Trump’s mass deportation plan requires help from police and sheriff's deputies. Will he get that in SoCal?

Top law enforcement leaders in Southern California are seeking to assure immigrant communities that their officers will not be involved in any mass deportations under the incoming Trump administration.

“We don’t do that kind of thing,” Los Angeles police Chief Jim McDonnell said during his confirmation hearing earlier this month. “We would alienate much of the population.”

He was responding to concerns raised by members of the City Council.

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Across the region, leaders of the largest law enforcement agencies said their own policies and a state law enacted during the first Trump administration mostly prohibit cooperation among ICE and local police and sheriff’s departments. The exception is in the jails, where people convicted of the most serious crimes can be handed over to ICE.

In addition to McDonnell, LAist reached out to sheriffs in L.A., Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department put out a statement noting that in 2020 the Board of Supervisors “permanently banned cooperation with Federal Immigration officials.”

Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said his deputies don’t engage in immigration sweeps. “We have never participated in community-based immigration activity,” he said.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said federal immigration enforcement is “not our job.”

“We have too many other things to do,” he added.

The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department issued a statement pointing to the state law that bans cooperation.

Immigrant rights activists said they plan to watch local law enforcement closely to make sure they abide by their promises — and state law.

“We plan on keeping a close eye on recalcitrant sheriffs and holding them accountable,” said Chris Newman of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network. He noted Trump was unable to achieve a large number of deportations during his first term because of so-called sanctuary laws.

“Sanctuary policies shielded the Trump administration from using the criminal justice system as a force multiplier,” he said.

Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ promise

Trump has promised to conduct a “mass deportation” of the country’s estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in part by using local police as force multipliers. He has said he envisions police rounding up immigrants from the streets, workplaces, and jails.

For police agencies that don’t cooperate, Trump has threatened to cut off federal grants.

Los Angeles County is home to an estimated 951,000 unauthorized immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The county’s total population is 10 million.

Rounding up even a fraction of that many people would be a massive effort beyond the capability of the current resources of ICE, said Claude Arnold, the former head of Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles.

“To the extent that state and local law enforcement are cooperating, it's huge,” Arnold said. “It makes all the difference in the world.”

Some states, including Texas, require local police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. In California, it's the opposite. The state limits cooperation under a 2018 sanctuary law.

The California Values Act, authored by then-Sen. Kevin de León, limits a range of activities by law enforcement.

“California law enforcement agencies are prohibited from using department resources — whether funding or personnel — for immigration enforcement activities such as investigating, interrogating, detaining, detecting, or arresting individuals for immigration purposes,” the law states.

But the act does allow some cooperation. It allows jail authorities to hand over to ICE people convicted of certain types of crimes — those classified as serious or violent felonies including murder, rape, burglary, assault and forgery. The act prohibits officials from handing over to ICE people convicted of most misdemeanors.

That irks Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, who said he believes unauthorized immigrants convicted of any crime should be handed over to ICE.

He called the sanctuary law “burdensome.”

“We are forced to let them go,” he said of people convicted of low-level misdemeanors, adding he hoped the Trump administration would “figure out how we can work around horrible state policies and state laws.”

Will sanctuary laws be challenged?

The first Trump administration unsuccessfully challenged California’s sanctuary law, also known as SB54.

Arnold, the former immigration official, predicted the Trump administration would likely go to court again in an attempt to weaken the law.

“There’s going to be litigation for sure,” he said, adding that while states cannot be forced to cooperate they cannot thwart the enforcement of immigration laws either.

Arnold also said the administration would likely focus on jails as part of any mass deportation program.

“They’re going to focus on the criminals first,” said Arnold. “Those people are birds in the hand.”

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which operates the largest jail system in the country, says it has not handed over any unauthorized immigrant to ICE.

“The Department does not honor ICE requests/detainers or transfer individuals into the custody of ICE, unless there is a federal judicial warrant signed by a judge,” the department said in a statement. “Immigration officials are not in our facilities, and are prohibited from using County property, databases, and personnel unless there is a federal warrant.”

In addition, California prohibits local jails from renting out space to ICE for detainees.

This could become a burden for ICE should mass deportations occur. The federal government would need detention space.

California has restricted cooperation with ICE by employers, too. The state passed a law that says before ICE visits, employers have to give 24-hour notice to their employees and cannot allow ICE agents into non-public areas of the workplace without a warrant.

“California cannot be an obstacle to immigration enforcement, but can make it harder,” said Jean Reisz, co-director of USC’s Immigration Law Clinic.