The Brief

With some of the year’s biggest decisions still pending, nearly a quarter of California’s 120 lawmakers may soon be unemployed. Many of them are thinking about their next job as the Legislature wraps up this month.

If past experience is any guide, at least one in five departing lawmakers will end up working for companies or organizations trying to influence state government. In all, 20 incumbents are leaving elected office this year and another 15 are running for other seats.

“August is kind of … the interview period,” departing Visalia Republican Assemblymember Devon Mathis told CalMatters. “You see people that are trying to shop, you know, for a third-house gig or something like that,” he said, referring to lobbying organizations.

A CalMatters review of the 180 lawmakers who left office since 2012 reveals that around 40 of them registered as lobbyists, worked as political consultants or took executive-level jobs with companies or organizations actively lobbying at the Capitol.

Ethics experts say the prospect of current lawmakers job hunting as they’re voting on bills raises concerns that their future employers could influence their votes in the final weeks of the session.

A legislative ethics committee handout given to departing lawmakers outlines the stakes. It warns that they could face criminal charges if they “take official action in exchange for a promise of future employment (this is bribery).” It’s also illegal if they “use state resources to search for or secure outside or prospective employment.”

No disclosure requirements for job-hunting lawmakers

Despite the potential criminal consequences, there are no requirements for lawmakers to tell the public if they’re negotiating or actually have a new employment agreement with an outside organization trying to influence state policy.

That’s a problem, said Sean McMorris, the transparency, ethics and accountability program manager for California Common Cause.

He said powerful and wealthy industries and advocacy organizations love hiring former lawmakers “because they already know the system, and they have access and influence to other politicians there at the Capitol.”

He said it’s also why California, like nearly every other state, has “revolving door” rules intended to keep companies and organizations from dangling future salaries in front of lawmakers in exchange for legislative favors or state contracts.

The rules include a “cooling-off period” preventing lawmakers from directly lobbying the Legislature for at least a year after leaving office. These restrictions are intended to prevent lawmakers from using fresh insider knowledge to help their new employer game the system.

But there’s nothing preventing a former lawmaker from taking a job at a company that’s lobbying the Legislature during their cooling-off period as long as he or she is not the one directly discussing policy with their former colleagues.

“Providing compensated advice to a client, including a lobbyist, lobbying firm or lobbyist employer, is not prohibited so long as the former Assemblymember does not communicate with sitting legislators or legislative staff,” according to the ethics committee handout.

Plus, they can still lobby the governor’s administration and local agencies.

McMorris said it’s time to update the laws to require that lawmakers at the very least disclose when they have a new job lined up while they’re still casting votes.

“Not only would that help the public, just for transparency’s sake,” he said, “but it would also help … just to keep them honest.”

Lobbyists gather around a television to watch as a bill is voted on before the Assembly at the state Capitol on Aug. 31, 2022.

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Dan Schnur, the former chairperson of the state’s ethics watchdog agency, the Fair Political Practices Commission, agreed that more transparency is needed.

“You’d hope,” he said, “there would be a way to make sure that the public did have an understanding if these types of (future employment) conversations were (happening) while the legislator was still casting votes.”

Are outgoing lawmakers job hunting?

There are 20 incumbent legislators who will be out of a job this year because they are termed out of office, they are not seeking re-election or they ran for another office this year and lost in the March primary. Another 15 legislators are candidates for local, state or federal office including 13 on the ballot this November and two seeking statewide office in 2026.

Some might retire from public life, go back to their old careers or consider a 2026 run for another state office. Those who aren’t are probably looking for work.

Mathis is not shy about his career plans when he leaves office this year. Last month, he started a public relations firm, and he agreed to work for an energy company, Origyn International, as a “public benefit project specialist.” He said he checked with state ethics officials to make sure he wasn’t violating state laws.

Mathis said that as a combat veteran, whose military service included logistical planning, he is a natural fit for the company that works in multiple states to build and finance infrastructure, including for public agencies. As for any potential conflicts with his current job, Mathis says there aren’t any, and there won’t be.

“My work with Origyn is more about helping communities and kind of filling in the gaps where the government doesn’t have the ability,” Mathis said. “So I don’t foresee any, you know, direct impact that would affect their business or help them.”

Origyn hasn’t taken a position on any legislation since the start of the 2023-24 legislative session, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat from Los Angeles, also is in need of a job after he lost a bid for an LA City Council seat in the March primary.

Jones-Sawyer told CalMatters he’s not going to discuss his career with potential employers until he casts the final vote of the session.

He said his personal attorney advised him not to job hunt while still casting votes. Jones-Sawyer said it didn’t take much convincing, given what happened to Curren Price. The Los Angeles City Council member and former state senator has pleaded not guilty to corruption charges in a case that included allegations Price voted for measures before the council that financially benefited his wife.

Jones-Sawyer said he could see how easily a lawmaker could get themselves in similar trouble.

“All of a sudden, they have a half-million dollar job in September,” he said. “And … the press is … speculating, ‘Well, that looks a little hinky and suspicious.’ ”

Lawmakers earn $128,215 a year, plus per diem and benefits. Lawmakers will receive their final state paycheck in late December.

CalMatters reached out to other lawmakers who don’t have active campaigns to ask them about their career plans and how they are balancing a potential job hunt with the demands during the final weeks of the session. Here are the responses for some of them:

• A spokesperson for former Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said he has no plans to lobby and wants to spend more time with his young daughter, but didn’t go into details about Rendon’s future career aspirations.
• Ukiah Democratic Assemblymember Jim Wood “does not have any plans for what he will do after he leaves office and has postponed any discussions of that until later this fall,” said his spokesperson, Cathy Mudge.
• Republican Sen. Brian Dahle said in an interview he’s not job hunting and plans to go back to his family farm in Lassen County. But he said he was open to the eventual possibility of working for an organization that could help small businesses benefit from state policy.
• Napa Democratic Sen. Bill Dodd “plans to remain active, and expects to serve the public and his community in some way. For the remainder of his term, he’s focused on his work as a senator and delivering results for his district and California,” said spokesperson Paul Payne.
• Los Angeles Democratic Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo said in an email she hopes “to transition what I’ve learned in the Legislature as a visiting lecturer or professor in a public policy class at the university level, continue to advocate for the issues I am passionate about, and if my local state Senate office were to become available in 2026, I’m all in.” 
• Glendale Democratic Sen. Anthony Portantino “has not made future plans,” said his spokesperson Lerna Kayserian Shirinian. 
• Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, a Democrat from Chino who’s a former emergency medical technician, suggests he may take an advocacy gig. “Assemblymember Rodriguez … looks forward to using his legislative experience and chairmanship of the Assembly Emergency Management Committee to help Californians better prepare for climate change-related emergencies in any way he can,” his spokesperson, Gibson Martucci, said in an email.

Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, a Pomona Democrat, tracks bills during session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 24, 2023

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How lawmakers can keep voting

Lawmakers are supposed to recuse themselves from any official actions that have “‘direct and significant’ financial impact on an entity with whom they are negotiating employment or who has made them an employment offer,” according to the ethics committee handout.

But state ethics guidelines still allow voting on bills that could benefit a prospective employer. The guidelines say lawmakers can discuss — and vote on — bills that would benefit a “significant segment” of an industry. It’s only a problem if the bill deals specifically with their would-be employer.

So a lawmaker with a job pending at, say, a major tech company can continue to vote on legislation if it impacts all tech companies — and not just the one that’s going to be paying them.

No California lawmaker has been charged in recent memory with violating the rules, according to a CalMatters review.

Still, Jones-Sawyer said the risks just aren’t worth it for him as a Black man who’s visited prisons as part of his efforts to change the justice system that disproportionately penalizes men like him.

“I don’t want to be that first one,” he said.

California's recent lobbying defections

In 2017, the Legislature changed the one-year cooling-off period rules to also prohibit lawmakers who leave office during the middle of a two-year legislative session from lobbying the Legislature while the session is ongoing — and for a year after.

The rule change happened after a couple of high-profile lobbying defections.

Kern County Democrat Michael Rubio abruptly quit the state Senate in 2013 to work for Chevron, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. He later became a lobbyist for the oil company.

In 2015, Henry Perea, a Fresno Democrat, quit the Legislature to work for a pharmaceutical trade association. He went on to lobby for the Western States Petroleum Association.

More recently, Jim Frazier, a Fairfield Democrat, resigned in 2021 to take a job in the transportation sector after he served as chairperson of the Assembly Transportation Committee. He’s now a lobbyist for the Arc of California, a group that advocates for disabled people.

The most recent mid-term defection was Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, a longtime labor advocate. She left mid-session in 2022 to become the head of the California Labor Federation, one of the most influential groups in the union-friendly, Democrat-controlled Legislature.

Gonzalez never registered as a lobbyist, and she said she never needed to.

State lobbying rules say that a legislator-turned-advocate only needs to register as a lobbyist if they “spend at least one-third of his or her compensated time in a calendar month engaging in direct communication” with legislators and their staff. Gonzalez told CalMatters she doesn’t spend nearly that much time talking to her former colleagues about policy.

She said that she also made sure not to discuss specific bills with her recent colleagues during her mandatory cooling-off period.

“Legislators would call me and they’d be like, ‘Can I talk to you about this?’” she told Calmatters. “And I’m like, ‘Well, you can talk to me, but I can’t respond.’ ”

Gonzalez said that after the Labor Federation offered her a job, she knew she was going to leave the Assembly in July 2022, so she decided to resign in January of that year to avoid spending six months recusing herself on bills that she cared passionately about.

Voting rules obscure formal recusals

When lawmakers do actually recuse themselves because of a conflict of interest from a potential employer — or any other reason — there’s no easy way for the public to determine if they did.

As CalMatters reported in multiple stories this year, lawmakers regularly stay silent when it’s time to vote on bills. Not voting counts the same as a “no” vote, and lawmakers dodge thousands of controversial votes each year to avoid accountability and avoid angering colleagues or influential lobbying organizations.

The state’s official bill-tracking website only records a non-vote as “NVR,” short for “No Vote Recorded.” It’s recorded the same if a lawmaker had an excused absence or if they recuse themselves because of a conflict of interest. That includes pending job offers.

California’s 120 legislators have recorded more than 17,000 non-votes so far this year, according to the Digital Democracy database.

The Digital Democracy database, which uses artificial intelligence to record every word spoken in legislative hearings, could only find two examples of members discussing recusing themselves from votes on bills since 2023.

Republican Sen. Roger Niello, whose family owns car dealerships in the Sacramento area, recused himself on a 2023 bill that dealt with car dealerships.

Assemblymember Joe Patterson, another Republican from the Sacramento region, recused himself from voting on a 2023 bill dealing with charging ports for portable electronic devices such as smartphones. Patterson’s wife works for Apple.

In both cases, the state’s official bill-tracking website recorded the recusals as NVRs.

Government ethics experts say Californians deserve more transparency.

They argue that the public has a right to know whether their lawmakers’ non-votes represented legitimate absences, were abstentions, or they were formal recusals due to conflicts of interests, including from pending job offers.

“If they conflicted out, it should be noted,” said McMorris of California Common Cause.

Jessica Levinson, founding director of Loyola Law School’s Public Service Institute, said the public has a right to know “why their representatives aren’t weighing in.”

“Is it because they have something to do that day, because they don’t want to take a position,” she said, “or because, under the rules, they couldn’t?”

Hans Poschman and Thomas Gerrity, members of the CalMatters Digital Democracy team, contributed to this story.

Editor’s note: CalMatters staff are members of a union that’s affiliated with the California Labor Federation.

Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, is leaving the agency, the department confirmed on Tuesday.

McLaughlin has become the public face and voice defending the Trump administration's mass deportation policy and immigration tactics over the past year.

"McLaughlin started planning to leave in December but pushed back her departure amid the aftermath of the shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers, according to the people briefed on her exit," DHS said in a statement to NPR.

POLITICO first reported her departure. It is not clear where she is going next, or who will become the agency's next spokesperson.

McLaughlin's exit comes at a tumultuous time for the agency. DHS is currently shut down after lawmakers failed to pass a budget to fund it through the end of the fiscal year in September.

And high-ranking immigration officials, including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, have been summoned to Capitol Hill to testify on the immigration crackdown after immigration agents shot and killed Good and Pretti in Minneapolis.

McLaughlin has been among the most public-facing agency spokespeople, participating in several network interviews. Beyond speaking on DHS' immigration initiatives, McLaughlin also fielded interviews and questions about Noem's handling of national disaster relief and resources, and other parts of the sprawling agency.

Noem praised McLaughlin's work in a statement online, saying she "served with exceptional dedication, tenacity, and professionalism."

"While we are sad to see her leave, we are grateful for her service and wish Tricia nothing but success," she wrote on the social platform X.

Immigration has been the largest part of McLaughlin's portfolio. She often took to network shows and to social media to promote immigration arrests made by the administration, defend actions by DHS agents, and encouraged immigrants to "self-deport."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries praised news of her departure online; "Another MAGA extremist forced out of DHS. Noem next," he posted on X.

Most recently, McLaughlin defended Noem's description of Pretti as a "domestic terrorist" after Customs and Border Protection officers shot and killed him — claims that eventually drew sharp scrutiny from lawmakers, including some Republicans.

"Initial statements were made after reports from CBP on the ground. It was a very chaotic scene," McLaughlin told Fox Business late last month. "The early statements that were released were based on the chaotic scene on the ground and we really need to have true, accurate information to come to light."

During last week's congressional hearings, the heads of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement both denied that they, or anyone under their chains of command, had given Noem information to substantiate that claim that Pretti was a domestic terrorist.

An NPR analysis published in January showed that DHS has made unproven or incorrect claims on social media or in press releases when describing immigrants targeted for deportation or U.S. citizens arrested during protests.

Copyright 2026 NPR

In my time going to shows in and around L.A., I’ve seen DJ sets all over — in parks, backyards, Thai restaurants, quinceañera venues, plus a few other spots I’m not going to blow up here.

But despite being a big Brian Eno fan, seeing a show at an airport was completely new for me, even though LAX puts on concerts and DJ sets about once every couple weeks as part of their “LAX Presents” performance series.

So when the opportunity arose for me to check out Purelink, one of my favorite current electronica and techno groups, I had to jump on it. If nothing else, I had to see whether it’s worth booking my flights around the free concerts at the airport next time the stars align.

About the show

Purelink’s set was in the West Gates at LAX’s Terminal B, which opened in 2021. It’s a cavernous space with a great view of the airfield, not to mention cozy couches, lots of natural light and high ceilings.

It was a great backdrop for Purelink’s set, which was a mix of spaced-out, ambient versions of their own tracks — which are already pretty spaced-out — plus edits and remixes of other artists that fit the vibe. For Purelink’s members, airports go hand-in-hand with their style of music.

“Sometimes it comes up where you get on a plane and you're kind of thinking about your life in a different way,  just because of either traveling to a new place, or you're going to see someone and it can conjure up different types of emotions,” Purelink member Jon Paulson said. “Our music is kind of catered towards those times anyways,  in my mind, and what we try to conjure up with our songs: memory, and looking back while also looking forward.”

Purelink’s Akeem Asani said it was a challenge to rearrange the music they’ve been playing on their tour before their last two shows at LAX on Feb. 11 and 12.

“Each different venue we've had kind of has a different context of how it's gonna sound and how we want to deliver that specific song in that setting,” Asani said. “This is the most unique setting, and it's been fun to really strip back a lot of the songs that we've been playing and hearing in a different context.”

Visitors catching Purelink's at Terminal B's West Gates set got to see this fluorescent sculpture, an installation that's also part of LAX's arts program.

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What it’s like to play there

Paulson said that although the group was coming off of a tour where they were playing nightclubs, not airport terminals, they stripped their set back to be friendlier to LAX travelers who didn’t buy tickets to see them.

“ I think it's rare for any airport to have any sort of art focus, so it's cool that they're offering that,” Paulson said.

Asani said the group will play any venue at least once — in fact, the West Gates reminded him of the churches they’ve played even though in other ways the setting was “the opposite” of a place of worship.

“People are eating Burger King — a Whopper and some ambient, I guess they go together, huh?” he joked.

After playing LAX, Asani said that if anyone wants to book Purelink for an airport tour, they’re down.

“ We're already going to airports all the time, so might as well just do a show while we're there,” he said.

About the program

The show is part of a series of concerts at LAX’s terminals run in conjunction with the bookers Rum & Humble and Dublab — Dublab booked Purelink to play there.

These are the shows (past and future) scheduled at LAX through June 2026.

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“The reason we added the performing arts program was we definitely wanted to create a more serene, calm, relaxed environment, because the airport can be a hectic, busy place, but also music can create a very welcoming space as well,” said Sarah Cifarelli, the director of LAX’s art program.

The program also features large works of public art (think the pylons) and smaller installations sprinkled throughout the terminals. It’s all with the goal of representing L.A. and making the airport experience more hospitable.

“ We've had people who are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I had a really long layover and suddenly seeing this performance just really kind of turned my day around,’” Cifarelli said.

And though Purelink’s show was calm and blissed out, the airport hosts all kinds of shows across its terminals.

 ”We're really looking for a variety of artists and musicians, so it’s not just one genre of music,” Cifarelli said. “We want to be able to present a really nice array of performers to really reflect the cultural richness of Los Angeles.”

Since California made it easier for sexual abuse survivors to sue government agencies, victims have brought forth more than $3 billion in claims. But even agencies that haven’t been sued are facing financial hardship as a result of the law — through skyrocketing insurance premiums.

School districts, counties and other public agencies in every corner of California have seen their liability insurance premiums soar, in large part because of that law, which passed in 2019. Some districts have seen their yearly insurance costs jump by $1 million or more.

To pay the premiums, schools have had to leave teacher vacancies unfilled, scrap renovation projects and make other cuts that affect students. Counties have cut back on public safety, roads, health care and social services.

“It’s become unmanageable,” said Dorothy Johnson, a legislative advocate for the Association of California School Administrators. “We desperately need guardrails, or the situation will become very dire.”

School districts and other public agencies are begging the Legislature to intervene by capping the settlements, similar to the way medical malpractice settlements are capped. That could also include capping attorney fees, which can top 40%.

The agencies don’t have traditional private insurance. Some larger ones are self-insured, but most belong to risk pools made up of a few dozen other agencies. So when one agency faces a large settlement, premiums increase for everyone.

At schools, the law has had a direct impact on student learning, according to research by the California Association of Joint Powers Authorities, which represents public agency risk pools.

A year after the average school district paid a settlement of $1 million or more, the number of its students who met the state’s math standard fell by 3.7 percentage points, and the number of students meeting the reading standard dropped by 3.4 percentage points, according to the group’s research. The reason, the study states, is that those schools had to cut back on tutoring, after-school programs, field trips and other offerings aimed at helping students stay engaged in school.

Those numbers are a contrast to statewide scores, which have been generally rising since the pandemic ended.

“Classrooms are being impacted because there’s money being pulled out of the education system,” said Faith Borges, legislative advocate for the California Association of Joint Powers Authorities. “I don’t think that there’s an understanding that these really, truly are taxpayer dollars. We need to have an informed conversation about where this money is coming from.”

There’s no end in sight. The law allows survivors to sue within five years of remembering they were abused, in perpetuity.

Public agencies rarely contest plaintiffs’ claims. The main reason is the horrific nature of the incidents; agencies generally believe victims should be compensated. Another reason is the lack of evidence, particularly for cases more than 20 or 30 years old. In those cases, the perpetrator and other school staff are often long gone or even dead, and schools typically don’t have paperwork dating back that long. They often don’t even know who their insurance carrier was.

Taxpayer-funded insurance

For most public agencies, the size of the settlements is the primary problem. Many exceed $10 million. Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest district, recently issued $500 million in bonds to settle cases. Los Angeles County agreed to pay $4 billion to settle more the 6,800 claims. The settlements are paid by taxpayers through a combination of the agency’s general fund dollars, reserves and insurance.

The law that lowered obstacles for sexual abuse survivors to sue, AB 218, was intended to bring a degree of justice to sexual abuse victims. In some cases, school staff had been abusing students for years, even after administrators learned it was happening. Incidents range from inappropriate comments to rape. A 2004 report by the U.S. Department of Education estimated that 1 in 10 students nationwide had endured misconduct by school staff.

To bring further accountability to schools, California passed another bill in October that requires schools to train staff and students on preventing sexual misconduct. The law, SB 848, also mandates that the state create a database of school employees that have been credibly accused of abuse, in an effort to keep abusers from getting rehired elsewhere and continuing to harm children.

‘Doing the best we can’

Sierra Sands Unified is a medium-sized district in Ridgecrest, in the high desert about two hours east of Bakersfield. It’s in a remote and harsh environment: Summer months exceed 100 degrees most days, and winter temperatures often drop below freezing. Rain is rare, and dust storms are frequent.

Those conditions take a toll on school facilities. The relentless sun degrades anything outdoors, including ground cover and play equipment. Maintenance staff remove pieces of monkey bars and slides as they become damaged, leaving “ever-shrinking” play equipment on hard-packed dirt, said Superintendent April Moore.

The district planned to replace its elementary school play structures last year, but had to cut back that plan because of soaring insurance premiums. In the past three years, the district’s yearly total insurance costs have gone up $500,000 a year, to nearly $1.2 million annually. The district’s annual budget is $80 million, nearly 90% of which goes toward salaries. That doesn’t leave much extra to pay for things like repairs.

As a result, the district was only able to replace two of the seven elementary school play structures. It also had to limit raises for staff, which Moore fears will hamper the district’s ability to attract and retain teachers — already a tough proposition in such a remote area.

The cuts have been hard on morale for the entire community, Moore said.

“I don’t want our staff to feel like they’ve settled by staying here, or they’re stuck. I want them to feel valued and respected,” Moore said. “In our remote area, our students and staff and families are all one. For me, this is all one conversation. Everyone is affected.”

Moore said she often worries about the future. The district’s insurance premiums are certain to continue increasing, which makes it hard to plan.

“We’re having to budget for these unknowns. … Sometimes I feel helpless,” Moore said. “And it’s affecting the kids of today.”

Striking a balance?

Schools and other public agencies have pushed to reform the laws governing sexual abuse suits. So far, they haven’t gotten anywhere.

A bill last year by Sen. John Laird, a Democrat from Santa Cruz, would have reined in the settlements by creating a statute of limitations, but the bill died amid vehement opposition from trial attorneys.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Democrat, has asked several legislators to “explore solutions that strike the right balance on this critical issue: ensuring meaningful access to justice for all survivors, while safeguarding schools and cities from financial consequences that could lead to lost or reduced services,” according to Rivas’ spokesman, Nick Miller.

“(Rivas) has a long history of defending and supporting survivors, and has consistently been a steadfast advocate for survivors of childhood sexual assault,” Miller said. “We will closely review any proposals brought forward this legislative year.”

Trial attorneys have been aggressive in defending AB 218. Last year, when legislators were considering limits to the law, an Orange County law firm bought social media ads featuring a large photo of Rivas with the words, “STOP the Predator Protection Law. Stand with Child Victims.” The bill died.

John Manly, a partner at the firm that purchased the ads, said he doesn’t plan to back down.

“What kind of idiot politician is going to put up a bill that protects people like Epstein? It’s radioactive,” Manly said. “Any attempt to limit these lawsuits is a cynical, disgusting, wrong-headed attempt to keep the public from knowing the full extent of this problem.”

Manly’s firm has represented thousands of victims who say they were abused in California public schools, he said. He believes schools’ claims of financial hardship are “a scam,” and politicians who seek to cap settlements are essentially enabling child predators.

“Kids who’ve been abused take a hit for life. And we’re going to cap settlements? Any politician who tries to do that we’re going to chase to the ends of the earth,” Manly said.

‘No voice, no power’

Nancy, a woman who sued Los Angeles Unified in 2020 after she said she was abused in middle and high school, said money was not her primary motivation for filing a claim. It was more about empowerment and seeking changes in the system, she said.

“I felt I had no voice, no power,” said Nancy, who asked that her last name not be used to protect her privacy. “I want to see policies change. Unfortunately, money gets people’s attention.”

Nancy was in middle school in the early 1990s when her math teacher began paying her compliments such as “You’re attractive, intellectually and physically,” and “I like you,” Nancy said. The attention made her feel special, and soon she had developed a friendship with him. By the end of the school year it had become physical, she said.

In her junior year of high school, a music teacher took a similar interest in her. Because of her previous experience, she was especially vulnerable to his attention, she said.

She told almost no one about either experience and put it out of her mind for years. In her 30s, she began talking about it with a therapist, and spent years trying to overcome the shame and guilt she felt, she said. Eventually, she felt confident enough to file a police report. A year later, she filed a civil lawsuit against the school district.

In all, Los Angeles Unified has faced about 370 abuse claims since AB 218 passed. Nancy’s former math and music teachers are no longer employed by the district, she said.

“I hope everyone knows that behind every payout is a person, someone who was harmed as a child,” said Nancy, who now works as a special education teacher. “There’s a soul behind every story.”

Hardships for counties

In Napa, insurance premiums are expected to climb to $20 million annually in the next few years, said the county’s chief executive officer, Ryan Alsop. Wildfires and other factors have also led to the increase, but abuse claims have also been a significant factor, Alsop said. The county will have to find room in its $400 million general fund to pay it, likely cutting more services.

There’s an extra concern, he said, because President Donald Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and food assistance will soon put new demands on counties to cover the gaps. Statewide, counties will have to come up with an extra $9.5 billion a year to make up for federal funding shortfalls, according to the California State Association of Counties.

“It’s a real problem, not just for Napa but for all counties,” Alsop said. “Obviously victims deserve justice, but the effects of AB 218 are real.”

The use of a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that deputizes local police for immigration enforcement has dramatically expanded under President Donald Trump's second term in office.

The rapid expansion of the 287(g) program marks one of the most visible shifts in President Trump's second-term immigration strategy.

On Trump's first day he signed the executive order, "Protecting the American People from Invasion," which called on the DHS secretary to maximize the use of 287(g) agreements and to structure them "in the manner that provides the most effective model for enforcing Federal immigration laws."

The results have been swift.

In 2019, during Trump's first term, just 45 of these 287(g) agreements were signed, available data shows. As of Feb. 13, ICE reported 1,412 active agreements across 40 states and territories — more than 1,130 of them signed in 2025 alone.

(DHS did not provide data prior to 2019 or between 2020 and 2025. NPR has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for this information).

Gauging the effectiveness of 287(g) programs

The program, established in 1996, allows state and local law enforcement officers to act as immigration enforcement agents. That means questioning, investigating, and in some cases arresting people for civil immigration violations – authority traditionally reserved for federal officers.

The program existed under previous Democratic and Republican administrations, but never to the extent that the Trump administration is using it now, immigration experts and people who worked during previous presidential administrations tell NPR.

The White House is using 287(g) agreements as "a tailor-made tool" for the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda, said Doris Meissner, who led the Immigration and Naturalization Service (the agency that predated DHS, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol) under President Bill Clinton.

"There has never been the kind of whole-government mobilizing around immigration that we're currently seeing," Meissner said. Trump's approach is "putting 287(g) agreements on steroids," she added.

How effective it's been is another question.

In a response to NPR's questions, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said that these partnerships serve as critical resources to "arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country" and make the U.S. safer.

However, available data is hard to parse and it's unclear what arrests, detentions or deportations can be credited to this program.

DHS said there were more than 675,000 deportations as of January 2026 in Trump's first year back in office because of the administration's crackdown on immigration.

The Trump administration believes these partnerships are fruitful, with DHS pointing to operations in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has effectively required local law enforcement to sign 287(g) agreements with ICE, which netted 40,000 arrests. And in West Virginia, more than 650 "illegal aliens" were arrested over a two-week operation, according to McLaughlin.

How does the program work?

There are three main 287(g) models:

• The jail enforcement model: Every person that comes into a local jail, with criminal convictions or pending charges, will be checked for whether or not they have legal status in the United States. If they are found to be in the country illegally, ICE will be notified and they will be held in jail, pending ICE removal. 
• The warrant service officer model: Similar to the jail enforcement model, where local police are trained to serve and execute administrative warrants on migrants in their local jails. 
• The task force model: Officers can stop, question and make arrests for immigration violations. DHS says an officer, "with approval from an ICE supervisor, conducts an ICE arrest for immigration violations and transfers the alien to an approved location."
  

(There's a fourth model: The tribal task force, but there is no recorded agreement signed and recorded in available ICE data.)

Task force models make up the majority of 287(g) agreements in place, according to ICE data. DHS describes it as giving officers "limited authority to enforce immigration laws during their routine police duties throughout their local communities in a non-custodial environment with ICE supervision."

Local police agencies sign a memorandum of agreement with ICE and nominate officers to participate in the program who then get training by ICE.

DHS told NPR that training for the task force model consists of 40 hours of education on topics that include immigration law, ICE's Use of Force policy, civil rights law, alien detention and public outreach. In the past, it took about a month of training for local cops to be certified.

Critics have long warned that these deals drain local resources and heighten the risk of racial profiling and civil rights violations by pulling ill-equipped local police into complex immigration law.

Annie Lai, an immigration law professor at University of California Irvine says, "The potential for civil rights violations is acute," including for racial profiling. It also leaves cities and towns exposed to costly legal battles.

Lai was involved in a major civil rights lawsuit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio filed in 2007, while Bush was still president, over a pattern of unlawful practices by the sheriff and his agency during immigration sweeps and traffic stops, which occurred while the agency was involved in a 287(g) partnership with ICE. Litigation against Arpaio has cost local taxpayers millions. 

There have been a number of lawsuits over the years filed by people detained in local jails under this program – some for longer than they should have been incarcerated while awaiting ICE agents, NPR has previously reported.

McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, rejected these criticisms: "Allegations that 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement encourage 'racial profiling' are disgusting and categorically FALSE. Our 287(g) partners work with us to enforce federal immigration law without fear, favor, or prejudice, and they should be commended for doing so."

To incentivize cooperation, ICE is offering full reimbursements for participating agencies for the annual salary and benefits of each eligible trained 287(g) officer, including overtime coverage up to 25% of the officer's annual salary. Funding for these costs was made possible through Trump's Big Beautiful Bill.

Law enforcement agencies will also be eligible for quarterly monetary performance awards "based on the successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE and overall assistance to further ICE's mission," DHS said.

Performance goals for participating agencies have not been made clear– an issue the Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted in two separate reports from 2009 and 2021.

The GAO said the 287(g) program could use better oversight. Recommendations from the 2021 report that called on the director of ICE to create those performance metrics had yet to be met as of 2025.

How previous administrations used 287(g)

While its dramatic expansion is new, the 287(g) dates back nearly 30 years to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).

DHS didn't respond to NPR's request for data on the number of 287(g) agreements signed with local law enforcement under the administrations of Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton.

However, those who worked under these administrations say 287(g) agreements were narrowly used and never reached the level under Trump's current administration.

The original goal of the 1996 law, enacted during the "tough on crime" era, was to help federal authorities identify and remove dangerous criminals, according to John Torres, who worked in immigration enforcement for close to 30 years – first under President Ronald Reagan, eventually moving up the ranks under subsequent administrations, including a stint as acting director of ICE during the transition from President George W. Bush to President Obama.

Meissner, who led the INS under President Clinton, said the White House initially opposed the 287(g) provision because immigration enforcement had long been considered exclusively a federal responsibility. Delegating that authority to state and local police "was not something that was in the playbook," she said.

But the administration ultimately did not block it after hearing from communities grappling with deadly human smuggling cases that local law enforcement struggled to address, Meissner explained to NPR.

Clinton left office in January 2001 and, as far as Meissner recalls, no 287(g) agreements were ever signed. She said local leaders expressed concerns over the potential cost to local taxpayers and the legal liability for small police offices.

September 11th, and the Bush administration, changed everything.

By the mid-2000s, the Bush White House prioritized jail enforcement and task force models of 287(g), Torres recalled.

"We signed a lot of agreements under President Bush," he said.

Under Obama's presidency, more people were deported than any other president in U.S. history and the jail enforcement model was an important aspect to that work, according to John Sandweg, who worked at DHS under Obama.

The Obama administration, for a time, used 287(g) to go after people convicted of serious crimes, but found these partnerships did not help all that much, according to Sandweg.

But by 2012, the Obama administration suspended all 287(g) task force models, following documented civil rights abuses like the cases involving Arpaio's Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona.

"Maybe once in a blue moon you come across someone with a serious criminal history," he explained. "But by and large, what you were getting were individuals who are just undocumented, and maybe they're pulled over for different reasons."

The program was underutilized, but left largely intact under the Biden administration, despite campaign promises to end 287(g) agreements and much to the chagrin of civil rights groups such as the ACLU.

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 21, 2025.

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How President Trump is using them

Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, says concerns over civil rights violations under 287(g) are overblown.

"I honestly don't think that the lawsuits and the activism is driven by facts on the ground. It's driven by ideology," he said, referring to protests against the program and local police involvement in immigration enforcement.

"I'm not saying that there has never been an instance of an officer from DHS or law enforcement doing something they shouldn't. It happens, but it's pretty rare," he added.

The 287(g) program offers an important tool for communities deep in the U.S., away from the border, where enforcement "is much more complicated," Hankinson said. That's where "the Trump administration has been battling uphill against severe headwinds," he said.

The Trump administration touts 287(g) as a way to go after violent criminals in the U.S. illegally.

With that goal in mind, Sandweg said "expanding the 287(g) program makes tremendous sense for [the Trump administration], in that it's a force multiplier, and it increases the number of people who are legally capable of arresting undocumented immigrants dramatically."

McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, maintains that "ICE is targeting criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members and more. Nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S."

But the Trump administration has been criticized for arresting U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents and sometimes keeping them incarcerated for days. Records show that many of the people being caught in Trump's enforcement dragnet have no criminal record.

Even as the Trump administration moves to expand 287(g), some states are pushing back.

Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger issued an executive order terminating 287(g) agreements between ICE and state agencies, which included the Virginia Department of Corrections.

In Maryland, a bill that could end these partnerships was headed to Gov. Wes Moore's desk, as of Monday afternoon. That bill would prevent state agencies and employees from entering into 287(g) agreements and would end all existing deals by July.

Under the second Trump administration, partnerships between ICE and local law enforcement agencies that delegate immigration enforcement authority to local officers has expanded widely.
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