Police chiefs know a thing or two about public safety.
Many think that President Trump’s plan to have local police officers assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in his mass deportation plan is a bad idea.
I have introduced SB 54, the California Values Act, to prevent state and local law enforcement agencies from acting as deputies of ICE. It’s not a matter of ideology. It’s common sense.
Our communities will become more – not less – dangerous when local police officers are pulled from their duties to arrest otherwise law-abiding maids, busboys, and day laborers for immigration violations.
The Trump administration has launched a new and broad federal mass deportation program that targets nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants here in California. The linchpin to the program is enlisting local law enforcement in the crack down.
Undocumented residents will lose trust in local police. Crimes will go unreported for fear of deportation. Criminals will roam free to victimize others. We’ll all be at risk.
“We will not do anything to violate that trust,” said San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia at a press conference in December. “Without cooperation, we would be ineffective as a department.”
While President Trump has scapegoated immigrants, painting them as a lawless community, study after study has shown that crime rates by immigrants, including violent crime, are below that of native citizens.
Furthermore, a new study by a University of California, San Diego professor found that cities that do not cooperate with ICE are safer in the aggregate and enjoy a stronger economy.
Congress’ failure to fix our dysfunctional immigration system has spawned criminal enterprises and black markets that trade in extortion, smuggling, human trafficking and more.
The national Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, a group of 63 retired and active police chiefs and sheriffs, has argued that immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, rather than enlisting local police in an immigration crack-down force, is a better answer.
In a recent letter to the U.S. Senate, the Task Force wrote, “… having the federal government compel state and local law enforcement to carry out new and sometimes problematic tasks undermines the delicate federal balance and will harm locally-based, community-oriented policing.”
Under SB 54, we will continue to comply with judicial warrants to transfer dangerous offenders into federal custody for immigration enforcement purposes.
New amendments to my bill direct state prisons and sheriffs to notify the federal government prior to the release of violent felons from custody, giving ICE ample time to pick up the criminals they claim to be prioritizing.
No one wants dangerous criminals in our communities.
President Trump has said he only intends to deport “bad hombres”, but the actions of his administration tell us something different.
Headlines from across the nation tell of arrests and deportations of folks who could hardly be described as dangerous: a grandmother from San Diego; a father in Los Angeles dropping off his daughter at school; DREAMERS; a victim of domestic violence in Texas; and a young mother hospitalized in Texas for a brain tumor.
Expect many more stories.
We can’t control the Trump administration. We can, however, control how California spends its precious tax dollars. They shouldn’t go to support an immoral deportation machine that will deplete the very work force and source of innovation that has helped make our state’s economy the sixth largest in the world.
Kevin de León is president pro tempore of the California Senate. He wrote this for The Mercury News.
