Rob Bonta

is meant by sanctuary or jurisdiction, or my words, pro-public safety, pro-community trust.

But the word sanctuary, unfortunately, has taken on a very different meaning in the world.

Some people very, very wrongly think it means it's a safe haven for criminals.

Absolutely not true.

Our position in California has been, we will focus on crime and we won't have our critical resources diverted for civil immigration enforcement.

And we will investigate crime, arrest for crime, prosecute for crime, regardless of your immigration status.

So a lot gets lost in translation, unfortunately, but that's what it means to be a quote unquote sanctuary jurisdiction or a pro-public safety, pro-community trust jurisdiction.

Right.

And they're actually, in most cases, prohibited from participating in civil immigration enforcement.

You know, tackling crime, another story.

We're in joint task forces all over the place when it comes to tackling fentanyl and human trafficking and organized retail crime and gun violence, gun trafficking.

folks involved in murders.

We're working with the federal government all the time.

But when it comes to civil immigration enforcement, SB 54 prohibits that, with some exceptions for serious and violent crimes and detainers where there's a request from ICE to pick up someone who's being released from a jail or a police department and they have a qualifying serious or violent crime.

They can, under those limited circumstances, there can be cooperation with the federal government.

Legally declining to help legally and constitutionally, declining to focus critical state resources on public safety, on crime, is nowhere near the line.

And so being a quote-unquote sanctuary jurisdiction is –

nowhere near the line of obstruction or interference.

I know that the federal government likes to be very aggressive in its interpretation of what constitutes obstruction and interference.

They seek to suggest or even explicitly say that just being a quote unquote sanctuary jurisdiction somehow