Simply three days after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was killed by Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis, California senators superior a invoice meant to make it simpler for folks to sue federal immigration officers if their civil rights have been violated.
Proponents stated Senate Invoice 747 is a “first within the nation” sort of invoice — and it’s referred to as the “No Kings Act,” a reference to the nationwide demonstrations in opposition to President Donald Trump which have occurred all through his second time period — that closes a loophole that allowed federal officers to be handled otherwise than state or native regulation enforcement for alleged constitutional violations.
“This invoice stands for the fundamental proposition that nobody, nobody, is above the regulation,” stated Sen. Scott Wiener, an writer of the invoice. “California isn’t going to let these thugs get away with it. We’re not going to allow them to overrun our communities simply because they assume they’ll.”
However Sen. Tony Strickland, who, together with the remainder of his GOP colleagues, voted in opposition to the invoice, stated the trouble was “slightly bit extra about politics and rather less about coverage.” It shouldn’t be a shock, he stated, that Trump is “imposing our federal immigration legal guidelines.”
“Nobody likes to see what’s occurring in Minnesota, and also you need to guarantee that doesn’t occur right here. No person on this ground needs that,” Strickland stated.
As a substitute, he proposed ending California’s sanctuary regulation, which limits how native regulation enforcement can assist federal immigration officers when pursuing folks charged with nonviolent crimes.
Republican legislators did attempt to make some adjustments to that regulation final yr. Their invoice would have prevented native governments from proscribing cooperation with federal immigration efforts greater than the sanctuary state already permits and underscored the particular violent crimes exempted from that regulation.
However that effort, led by Sen. Brian Jones, R-San Diego, did not make it out of the Senate Public Security Committee, the place the one help it acquired was from the committee’s lone GOP legislator, Sen. Kelly Seyarto, who represents communities in Orange County and the Inland Empire.
(The legislative session operates on a two-year cycle, starting in odd years and operating by means of even years.)
From prohibiting rental firms from doing enterprise with ICE to an enormous tax on for-profit detention facilities, California legislators are proposing a bevy of immigration-related payments in 2026. These come within the wake of ramped-up immigration enforcement actions throughout the nation, significantly in Minnesota.
You’ll be able to monitor these payments, and others associated to immigration, right here. We’ll observe these payments by means of the legislative course of, preserve tabs on the fiscal influence, and convey you further protection of what the payments do. And preserve checking again; we’ll proceed to replace this tracker as extra work is finished on immigration payments in Sacramento this yr.
