrants. When SB 54 came into effect in 2018, California became the first state to effectively divorce law enforcement resources from the use of federal immigration enforcement. There was a city of what is known as a sanctuary, but there is no sanctuary.
Formally referred to as the California Value Act, SB 54 is important for California leaders’ efforts to “control” the state. In Trump’s first term, he attempted and failed to overturn the law in court, but advocates worry that his new administration will encourage local governments against the law, and many residents will be at risk without stricter protections.
The law is also supported by both supporters and opponents as an example of why sanctuary policies work. Its supporters say SB 54 stands out as the single law that most prevents deportation anywhere in the country.
Angela Chang, the lawyer who helped write SB 54, said she was convinced that during Trump’s first term, a surge in sanctuary policies could help cities and states protect immigrant residents from deportation.
“This time he is trying to work even harder to pressure, intimidate and enforce the sanctuary city, because that was the wall we were created to protect immigrants,” she said.
Two laws set the stage for SB 54. The Trust Act, implemented in 2014, prevented local law enforcement from collecting someone in prison for immigration agents beyond the time they were due to be released, unless they committed a specific crime.
Then, in the Truth Act in 2017, the state became the first to request immigrants to be warned of their rights to lawyers before immigrants were detained and interviewed, and detained the right to refuse such interviews.
SB 54 was built on these laws. Among those many provisions, local police cannot arrest someone just because they have an expelling order. You can’t keep someone in prison for an extra time just to pick them up. You cannot have an immigration agent interview anyone without the person’s written consent.
However, local law enforcement agencies can notify immigration agents of someone’s imminent release. They can also be transferred to immigration custody if they are found to have a certain conviction, including state prison hours, most other felonies within the last 15 years, and felonies that have resulted in high levels of misdemeanor within the last 5 years.
State prison officials have no restrictions on who can be transferred to immigration custody, but they must give the person the heads up written.
Impact of Sanctuary Law
SB 54 and its predecessors have clearly affected the number of people arrested by immigrants and customs enforcement agents by illegally being in the country.
A 2018 report from the Institute for Non-Participation Immigration Policy found that the share of California ice arrests in 2017 fell to 14% nationwide from 23% in 2017.
The relocation of prison prison prisons in California state prisons to ice custody shows that California has been referring to ice custody since it began to unravel local and federal law enforcement agencies. In 2013, more than 2,800 inmates were greeted by the ice. Last year, that number just exceeded 1,300.
Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminology at UC Irvine, discovered that SB 54 does not cause an increase in crime. She compared California’s violent and property crime rates with state rate approximations and found no significant differences when no law was enacted.
The attack on sanctuary policies assumes that immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born populations, said Cubelin, co-author of the 2023 book, Immigration and Crime: Take Inventory. Many studies have found that the opposite is true.
“All policies are taken as the basis for these basic assumptions, and the question has been studying this for 20 years, so we can say this fairly clearly — those assumptions are flawed,” Cubelin said.
Trying to expand SB 54 protection
SB 54 allows local and federal law enforcement agencies to coordinate in some instances. Such adjustments are permitted not only for violent crimes, but also for other crimes such as vandalism. In fact, there are around 800 crimes listed as exceptions to SB 54.
As a result, some supporters are confused and inadequately implemented.
Some cities and counties, such as Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, have passed legislation beyond SB 54, removing exceptions to provide more protection for immigrants.
Efforts to do the same at the statewide level have failed. Lawmakers advanced a bill that restricted the state prison system’s ability to coordinate with immigration authorities. Gov. Gavin Newsom refused, and his office recently said he would refuse such action again.
The bill would have helped people like Kao Saelee, an incarcerated firefighter who was released from a California prison in 2020 after serving for 22 years for armed robbery. However, instead of returning home to his family, Saelee was transferred to an immigration detention facility where he faced deportation. Born in Laos and moved to the United States as a refugee, Saelee was eventually released from detention and pardoned by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Since Trump took office, Newsom has repeatedly explained that California law does not protect criminals in the prison system from deportation.
Chang, who is now a counsel for the San Francisco public defense firm, said he believes there is still room for removal of the SB 54 exception, which allows for local and federal cooperation.
“I think it changes the political landscape and what Democrats are trying to do as Trump continues to roll out horror shows targeted at immigrants,” she said. “It would be very difficult for Democrats to turn their eyes off.”
Zank off the Sanctuary policy
Meanwhile, pressure is being built up from the Trump administration and other Republicans over policies such as SB 54.
For example, Trump recently signed an executive order to suspend jurisdiction over the law “promoting subsidies or promotions for illegal immigration.” It is unclear exactly which funds will be targeted.
On his first day as Attorney General, Pam Bondi ordered a 60-day suspension of federal funds in the sanctuary jurisdiction, encouraging the Department of Justice to pursue places that are not compliant with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Even before SB 54 passed through Congress, Trump threatened to stop the flow of federal funds. He then withheld millions of dollars in public safety grants from local law enforcement and appealed to California leaders.
The question of whether the federal government can withhold grants to punish sanctuary jurisdiction remained open after President Biden took office, with the suit being dismissed before the Supreme Court took the matter.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans have introduced legislation to refund sanctuary areas.
Among them is a bill by Rep. Nick Larota (R-New York), which has been criticized by immigrant advocates who cut off various federal funds that benefit immigrants without legal status, including school nutrition, public transport and emergency response, if local governments do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
One state scale aims directly at SB 54.
The bill would stop local jurisdictions such as San Diego by State Sen. Brian W. Jones (R-Santee) from further limiting cooperation with federal authorities than SB 54 already stipulates. Additionally, local law enforcement agencies will need to work with immigration agents if SB 54 simply allows.
“It’s not revoking the Sanctuary Act, it’s gently reforming it,” he said. “We have violent felons who have been released from prison where we should be detained. That’s a problem.”
Critics of SB 54 point to cases like Gustavo Garcia, who described local officials as “a terror governance,” in 2018, killed at least one person, injured at least six people, took a convenience store, led a stolen highway with a stolen truck before breaking and dying, and embarked on something that led the wrong path.
Tulea County Sheriff Mike Bowdrow has condemned the Sanctuary Act after Garcia was deported earlier after an armed robbery and arrested days before the rampage on suspicion of being under the influence of controlled substances.
The coming legal battle
The SB 54 is also causing a legal battle at the local level. In January, Huntington Beach leaders filed a federal lawsuit against the state over SB 54, claiming it was unconstitutional. This is the second time the town has done that. The first attempt failed.
Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates told the Daily Pilot that SB 54 “performs full interference due to good law enforcement practices.” Gates announced last month that he had resigned to become a deputy aide to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
San Francisco filed a federal lawsuit last month, challenging the Trump administration’s instructions essentially refuting SB 54. The administration threatened to indict local officials who hinder deportation efforts.
Other states have laws that go further than California states. Among them is Illinois, where state and local governments are prohibited from engaging in federal immigration enforcement. Bondi filed a lawsuit against the state last month against Chicago and Cook County, claiming their policies were “deliberate efforts to obstruct federal immigration law enforcement.”
But that argument reflects what was created during the first Trump administration against SB 54. A panel of three 9th Circuit judges in 2019 shot down the notion that sanctuary policies hamper federal law, and the Supreme Court refused to tackle the case.
“The federal government could have as much freedom as they wanted, but could not require California’s cooperation without violating the 10th Amendment,” the judge wrote.
Times staff writer Rachel Ulanga in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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