In face of immigration raids, San Diego-area officials propose collaborative effort to resist

A coalition of San Diego-area elected officials on Friday announced a multi-city effort they said aimed to protect residents’ privacy in the face of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.  

The plan, a model ordinance expected to be proposed in at least four cities and the county, was created as a response to immigration enforcement and calls from the public to do more to address ICE presence in their communities, said San Diego City Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera of the city’s 9th district. 

Cesar Fernandez, a councilmember in Chula Vista, said since the raids began under the current presidential administration, he has “lost sleep” wondering what a local government could do to remedy the situation. 

Since President Donald J. Trump took office in January, ICE has arrested four times as many people in San Diego County as under the prior administration. The majority of them had no prior criminal records. 

The ordinance, which officials said would be introduced by the San Diego, Oceanside, Chula Vista and La Mesa councils, represents a new kind of collaboration among various city governments in the San Diego area. However, it is not guaranteed the measure will pass in any or all of these bodies. It will go before the San Diego City Council at the end of this month. 

Elo-Rivera said the ordinance would aim to decouple city money from federal law enforcement activities. For example, federal officers, like ICE agents, would be prohibited from arresting anyone on any property that benefits from city funding, like a construction site for a city building, or the offices of an organization that receives financial support from the city, without showing a judicial warrant.

The same rule would apply to bounty hunters and marshals from other states. There would be placards posted in any area subject to the rule. 

However, federal agents could still arrest people nearby one of these sites without identifying themselves or providing a warrant. This is already a common practice: In recent weeks, ICE has detained parents on their way to school pick-up lines or immediately after morning drop-off, just a block or two away from schools. In this way, Elo-Rivera acknowledged, the power of the city government is limited when it comes to public areas.

“We will do everything in our legitimate power to preserve the rule of law,” Cody Petterson, Board President of the San Diego Unified School District, said, adding that “the deployment of federal, military, and paramilitary forces to seize working people” outside schools is “hostile” to residents. The school district already has policies designed to block federal authorities from enforcement on campus without a judicial warrant.

Immigration report: What happens when ICE arrests U.S. citizens

Should ICE, or another federal agency, choose to break this ordinance, legal aid organizations, like the ACLU of San Diego, would be poised to sue on behalf of the person arrested in a civil case. “The city is fighting to protect you” with this “local, critical response,” Norma Chavez Peterson, of the ACLU for San Diego and Imperial Counties, said in support.

The ordinance would also seek to prohibit the San Diego Police Department, and any other branch of city government, from sharing sensitive information about residents, like immigration status, gender, or disability status, with the federal government, unless a warrant is provided. Under current law, SDPD officers can share this type of information if they belong to a federal task force. 

“We are ensuring local law enforcement focuses on real threats,” Joe LaCava, a San Diego council member said.

While San Diego County was included in the Justice Department’s published list of places with so-called sanctuary policies in August, the city of San Diego was notably missing. 

Though the ordinance has been in the works for weeks, Elo-Rivera says it is all the more essential after Monday’s Supreme Court ruling that ICE can use racial profiling as probable cause to arrest people. With this new measure, Elo-Rivera says “San Diego is drawing a clear line” against profiling.

Though the ordinance targets relatively small policy details in practice, it is part of a broader trend of local- and state-level efforts in an environment of growing mistrust of the Trump administration. It’s not the first policy introduced by a city government in recent weeks: on Wednesday, councilmembers in San Jose introduced a measure that would require federal agents to show their faces; a statewide bill with a similar aim passed the Legislature on Wednesday. On Aug 26, councilmembers in Spokane passed an ordinance that would prohibit ICE raids at private community events without a judicial warrant. 

Meanwhile, cities with conservative governments have enacted policies to aid federal immigration enforcement efforts— in a report, the Migration Policy Institute estimates that 40% of Americans live in a municipality where local police forces have been deputized to participate in ICE raids. In the San Diego area, the nearby city of El Cajon has allowed local police to cooperate with ICE. 

Though it is not a fix-all solution, Terra Lawson-Remer, from the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, says the ordinance, which she plans to introduce at the county level, is intended to put people more at ease when interacting with local government. “People shouldn’t be afraid,” she said, “of who’s hiding behind the door.” 

Lillian Perlmutter covers immigration for Times of San Diego and NEWSWELL.