What Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are doing across the country, and right here in California, is deeply troubling. In addition to sending federal troops onto our streets, the Trump Administration is trying to commandeer state and local police to act through federal task forces. This risks using California resources in ways that support racially discriminatory immigration enforcement activities, violating our laws and threatening our rights.

For more than a century, the League of Women Voters has championed civil rights, democratic participation, and equal justice for all Californians. You can help us protect that vision and progress by helping pass SB 1105 (Perez).

SB 1105, The Protect California Rights Act, responds to harms being perpetrated by the Trump Administration and DHS agents, and protects Californians by:

• Prohibiting state and local law enforcement agencies from entering into joint task forces or interagency agreements that assist racial or identity profiling, criminalization of speech, or use of unauthorized weapons of war.
• Ensuring that California does not give federal law enforcement officers acting beyond their federal jurisdiction broad power to stop and arrest Californians.

California’s law enforcement resources were built by and for California’s communities. They should be directed toward public safety, equal justice, and the protection of constitutional rights – not repurposed to advance a federal enforcement agenda that treats entire communities as suspect. SB 1105 draws that line clearly and firmly.

P.S. Read more about the need for SB 1105 in our support letter here.