Column: California’s ‘Sanctuary State’ Status Provides Shelter

By Lola Lamberg, Editor-in-Chief|October 11, 2017

An U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] employee watches a plane. ICE Acting Director Tom Homan released a statement condemning California’s recent law, calling it “wrong.” Image source: ICE.

In opposition to Donald Trump’s new immigration policies, the California Senate passed Senate Bill 54 [SB54] on Oct. 5. This legislation makes California a “sanctuary state” for undocumented immigrants. The bill prevents law enforcement from having close contact with immigration enforcement or using suspicion, money or personal property to aid in immigration enforcement.

The state senate aimed the sanctuary state bill directly at law enforcement because under Trump’s new administration, police have detained and questioned many immigrants unfairly. Police have attempted to catch immigrants off guard and then deport them, treating them as disposable objects rather than human beings.

Unjust law enforcement are finding outlandish ways to detain and report peaceful, undocumented and often tax-paying immigrants to ICE. One of many examples of this racial targeting was Luis Vicente Pedrote-Salinas in 2011. At the time he was 19 and was leaving a relative’s house in Chicago. Police stopped him solely on racial bias, searched his car and when they found an unopened beer can, charged him for under-age drinking. Salinas spent a night in jail and because of that offense was wrongly placed into Chicago’s Police Department Gang Database, fueling a deportation case. Salinas’ lawyers argued he had never been a gang member and Chicago Law Enforcement ultimately dropped the trial after finding they wrongly accused Salinas.

This is why more states in America need measures like California’s SB54 to protect undocumented immigrants for being wrongly labeled as criminals and gang members by racially motivated police.

A proponent of SB54, Kevin de León, who is the highest ranking leader of the California State Senate, framed the bill as “a rejection of President Trump’s false and cynical portrayal of undocumented residents as a lawless community.” León is Hispanic-American and has family that could be directly impacted by Trump’s new immigration laws. This new measure serves as justice for León, as well as all the undocumented immigrants in California — who sit on edge everyday, scared to simply leave their homes out of fear of the police.

SB54 passed with a 27-12 vote, with Democrats largely supporting the measure and mostly Republicans opposing it. The Republican party argued that the bill has vital flaws that don’t protect communities from human trafficking, gang crimes and deadly weapons from undocumented immigrants. A Californian Republican Senator, Jeff Stone, opposed California becoming a sanctuary state saying “this bill is designed to make California a sanctuary state for certain dangerous criminals…More illegal criminals will flock here knowing that law enforcement can do little to deport them.”

While parts of this are possible, generalizing a group of people that have added to American culture and society as only criminals is the type of racial profiling SB54 is fighting against.

America needs less racial bias and more measures like SB54 to protect citizens that are integrating into and contributing to society. I hope undocumented immigrants will feel safer and better protected to live their lives in the place they call home. No one should have to worry about police falsely targeting them. To donate or learn more about the undocumented immigrant community, go to the Border Angel’s website — a group who aids undocumented immigrants in education and becoming legal citizens in the U.S.