The Trump administration is asking California law enforcement for data on their migrant detainee population, as the sheriffs of Los Angeles and San Francisco are indicating they won’t be playing ball.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued requests to sheriffs of several major California counties on Thursday, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, for lists of their inmates who are not American citizens, the crimes they were convicted of or arrested for and their scheduled release dates, according to an announcement from the agency. The demands mark the latest back-and-forth between California and Trump administration officials, who have ratcheted up immigration enforcement in the notorious sanctuary state.
“In recent years, the United States suffered an invasion of illegal aliens at an unprecedented scale,” the DOJ press statement said.
“Far too many of those illegal aliens have gone on to commit crimes on American soil, including rapes, murders, and other violent crimes,” the department continued. “Today’s data requests are designed to assist federal immigration authorities in prioritizing the removal of illegal aliens who committed crimes after illegally entering the United States.”
While Attorney General Pam Bondi said she looks forward to working with California officials on their “shared duty” to keep residents in the state and across the country safe, the DOJ added that it is prepared to pursue “all available means” to obtain the data, including through subpoenas.
However, the sheriff of the largest county in the state made clear that California’s sanctuary law, and a local sanctuary ordinance in Los Angeles County, prevent him from acquiescing to the Trump administration’s request.
“The sheriff’s department complies fully with California Senate Bill 54 and the 2020 Los Angeles County policy which prohibits local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials, except under very specific and lawful circumstances,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said during a Thursday press conference. “We will only transfer an individual into ICE custody if we are presented with a federal judicial warrant that’s signed by a judge.”
In a separate statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation, San Francisco County Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said his office “does not participate in civil immigration enforcement” and called on the federal government to obtain a criminal warrant or a court order to arrest someone.
“My priority is public safety — not politics — and we will not foster fear in immigrant communities by acting as an arm of immigration enforcement,” Miyamoto stated.
California and President Donald Trump have clashed over immigration since his first term in the White House.
Then-Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed SB54 into law in 2017. The law largely restricts local and state law enforcement’s ability to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The first Trump administration sued California over the law, arguing it was superseded by federal law, but the Supreme Court ultimately allowed it to stand.
A number of major California localities have doubled down on their own sanctuary laws since SB54 went into effect, so much so that even Brown suggested they had gone too far.
Since returning to the presidency, Trump has once again turned up the pressure on the Golden State. His administration has continued to crackdown on Los Angeles’ illegal migrant population, which sparked violent protests, and federal prosecutors are suing the city for its anti-ICE laws.
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