A week after President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting immigrants prompted nationwide protests and global condemnation, California lawmakers took the first steps in advancing measures that would bar the state’s police and sheriffs from enforcing federal immigration law. Legislative hearings Tuesday had the tone of a state ready to go head to head with Washington, with repeated references to California’s size, economic clout, and large immigrant population. Lawmakers also went out of their way to highlight studies linking sanctuary policies to decreased crime. The actions were a radical change from California’s recent history. In 1994, voters approved Proposition 187, which attempted to deny state services to undocumented immigrants before being struck down by the courts. A generation later, Kevin De León, the son of undocumented immigrants and leader of the California Senate, authored SB 54, which bars state law enforcement from working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify or detain people for deportation. The bill does not prevent ICE from enforcing immigration law in California or honoring judicial warrants. “Trump’s remarks and the political climate around immigration makes Pete look like a choir boy compared to what we see today,” De Leon said, referencing former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who championed Prop 187 during his 1994 re-election campaign. SB 54 passed through the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday with a 5-2 vote. State Sens. Jeff Stone and Joel Anderson, both Southern California Republicans, opposed the bill over concerns it would prohibit police and sheriffs from cooperating with federal agencies to investigate organized crime. “I’m concerned that you’re basically making California a de facto sanctuary state,” Stone told De Leon during the hearing. “I’m also concerned about the promise of this president to take away significant federal money that this state needs and depends on,” he said, referring to Trump’s executive order threatening to cut funding from local governments that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. A separate bill intended to counter Trump’s call for a national Muslim registry was unanimously passed by California’s Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. The measure, SB 31, would prevent state law enforcement from participating in the creation of any database or registry of individuals according to their religion, national origin, or ethnicity. Sen. Ricardo Lara, the author of the proposal, likened Trump’s recent ban on travelers and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries to the deportation of hundreds of thousands bracero migrant workers in the 1950s under Operation Wetback and the Chinese Exclusion Act. “Friday’s executive order was a return to those shameful and deplorable acts of our past,” Lara said. A third bill that advanced out of the Judiciary Committee, SB 6, would create a state-funded legal defense program for undocumented immigrants in deportation proceedings. The program would not cover individuals with violent felony convictions on their record.

Maya Casillas, 7, joins migrant rights groups during a vigil to protest President Donald Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary cities outside City Hall in Los Angeles on Jan. 25, 2017. Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

West Coast cities have also started to push back against Trump’s order punishing sanctuary cities. On Tuesday, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the federal government on the grounds that the 10th Amendment bars Washington from withholding money from states in response to policy disagreements. While elements of the national law enforcement lobby, like the Fraternal Order of Police and the union representing ICE and Border Patrol agents, have come out in strong support of Trump’s immigration agenda, California law enforcement associations appeared split on whether to openly defy the federal initiatives. Cory Salzillo, a lobbyist for the California State Sheriffs’ Association, voiced opposition to De Leon’s proposal. “We are concerned that SB 54 limits communication and cooperation with our law enforcement partners,” Salzillo said. Sheriffs and police across the state collaborate with ICE agents through federal-local initiatives like Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force. Losing access to federal resources, money, and prosecutors for organized crime and trafficking cases is a major concern for state law enforcement. According to De Leon, however, his legislation would not jeopardize these collaborations. “We want to make sure that we do not curtail any type of activities,” De Leon stated. “That being said, we don’t have to use local state tax dollars to do the job of federal immigration authorities.” Another major police lobby, the California Police Chiefs Association, has not yet taken a stance on SB 54 or SB 31. “We do agree that local law enforcement does not want to be put in the position of enforcing immigration law,” said Jeffrey Feldman, a lobbyist with the police association. The Senate committee hearings also included overt talk of defying unlawful or unconstitutional initiatives emitting from the beltway. Sen. Nancy Skinner, the chair of the Public Safety Committee, made one of the most forceful statements regarding the nature of Trump’s actions on immigration. “We are making it clear that the state of California will not be complicit with authoritarian policies,” Skinner said.

Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images