‘What will happen to my children’: California prepares to resist Trump’s deportations

“It’s not a question of price. This is not the case – in reality, we have no choice. he recently told NBC. “When people killed and murdered, when drug lords destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price. »

A majority of registered voters – 56% – agree with impose mass expulsions of immigrants living in the country illegally, according to the Pew Research Center. In a separate survey by Data for Progress, 67% of voters say they support deport an undocumented person who has a criminal record for a nonviolent offense.

In California, immigrant advocates want the state to step up its efforts again.

“We’re looking to California to show leadership,” said Alex Mensing of the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. “We fully expect that California, as a state, will stand up to the terror of ICE. We fully expect the state to devote as much creativity and as many resources as possible to support a response that defends immigrants.

In an interview with CalMatters, Attorney General Rob Bonta said Friday that his office is preparing criminal charges and preparing for “a full frontal attack on our immigrant communities.”

“We are ready to file,” he added. “We have been thinking, planning and preparing for the possibility of this moment for months.”

Bonta said his office is watching and listening carefully to what the president-elect and his team say they are planning, “and, fortunately, he is telling us what he is going to do.”

“The Trump 1.0 administration told us one thing: that Trump is incapable of not breaking the law. It’s his brand. He does what he wants, when he wants and how he wants, regardless of the Constitution or federal law. And by doing that, he is breaking the law,” Bonta said. “That’s why our job is so important to be there when he does it and to stop him from doing it.”

The state attorney general’s office spent about $10 million a year in legal fees fighting Trump during the last administration, Bonta acknowledged, but “you can’t put a price on freedom, on rights, to democracy. It is always the right time and the right thing to protect these rights. Under the last Trump administration, California lawyers, for example, successfully advocated for the protection of people brought to the United States illegally as children.

For years, the Golden State has been strengthening protections for immigrants.

This year, California passed a law that will allow county health officers to inspect federal immigration detention centers where there is a long documented history of medical neglect and worker safety violations. In 2023, the state fined for-profit prison operator Geo Group $100,000 for six workplace violationsincluding the lack of a plan to control the spread of COVID-19 and the failure to provide information and training on hazardous chemicals.

Advocates say more could be done, such as strengthening data protections at local police departments and preventing state prison staff from coordinating with ICE.

The governor could pardon immigrants with previous criminal records, protecting them from deportation. Newsom did so when some refugees were deported because of old cases, like Bun’s, but Newsom’s pardon rate has been lower than other governors.

“Governor Newsom has pardoned far fewer people than Governor Brown,” said Angela Chan, chief deputy prosecutor for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. “In his six years in office thus far, Governor Newsom has granted 186 gracesan average of 31 pardons per year. In contrast, Governor Brown issued 1,332 graces during his third and fourth terms as governor, an average of 166 pardons per year.

There are limits to what California can do. Many legal questions remain unanswered and will be debated in court. Most sanctuary laws contain a caveat that local law enforcement cannot cooperate with immigration authorities “unless required by a valid court order.” Experts said what constitutes a valid court order could become an issue for courts. The U.S. Supreme Court left California’s sanctuary law in effect in 2020 by not hearing Trump’s challenge.