West Sacramento council passes policy to restrict ICE use of city resources
West Sacramento City Council unanimously passed a policy Wednesday night that prohibits the use of city resources and staff to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The resolution — which is not a binding law — prohibits city employees aiding federal immigration enforcement except where required by law or judicial warrant. It also prohibits ICE from using city-owned or -controlled properties as staging grounds for immigration enforcement.
The resolution also directs staff to install signage indicating the land-use policy at city facilities that ICE is likely to seek to use as an operational base.
“We have seen how ICE has violated the civil rights of the people in California. Not only the immigrants, but citizens,” Mayor Martha Guerrero said. “(They are) opening up detention centers, contradicting what the goals are of ICE — which is to protect the citizens and the people of this country, for border patrol, for security, for real criminals.”
Guerrero said that she no longer sees the agency as legitimate law enforcement, and that trust between ICE and the public is irreparably damaged.
“I, along with many people in this country, have seen ICE mistreat people, kill people, and pretty much say that they are terrorists if they stand in the way,” she said. “That’s not what ICE is for.”
The vote comes one week after the Sacramento City Council passed a similar resolution to the frustration of anti-immigration enforcement advocates who wanted to see the city pass legislation rather than what is effectively a guideline for the city manager to implement.
There was no such contention at the West Sacramento council meeting Wednesday night, despite the two actions being substantively similar.
Just one public speaker came to the podium to encourage council members to vote against the policy, suggesting that they follow through on the pledge of allegiance they recite at the beginning of the meeting by “aligning” themselves with the federal government.
“I want my city to be helped by the federal government especially in the case where they need the ability to arrest criminals,” resident Patience Silva said.
The neighboring cities are two of more than 200 jurisdictions nationwide that have passed “ICE-free zone” policies in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive use of federal agents to target immigrants in the past year.
City leaders seeking to resist federal overreach must strike a balance between lawfully impeding immigration enforcement and signaling to courts that they are not trying to illegally obstruct them. West Sacramento’s policy, like those of many other cities, counties and school districts, makes it clear that it does not interfere with the execution of lawful judicial warrants.
“I don’t think there’s anything more American than what we are doing right now, which is making sure that every single resident in West Sacramento feels protected,” Councilmember Dawnte Early said.
The city has a 39-camera contract with controversial license plate reader company Flock Safety, a nationwide private surveillance system that facilitates data requests between law enforcement agencies participating in the program.
The use of this data for immigration is prohibited in West Sacramento, according to its automated license plate reader information webpage. The access data is audited every 90 days.
Despite a California law that bars agencies from sharing license plate reader data with out-of-state organizations and local policies against data sharing for immigration purposes, at least 10 agencies in California have come under fire for sharing data with federal agencies.
