Gustavo Solis

The Desert Sun

Senator Jeff Stone is on a mission to overturn California’s sanctuary state law – even though it isn’t actually a law yet.

The Republican state senator from Temecula appeared on The O’Reilly Factor and Fox & Friends this week to share his opposition with the bill and to promote his referendum-signature-collecting website, standwithstone.com.

The state Senate passed SB 54 on Monday. In order to become law, the bill needs to be passed by the assembly and signed by the governor.

“I think that the assembly is going to pass it,” Stone told Bill O’Reilly. “(Governor) Jerry Brown probably will sign it and, if he does, I’ve already started authoring a referendum to overturn this law.”

SB 54 would essentially kick Immigration and Customs Enforcement out of county jails by prohibiting law enforcement agencies from using resources, including staff and facilities, for federal immigration enforcement purposes.

The bill would also prohibit local jails from detaining inmates longer than their criminal sentence in order for ICE to interrogate or detain them. Local jails will still be able to transfer immigrants to immigration detention facilities if the federal government has a judicial warrant or if the individual has been convicted of a violent felony such as murder or rape.

Additionally, SB 54 requires jails to give federal law enforcement authorities a 60-day notice of when their felons will be released.

READ MORE: California could become a sanctuary state. Here's what you need to know.

Stone does not think the law goes far enough. The bill protects people convicted of human trafficking, child abuse or assault with a deadly weapon from deportation, he said.

“Basically we are going to be putting these dangerous criminals back into our streets and neighborhoods,” Stone said on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning.

To be clear, immigrants who commit these crimes would still face justice. SB 54 does not prevent the police from arresting people, prosecutors from filing charges, judges from sentencing or jails from detaining anyone.

However, Stone argues that people convicted of serious crimes who have served their sentence will be released from jail instead of being deported and, because there is a high recidivism rate, they are likely to commit more crimes.

There are more than 3 million undocumented immigrants living in California and about 11,000 of them have been convicted of serious and violent felonies, according to state lawmakers.

The senator appeared on The O’Reilly Factor the same week reports emerged that the host has paid $13 million to settle five sexual harassment claims. Several advertisers have pulled out.

READ MORE: More advertisers quit Bill O'Reilly's top-rated Fox show after sexual harassment report

The appearance, along with the one on Fox & Friends, gave him access to a large audience and a chance to speak about his critique of SB 54. The response has been so great that the “Stand with Stone” website is struggling to handle the volume.

“Our phones have been ringing off the hook, our email servers have been going out,” he said.

Senator Kevin de Leon, the author of the bill, said SB 54 is necessary because President Donald Trump erased previous enforcement priorities through executive action and the state should protect non-violent unauthorized immigrants from deportation.

While the previous stated policy focused on detainment of unauthorized immigrants with criminal backgrounds, current priority is to detain any unauthorized immigrant ICE agents encounter. Supporters of SB 54 believe that new enforcement policies could led to the deportation of innocent unauthorized immigrants who have not been convicted of crimes.

Immigration enforcement authorities, even during the Obama Administration, people who have been arrested but not convicted of any crimes.

A review of the criminal background of the incarcerated immigrants that ICE targets shows that the majority of them have historically been people with "no conviction." Last month, when ICE issued a list of the types of people who they were seeking, more than half of them had been charged but not been convicted of a crime.

Opponents and supporters of the bill both also use economic arguments to bolster their claims.

Opponents point out that President Trump has threatened to cut off federal funding to sanctuary policies and that SB 54 is an invitation for Trump to deliver on that promise.

Supporters say that unauthorized immigrants who contribute millions in state taxes and work in the agriculture and hospitality industries should be protected from deportation because the state cannot afford to lose the tax dollars and labor force to deportation.

Immigration Reporter Gustavo Solis can be reached at 760 778 6443 or by email at gustavo.solis@desertsun.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @journogoose.