With Border Patrol agents due to arrive, Ms. Pelosi issued the stark warning along with Kevin Mullin, a fellow Democratic representative, who represents the small slice of San Francisco that Ms. Pelosi doesn’t. President Trump has said several times in recent weeks that he wanted to send federal forces to the city.

“While the President may enjoy absolute immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate under his orders do not,” they wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “Our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law — and if they are convicted, the President cannot pardon them.”

A spokeswoman with the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The idea appears to have come from Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney. Ms. Jenkins said in an interview on Wednesday that she came up with the strategy after seeing federal agents repeatedly roughing up people in Los Angeles and Chicago.

If federal agents came to her city and did the same, District Attorney Jenkins decided, she would treat them like anybody else breaking the law and would seek to prosecute them.

Hit people with batons? Beat them up? Not on her watch, she said.

“I had lead time to think about what authority I have and what I can do,” she said. “This is something I felt very strongly about, and I had my office research it.”

District Attorney Jenkins said she had communicated with the San Francisco Police Department about arresting federal agents for “clear, excessive use of force” and that the agency was on board with the concept. A spokesman for the department did not return a request for comment on Wednesday.

District Attorney Jenkins said she did not envision police officers handcuffing federal agents in full view on city streets. Instead, she said, local law enforcement could review camera footage of beatings, if they occur, and try to identify the agent involved. Then, she said, she would ask a judge to sign a warrant for the agent’s arrest and seek to prosecute the agent in court.

“For me, this is about San Francisco and what I need to do for San Francisco,” she said.

That could be much easier said than done. Many federal agents are operating in masks and without badges or other identification; a California law barring agents from wearing masks does not take effect until January and even then is quite likely to face legal challenges. And the Trump administration could seek immunity for its officers or ignore the warrants altogether, Ms. Jenkins acknowledged.

She said she had not discussed her idea with other prosecutors in California or around the country.

District Attorney Jenkins shared the idea on X earlier this month after Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce, said that he would support President Trump sending National Guard troops to San Francisco. (Mr. Benioff later recanted and apologized for his statement on the Guard.)

The ability of states to arrest federal officers is murky, and without much legal precedent, said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. A state cannot unduly interfere with the ability of a federal agent to enforce federal law, he said, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have the legal right to apprehend individuals suspected of being in the country illegally.

“As long as the ICE agents are acting legally, the state can’t prosecute them and hold them liable, even if it dislikes what they’re doing,” Mr. Chemerinsky said.

But immigration agents who overstep their legal bounds — for instance, by using excessive force — could be sued in California, he said.

“I think the ICE agents can be sued, for battery, for excessive force, in state court, and I think they can be similarly prosecuted,” Mr. Chemerinsky said. “If ICE agents act beyond their legal authority, and violate state law in doing so, they can be prosecuted.”

In their statement, Representatives Pelosi and Mullin made clear that they believed federal immigration agents had overstepped their authority in other situations.

“Reports of a planned mass immigration raid in the Bay Area are an appalling abuse of law enforcement power,” they wrote. “Broad sweeps that target families and terrorize law-abiding residents betray our nation’s values and waste resources that should focus on real threats to public safety.”

Spokespeople for both Democrats declined to further explain how they believed local or state police should arrest federal agents.

Representative Sam Liccardo, a Democrat who previously served as the mayor of San Jose, said he had spoken with colleagues and local law enforcement officials about such an action.

“All law enforcement must comply with the Constitution,” he said, “and to the extent that there’s a violation of federal or state constitutional protections or civil liberties, there’s certainly a basis for asserting a violation.”

In other cities where the federal government has escalated immigration enforcement, local authorities have complained that federal agents have bent the law and abused civilians.

Representative Ro Khanna, another Bay Area Democrat, has pushed for a requirement that immigration agents wear body cameras and visibly display their names during operations.

“The issue is, a lot of these ICE agents are harassing American citizens,” he said. “They’re acting in a lawless way.”

The post Pelosi Says Police May Arrest Federal Agents Who Violate California Law appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

ADUs are one of the few bright spots for the state’s housing market at a time of rising construction costs, high interest rates, and continued local resistance to greater housing density. These unassuming units, often basement apartments, backyard cottages, and converted garages, are far more affordable to build than other housing options and have become a politically palatable infill alternative to apartment complexes.

With median construction costs of about $150,000 in California, ADUs cost less than a third of traditional, federally subsidized affordable housing. As a result, the median ADU in the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast is affordable (costs less than 30% of income) for a low income family, 31% of ADUs in Los Angeles County are affordable, and large numbers of ADUs are affordable in other regions, as well.

Over the past eight years, ADU construction has skyrocketed. California went from about 1,000 ADU permits in 2016 to 5,000 in 2017 to 25,000 in 2022.

This boom did not come easily. Many local governments have resisted ADUs, fearing they would overcrowd single-family neighborhoods. While some of these concerns are legitimate, the state’s housing crisis has persuaded state lawmakers that cities must allow more housing construction, even in built-out areas — and ADUs are one way to achieve that.

California lawmakers have worked for decades to limit local governments’ authority to block construction of these units. The effort began in 1982 when the legislature prohibited cities from categorically barring ADUs. Local governments responded by placing what a report from the Furman Center at New York University called “cumbersome and unpredictable discretionary  review requirements on applications for ADUs.”

Local resistance prompted the state in 2002 to mandate ministerial (rather than discretionary) local approval of ADU permits. Yet ADU production remained low.

Reforms in 2016 finally made inroads. That year, the legislature adopted two bills, AB 2299 and SB 1069. These required cities to allow ADUs on single-family lots. They also prohibited them from requiring design features such as direct pathways to the street and setbacks for garages converted into ADUs. These laws also eliminated parking requirements for ADUs near transit stops and for ADUs attached to existing houses; prohibited cities from requiring new water, sewer or utility connections for ADUs, or from charging utility fees for ADUs; and required ministerial permitting of ADUs to occur within 120 days.

More state laws followed, as legislators and advocates identified and removed other barriers to ADU construction.

Suddenly, ADU production surged across the state. According to the California Department of  Housing and Community Development, ADUs will meet 3% of the state’s housing needs for the period from 2021-2028.

Yet this growth has been uneven. In a recent study, the Rose Institute of State and Local Government analyzed differences in ADU production in Long Beach, San Diego, Anaheim, Pomona, Ontario, and Corona in light of the state’s assessment of these cities’ housing needs. In  Long Beach, the state’s per capita ADU leader, these units have met 5% of housing needs. By  contrast, ADUs make up only 2.6% in Anaheim. Within the Inland Empire, only 1% of housing needs are met in Ontario, 1.1% in Corona, and 2.2% in Pomona.

The report found that variations in ADU production can result from several factors, including the local housing market. For example, Ontario, like other cities in the Inland Empire, is still developing outward into greenfield sites, potentially reducing the demand for ADUs due to the availability of new single-family homes.

Familiarity with ADUs also matters. Planners in Long Beach, a leading producer of ADUs, describe these units as part of the fabric of their city, and say the knowledge they have gained processing ADU applications helps them approve permits faster than in some other cities. By contrast, other cities have less experience with this form of housing.

Local policies can affect ADU production, as well. Although the state has limited local control over ADUs, standards can still vary on several important dimensions. This is where local governments can most make a difference.

To help meet housing production goals, cities should assess where their regulations may be holding back ADU production and consider loosening standards in those areas. In particular, local lawmakers should look closely at three factors: parking requirements, structural setback requirements, and fees.

Parking requirements can add significant costs to new development, making them infeasible for homeowners without access to large capital flows. Structural setbacks can make larger ADUs geometrically infeasible, limiting the variety of options available to would-be buyers and renters. Finally, fees place high up-front costs on ADU developers, who often are individual homeowners,  further dissuading them from realizing their property’s potential.

Giving homeowners a little more wiggle room in how they build their ADUs could make the difference between catching up to statewide ADU production levels and missing out on a powerful tool to meet housing needs.

The post ADUs can help the Inland Empire meet housing needs appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.