Republican Mayor Bill Wells of El Cajon is setting the stage for a resistance against the “resistance state,” pledging to help President-elect Donald Trump with his mass deportation campaign.
The mayor of one of California’s most significant Middle Eastern communities, where nearly a third of residents are foreign born, Wells is weighing whether to order his police department to cooperate with the feds – potentially in violation of state law. His stance could set El Cajon up for a showdown with state and federal authorities over the enforcement of immigration laws.
In a recent interview with inewsource, Wells said he’ll tell the feds, “I believe what you’re (the Trump administration) doing is right. Let me help you, but you gotta cover me. You’ve gotta give me a way that I don’t damage my city, damage my police department.”
Wells made the dangers of illegal immigration a focus of his most recent congressional campaign. After losing his bid, he’s taken his message to social media and other platforms, voicing support for Trump’s immigration agenda and attacking California’s “sanctuary” law, which limits how state and local authorities cooperate with the feds on immigration enforcement.
Wells told inewsource he wants to “comply with the law every way that I possibly can” and says he’s looking into what police can do legally to help the feds under SB 54. He doesn’t want his city or police department to face consequences, but if the federal government asks for his help, he may be willing to violate the law, he said.
Meanwhile, state and federal officials are already weighing in with their own threats.
Tom Homan, Trump’s incoming “border czar,” has threatened to cut federal funding to states with sanctuary policies if they don’t cooperate.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned his office would “step in” if law enforcement agencies violate SB 54, though he didn’t specify what exactly his office would do. On X this week, Bonta asked the public to report to his office anyone believed to be illegally assisting immigration authorities.
“California (Department of Justice) is here to protect immigrants’ safety, freedom and rights,” Bonta said.
SB 54, passed by the state’s Democratic majority during Trump’s first term, generally prevents state and local law enforcement from using resources and personnel for immigration enforcement. But the law has some exceptions when it concerns immigrants without legal status who have been convicted of serious or violent crimes.
The law has faced several legal challenges, including from the previous Trump administration, but none have succeeded.
The mayor’s public attacks on SB 54 are ramping up. In recent days, Wells has appeared on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Fox 5 San Diego and twice on One America News to denounce the law. Breitbart covered his TV appearances. He was interviewed on the topic by Nick Shirley, a social media influencer with 80,000 followers on Instagram.
Most of Wells’ recent social media posts have been dedicated to attacking SB 54.
“Sanctuary City Policies Are Stupid and Dangerous!” he said last month on X. “We refuse to let criminals roam free in our communities because of Gavin Newsom’s radical grandstanding. Sanctuary policies are a direct threat to public safety, and in El Cajon, we’re taking a stand.”
Wells has repeatedly claimed that “California is threatening” police officers with criminal charges and loss of their pensions for cooperating with immigration authorities, and that officers could be liable in civil court.
But Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said SB 54 does not make officers who violate the law liable in criminal or civil court.
Bonta responded to Wells’ claims on X, calling them “false and dangerous.”
“The California Values Act in no way prevents law enforcement from doing their job—fighting crime and protecting communities,” he said.
El Cajon’s incoming police chief, Jeremiah Larson, said after reviewing the topic with city staff, “we do not believe California is threatening felony charges for violations of SB 54.”
Larson said the department has adhered to SB 54, and that its mission remains the same.
“Someone who commits a crime in El Cajon will be arrested and held accountable under the law. Similarly, if someone is a victim of a crime in El Cajon, we are committed to providing them with the highest level of service and support, regardless of their immigration status,” Larson said in an emailed statement through a spokesperson.
Contrary to Wells’ claims, SB 54 allows law enforcement to cooperate with immigration authorities when laws other than immigration rules have been broken.
It does not stop police from investigating, arresting or detaining immigrants, or anyone, suspected of committing a crime – as long as it’s a crime other than a violation of immigration law, according to the attorney general’s office.
The law also allows for joint task forces to investigate crimes such as drug trafficking, and El Cajon police participated in three such task forces in 2023.
The law does restrict how sheriffs respond to certain requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Sheriffs cannot hold detainees past their release date for ICE. They also cannot share information about detainees’ release dates, or transfer them to ICE, except detainees with serious or violent felony convictions.
Critics say the law makes it harder for the feds to deport those with criminal records and makes communities less safe.
Proponents say it encourages immigrants who would otherwise avoid police for fear of deportation to report crimes and cooperate in investigations. They also say it appropriately puts immigration enforcement solely into the hands of immigration authorities.
But the feds likely can’t carry out Trump’s deportation plans with current capacity and could end up needing help from local police. The Trump administration has suggested it would deport 1 million people a year in office, almost three times the 1.5 million he deported in his first four years.
Nationally, public opinion surveys say he should have some support. An Ipsos poll from September found that slightly more than half of Americans support mass deportations. Another survey by Data For Progress found a majority of respondents supported deportations only for immigrants who recently crossed the border illegally and those with criminal records.
In California, some communities are working to resist Trump’s plans by shoring up protections for immigrants. The Los Angeles City Council voted last month to make the city a sanctuary community. Gov. Gavin Newsom called a special session to “Trump-proof” the state’s progressive policies, including those protecting immigrants.
Ira Mehlman, media director with the Federation of American Immigration Reform, which advocates for stricter immigration enforcement, criticized those moves from Democratic leaders, saying they misread what state voters want.
Mehlman said California’s rightward shift on the ballot this November — and voters’ approval of a ballot measure to heighten penalties for shoplifting, among other crimes — means the public doesn’t support efforts to protect immigrants living in the U.S. unlawfully.
Wells said his constituents in El Cajon support his plan to aid in Trump’s deportation campaign. Though a majority of voters in San Diego County and California voted for the Democratic presidential candidate, Wells said “the country was very clear on this issue.”
And so, he said, he’ll follow their lead: “I’m prepared to do whatever the federal government asks me to do and so I’ll be cooperative with them everywhere I can.”
He’s not alone. Republican governors in Texas, Utah and Florida have also pledged support for the president-elect’s deportation plans.
Since Wells announced his bid for Congress in 2023 – he ran twice before unsuccessfully – illegal immigration and the border has been a prominent talking point on his social media platforms.
His rhetoric at times has warned of grave danger. Wells said in his campaign that many immigrants in the country are violent criminals and warned that if something doesn’t change, “a lot of us are going to lose our lives.” Asked for specific examples of crimes impacting El Cajon, he said he’d have to get back to inewsource.
Wells did say that migrants have strained El Cajon resources. El Cajon was one of several communities in the county where migrants were dropped off by immigration authorities after being processed at the height of record migrant crossings in recent years.
Wells’ public campaign against SB 54 will likely have company in the form of new legal challenges, according to Amada Armenta, director of the UC Los Angeles Latino Policy and Politics Institute.
“But I also expect that these policies will stand up,” Armenta said.
The previous Trump administration tried to take down the law, asserting it violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes that federal law takes precedence over any conflicting state statute. But the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
The former Trump administration also tried to cut federal grants to states, as Homan has threatened, but that, too, was blocked by courts.
Huntington Beach and Los Alamitos also tried unsuccessfully to challenge the law.
Wells said he will ask the City Council to send a letter to Bonta’s office to ask for its understanding of the law, the limitations and consequences for those who do not comply.
But he hasn’t yet decided what else, besides “(making) a lot of noise about it,” going on television to “talk a lot about how unfair … the state of California is being,” he will do to fight back against SB 54. He says he’ll wait to hear back from Bonta and the Trump administration.
As of late November, he hasn’t heard anything from the incoming president’s team.
What California’s ‘sanctuary state’ law requires of local law enforcement
Senate Bill 54, or the California Values Act, generally prohibits the use of state or local resources “to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes.”
That means state or local police cannot:
- Ask someone about their immigration status.
- Detain someone on behalf of immigration authorities.
- Make immigration arrests or enforce immigration law at the border.
- Share personal information about someone with immigration authorities.
The law also says that sheriffs cannot transfer detainees to immigration authorities or share detainees’ release dates, without a warrant. There are some exceptions, including if the person was convicted of certain felonies, including serious or violent ones, or is on the sex offender or arson registry. Sheriffs cannot hold detainees past their release date on behalf of immigration authorities.
SB 54 does allow local law enforcement, at their discretion, to help immigration authorities under some circumstances. Those circumstances include:
- To arrest or investigate someone who was previously removed from the U.S. for an aggravated felony, and who was detected during unrelated law enforcement activity.
- To provide criminal histories when immigration authorities ask about a specific person.
- To participate in joint task forces when the primary purpose is a violation of a state or federal law other than immigration.
