Speaking at a news conference in downtown San Diego, Sen. Brian Jones, R-San Diego, said Senate Bill 554 would do two things — protect the public from “violent, felony criminal illegal immigrants,” and mandate cooperation by local authorities in cases involving specific violent crimes.

Jones’ proposal is a response to state Senate Bill 54, passed in 2017, which limits local and state law enforcement agencies’ involvement in federal immigration enforcement.

According to Jones’ office, SB 554 “prevents local jurisdictions from further restricting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement beyond what SB 54 already prescribes. It also mandates that local law enforcement cooperate with (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in cases where SB 54 simply allows it, ensuring violent offenders are not shielded from federal immigration authorities.”

Bianco, who announced his candidacy for governor earlier this week, said his job as the bill progresses in the Legislature will be “to impose some common-sense, some reason and some truth to what we are experiencing here in California, particularly because of the failures of SB 54.”

That law “and let me make this perfectly clear, does absolutely nothing but harm the people they say they are protecting,” Bianco said.

Bianco said when SB 54 first passed, “we told the Legislature of the consequences that were going to happen because of this.”

SB 554 will absolutely allow law enforcement “to make sure that we are able to prevent child molesters, rapists, murderers, robbers who victimize us, who victimize them, from being released into our communities,” Bianco said.

The sheriff said SB 54 proponents have demonized local law enforcement, which “has never been involved with immigration reform — that is the job of the federal government.”

Bianco said that it lacks any reason “for any person in California to say that we must release those people back into our community to molest our children again, to rape our women again, to murder other people again.”

He asked supporters to be as loud as they possibly can in Sacramento “to these tone-deaf people in that building that do not care about the safety and security of their constituents.”

As he stood outside the San Diego County Administration Center before a podium with a sign reading “Safety Before Sanctuary,” Jones said a group of protesters who gathered at the event and other critics hadn’t read his bill.

Those protesting could be heard shouting, “When we fight, we win.”    Jones said that several months ago, “the radical Democrats on the (San Diego County) Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance describing the county as a super-sanctuary county, to protect the most dangerous illegal immigrants in county from deportation.”

Last December, supervisors voted 3-1 to restrict the use of county resources for federal immigration enforcement.

Former board Chairwoman Nora Vargas said the policy “is designed to ensure local resources are focused on addressing the county’s most urgent needs, while protecting families and promoting community trust.”

Jones said the policy effectively prohibited law enforcement from handling criminal offenses by undocumented migrants, making it easier for them to return to the county and “continue their crime spree, regardless of how many felony convictions they have.”

Jones represents the 40th District, which includes numerous cities and communities in San Diego County.

Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, R-Yucaipa, said everyone should feel secure, regardless of their background and that neighborhoods should be “the sanctuaries for families.”

Ochoa Bogh, co-author of SB 554, said the bill would create a safer environment “including (for) undocumented families who deserve protection from those who wish to harm them.”

Ochoa Bogh said many people believe sanctuary policies were created with noble intentions to protect law-abiding, hardworking undocumented immigrants. However, when those policies extend protections to undocumented violent criminals, “they undermine public trust and safety for all residents, including those they are meant to protect,” she added.

“Communities lose faith in the system when they see offenders back into the streets,” which leads to a reluctance to report crimes or cooperate with law enforcement officers, Ochoa Bogh said.

She added that SB 554 “is a compassionate and necessary response” to the challenges posed by sanctuary policies.

“By refining these laws, we honor the original intent of protecting vulnerable communities, while ensuring those who commit violent crimes are held accountable,” she said. “Together, we can create a California where safety and justice prevails for everyone.”

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Assemblyman Bill Essayli, R-Norco, said he was incensed by a recent announcement from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement that a Colombian national whom it had sought to take into custody from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department earlier this year was released without any notification provided to the federal agency.

In response, Essayli said he will revamp proposed legislation he had submitted in February, Assembly Bill 2641, which originally related to reports on gubernatorial commutations, and insert provisions requiring local law enforcement agencies to comply with ICE detainers when they’re connected to illegal immigrant sex offenders.

“It is completely unacceptable that California law currently requires local law enforcement to protect illegal immigrant pedophiles from deportation under our ‘sanctuary state’ policy,” Essayli said. “I am amending AB 2641 to correct this gross injustice.”

The former federal prosecutor and second-generation American emphasized that he was “raised to love our country and respect the law,” and California’s provisions to accommodate undocumented individuals with sex crime records were incompatible with his tenets as a resident and citizen.

“Anyone here in this country illegally who dares commit a sex crime against a minor must be prosecuted and deported expeditiously. This is common sense,” Essayli said.

The San Bernardino County case involved an unnamed 23-year-old “Colombian non-citizen” who was convicted of statutory rape and oral copulation of a minor, according to ICE.

He was sentenced to four years in state prison in December 2022 but ended up at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, where federal immigration officers tracked him down and requested “advance notification of the Colombian sex offender’s release,” according to an ICE statement.

“San Bernardino County refused to honor ICE’s request and released the sex offender from California state custody,” the agency stated.

The man was located and arrested by ICE agents last week and is in federal custody pending deportation proceedings in Massachusetts.

ICE submits detainers to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, seeking 48-hour holds on undocumented offenders beyond the period they might otherwise be released from a local correctional facility, giving federal agents time to arrange pickups “for removal purposes.”

In California, local agencies have not been required to honor ICE holds since 2014.

The year prior, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 4, authored by former Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, effectively prohibiting local and state law enforcement agencies from honoring ICE detainers.

Two years later, then-Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, the current state attorney general, authored a bill that Brown also signed, AB 2792, which limited when and to what extent local authorities are permitted to communicate with federal agents regarding illegal immigrant offenders in jails. In some instances, the bill permits redactions of an inmate’s’ “personal identifying information” if the party is a foreign national.

Riverside County Sheriff’s Department officials told City News Service shortly after the bill took effect that the general practice of the agency was not to facilitate direct transfers of illegal immigrant offenders from county to federal custody, but only to attempt to alert ICE agents a couple of hours in advance of an inmate’s pending release — if immigration officials had requested notification beforehand.

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