[JURIST] The California State Senate [official website] overwhelmingly passed a bill [text] on Monday that would expand protections for undocumented immigrants by prohibiting state or local law enforcement from using resources to investigate, detain, report or arrest people for immigration violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be barred from working inside county jails and from receiving notifications when a prisoner is released from custody, unless the prisoner has a violent felony record and has been previously deported. The bill states:

“Existing law provides that when there is reason to believe that a person arrested for a violation of specified controlled substance provisions may not be a citizen of the United States, the arresting agency shall notify the appropriate agency of the United States having charge of deportation matters. This bill would repeal those provisions.”

Kevin de León [official website], the leader of the State Senate, said in a statement [text] that “[o]ur communities will become more – not less – dangerous if local police are enlisted to enforce immigration laws.”

Local legislation curtailing immigration enforcement is a rapidly growing trend across the country. Cities enacting these types of laws and policies have been recently called “sanctuary cities” [JURIST op-ed]. Many of these policies are in response to the executive orders issued in January and March by President Donald Trump informing [JURIST report] immigration enforcement measures. Lawmakers in California have also advanced two separate types of bills to impede President Trump’s immigration policies: Senate Bill No. 6 [official text] and Senate Bill No. 31 [official text]. Senate Bill 6 would provide $12 million to pay lawyers for immigrants facing deportation, and Senate Bill 31 would bar state officials from sharing data in the event that the federal government created a Muslim registry.