SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said this week that he would veto a bill for a second time that sought to restrict the state prison system’s ability to coordinate with federal immigration authorities attempting to deport felons.
The headline-making threat gave the Democratic leader an opportunity to counter a conservative narrative that California protects immigrants with criminal records.
But the legislation was likely never going to reach his desk from the start. A spokesperson for the lawmaker who introduced the bill said he hadn’t intended to continue to pursue the legislation this year.
Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) decided to drop the policy in December after sponsors said they wanted to go in a different direction, said EJ Aguayo, Gipson’s chief of staff.
“We listened to our partners,” Aguayo said. “We did have the intent to amend it pretty much this entire time.”
Aguayo said Gipson planned to amend the bill into an entirely different proposal, which has yet to happen. He said the confusion could have stemmed from the fact that the bill remains in its original form.
The governor’s office said it gave Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ team a heads-up about telling Politico that he would veto the proposal if it reached his desk, but did not reach out to Gipson.
“I did not hear from the governor’s team prior, so I was caught off guard,” said Gipson.
Newsom’s effort to use the bill to reject the GOP’s image of California as a “sanctuary state” for all immigrants, including those with felony records, comes as the Trump administration ramps up the fight with Democratic states and local jurisdictions over immigration enforcement.
Immigration enforcement is a particularly challenging political topic for the governor of a state that relies heavily on its immigrant workforce. Appearing soft on illegal immigration could also be troubling for Newsom if he intends to run for president in a nation that elected a Republican in November who pledged mass deportations.
Since Trump took office, Newsom has repeatedly sought to clarify that California law does not protect criminals in the prison system from deportation.
In 2017, California Democrats exempted the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from major provisions of Senate Bill 54, the state’s marquee “sanctuary state” law that restricted the ability of law enforcement to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Under California law, the state prison system can hold prisoners for federal immigration officials and share information about release dates of immigrants in the U.S. illegally who have previously been convicted of a violent or serious felony.
Assembly Bill 15 sought to ban the state from working with the federal government on cases involving offenders who are youths, elderly and on medical parole releases, among others.
The veto threat was in line with Newsom’s stance on immigration. The governor rejected similar legislation introduced by former Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles), Assembly Bill 1306, in 2023.
“I believe current law strikes the right balance on limiting interaction to support community trust and cooperation between law enforcement and local communities,” Newsom wrote in the veto message.
Gipson will replace the immigration enforcement bill with an unrelated proposal he introduced last year that would require law enforcement agencies to consider requests to review cold case murders by determining if they can unearth new leads, Aguayo said.
