California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 21

Introduced by Assembly Member Lopez

(Coauthor: Assembly Member Chu)

June 9, 2015

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 21—Relative to immigration policy.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AJR 21, as introduced, Lopez. Immigration policy: priority enforcement program.

This measure would state the Legislature’s opposition to the federal Priority Enforcement Program.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, The United States Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and the United States Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) intend to rollout a new program dubbed the Priority
Enforcement Program (PEP) upon the termination of the Secure
Communities Program (S-Comm); and

WHEREAS, Under PEP, ICE plans to institute a “request for
notification” in lieu of a “request for detention” (detainer) system
vis-a-vis local law enforcement; and

WHEREAS, Like S-Comm, PEP will shift onto local law
enforcement the burden of federal immigration policy enforcement
by requesting local law enforcement to perform federal immigration
enforcement duties; and

WHEREAS, This program will incorporate a three-tiered system
of civil enforcement priorities for the removal of undocumented
immigrants. Community members, advocates, and media reports
indicate that ICE has failed to apply or has inconsistently applied
the exceptions within each of the three enforcement priorities. In
some cases, it is reported that ICE has targeted individuals who
fall outside of the enforcement priorities; and

WHEREAS, Assembly Bill 4, Chapter 570 of the Statutes of
2013, also known as the Trust Act, prohibits California law
enforcement officials from detaining an individual on the basis of
an ICE hold after that individual becomes eligible for release from
custody, unless certain conditions are met, including, among other
things, that the individual has been convicted of specified crimes;
and

WHEREAS, Proposition 47 approved at the November 4, 2014,
statewide general election, which requires a misdemeanor sentence
instead of a felony sentence for certain drug and property offenses,
is inapplicable to persons with prior conviction for serious or
violent crime and registered sex offenders, thus serious criminal
offenders are being incarcerated; and

WHEREAS, Chapter 174 of the Statutes of 2014 (Senate Bill
1310 of the 2013-14 Regular Session), reduced the maximum
sentence for misdemeanors to 364 days; and

WHEREAS, All of these actions by the voters and Legislature
seek to ensure our state also prioritizes its resources and prevents
unintended immigration consequences deriving from minor
offenses; and

WHEREAS, In order to ensure that immigration enforcement
is just, fair, and takes into account the qualities of each individual
case, PEP must contain robust mechanisms for ensuring
accountability when law enforcement engages in questionable
enforcement operations or abusive tactics; and

WHEREAS, By deporting parents and children, PEP will lead
to the separation of mixed-status families, which represent up to
one-third of California’s families, and cause well-documented
psychological trauma, especially to the children; and

WHEREAS, Requests for the application of prosecutorial
discretion should not summarily be denied, more information needs
to be made available about the weight that ICE allocates to positive
equities and negative factors, safeguards need to be in place so
that erroneous criminal history information can be contested and
excluded, and statistics and information documenting the number
of cases in which ICE has exercised prosecutorial discretion and
has denied such requests must be made available; now, therefore,
be it

Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature of California opposes the
Priority Enforcement Program and any local law enforcement
involvement with federal immigration enforcement; and be it
further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United
States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the
Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to the Majority
Leader of the Senate, to the Minority Leader of the Senate, and to
each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress
of the United States.