California bill would bar local officers from taking second job with ICE

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Current law allows a local California officer to take a second job as a federal agent — a moonlighting stint immigration activists hope to stop this year.

Standing Wednesday on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, elected leaders and immigration advocates pushed for passage of Assembly Bill 1537. If enacted, it would prohibit local law enforcement officers from working for or volunteering with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or its contractors. An officer could face decertification as a peace officer for violating the provision.

Additionally, the bill would make records pertaining to second jobs held by officers viewable under the state’s Public Records Act.

“They have turned our streets into war zones,” said Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, the Los Angeles Democrat who wrote the bill. “We don’t collaborate in the kidnapping of our community members.”

The bill hasn’t yet been assigned to a committee. It can’t appear before a committee until Feb. 5.

Bryan introduced the bill on Jan. 5 — the day the Legislature reconvened. Days later, a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Federal authorities have said she was impeding law enforcement, tried to hit the agent and called her a domestic terrorist.

Bryan said Good was murdered.

The ICE agent, identified as Jonathan Ross, faces no charges in connection with the shooting.

San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who’s written a resolution supporting Bryan’s bill, said the legislation sends a message. ICE has a budget in the billions of dollars and it’s using some of it to recruit local law enforcement.

But when local officers become entwined with ICE, public safety suffers, he said.

“This is about dignity,” Mahmood said. “It’s about safety.”

San Francisco Public Defender Manohar Raju said his office supports immigrants and refugees and that access to legal counsel doesn’t hinge on a person’s place of birth.

Raju said his office has seen the impacts ICE’s immigration enforcement has caused. The separation of parents from their children is one reason his office established an immigration unit during President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

“This bill is directly aligned with San Francisco’s core values,” he added.

Immigration advocates also emphasized the need for Bryan’s bill to become law.

Annie Lee, managing director of policy at Chinese for Affirmative Action, pointed to the fear immigrants share across San Francisco. She said Trump is terrorizing parents and grandparents. Homeland Security is taking people and deporting them to countries they’ve never visited, she said.

“Folks are getting arrested at courts, at hospitals,” she said. “Local communities are rising up to defend our neighbors and our cities.”

Bryan’s bill makes sense, Lee said. California is a sanctuary state. It’s incongruous to allow its officers to moonlight as federal agents — performing duties in a second job that they’re prohibited from doing in their main one, she said.

Olga Miranda, president of Service Employees International Union, Local 87, echoed that sentiment. She questioned how local officers sworn to serve and protect could then assault people while performing a second job with ICE.

According to Miranda, the state has reached a point where it needs legislation to do what’s morally right.

“We are not alone,” she added. “We have each other.”

Bryan’s bill is one of a handful focused on immigration currently winding through the Legislature.

Another is Senate Bill 747, called the No Kings Act. Written by state Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, it’s also meant to close a loophole.

Wiener has said people have few legal options when a federal officer violates their rights. However, avenues do exist in cases when a local and state officers cross that line.

That bill would enable people to sue federal agents for violating their rights. Wiener has said such cases could proceed in state or federal courts.