Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto of a bill that would’ve made it harder for state prisons to transfer non-citizen inmates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement is drawing ire from advocates.
“As soon as I heard he vetoed, it was a huge disappointment; anger and frustration especially knowing that the bill had no opposition,” said Ny Nourn, co-director of the Asian Prisoners Support Committee.
More than 100 immigrant rights and legal aid organizations supported the HOME Act. Not a single group opposed the legislation.
California’s sanctuary laws already limit local police and sheriff’s departments from helping federal immigration agencies deport non-citizens. But those laws don’t apply to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
The HOME Act would have changed that by preventing CDCR from transferring some inmates to ICE. It would have applied to inmates who earned parole through recent criminal justice reforms like elderly people, those suffering from severe medical conditions, or people who committed crimes in their youth and have already served long sentences.
In a statement, Newsom said the bill would have impeded CDCR’s interaction with federal law enforcement agencies. However, he did acknowledge potential for reform.
“We recognize that improvements in this process are important,” he wrote. “CDCR will limit how it communicates with ICE as a federal law enforcement agency, so information is only provided to ICE when a non-citizen individual enters prison and is approaching their release date.”
Nourn said Newsom’s veto goes against recent efforts to protect California’s immigrant population from deportation.
“He’s not going for the values of California, the values that he says he stands for, so it's total hypocrisy,” she said.
It’s unclear how often inmates are transferred from CDCR to ICE. But records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California in 2022 provide a glimpse.
The ACLU requested emails between CDCR and ICE during August and September of 2022. They found more than 200 people were transferred from state prisons to federal immigration authorities during those two months – including three in San Diego’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.
The prison to deportation pipeline is particularly concerning for veterans, according to Robert Vivar, a member of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium.
“Every one of our deported veterans at one point was deported after fulfilling their commitment for whatever mistakes they made,” Vivar said. “People paid for their mistakes and were given a second punishment.”
Deporting people after they’ve served prison sentences appears to be double punishment — especially if a parole board has deemed them safe enough to reintegrate to society, he said.
“It’s very difficult to understand why you would want to continue punishing that individual,” he said.
