A California sheriff is planning to break the state's sanctuary law. Here's how

https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/02/sanctuary-state-amador-sheriff/

The specific way in which the sheriff of a rural Northern California
county says he’s going to break state law is by contacting immigration
authorities after he arrests someone who is in the country illegally. 

It’s equally true to say that Amador County Sheriff Gary Redman believes
he’s upholding federal law, specifically the section of the U.S.
criminal code that forbids harboring people in the country illegally. 

Both views are likely to get tested in court, just as soon as he makes
his first call to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

California’s sanctuary law, passed in 2017 during the first Trump
administration, prohibits police from participating in immigration
enforcement. They are allowed to inform immigration authorities of
someone in the country illegally after the person has been convicted and
served their sentence, or otherwise is about to be released from
custody. 

Between 2018 and 2023, the last date for which data was available, there
were 4,192 transfers of people from California jails to immigration
authorities. 

Now, Redman is planning to test the sanctuary law as President Donald
Trump promises the largest deportation program in U.S. history. Trump’s
allies have signaled they want to target for the deportations cities and
states with sanctuary laws. They have also indicated that they’ll sue
local agencies that they view as obstructing immigration enforcement.  

At the beginning of the new administration, most California sheriffs
told CalMatters that they will not cooperate with federal immigration
enforcement authorities, based on their own policies or laws passed by
their counties, and will forbid immigration agents from using county
personnel, property or databases without a federal warrant. 

Others said that while California law prevents direct cooperation with
federal immigration enforcement, immigration authorities are free to use
their jail websites and fingerprints databases to identify people of
interest. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who has announced his
plan to run for governor in 2026, vowed to work “around” California law
to assist federal immigration enforcement. 

But only one sheriff has pledged to break California law by contacting
immigration enforcement at the time of a person’s arrest. 

“Ninety-nine percent of (California’s sanctuary law) we’re following and
we’re going to continue to follow,” Redman said. “I’ve been asked by
several people in the community, when you come in contact with violent
felons, somebody who you arrested for rape, and they’re here illegally,
what are you gonna do? 

“I said, well, I’m not putting them back in the community if they get
released. So that’s where the violation of (California’s sanctuary law)
would come into play.” 

Trump already tested California sanctuary law
When the sanctuary law was up for debate, a number of California
sheriffs came out against it. After its passage, the California
Department of Justice pledged that it would closely monitor law
enforcement departments for compliance. 

Now, in response to Redman’s assertion that he will break the sanctuary
law, the attorney general’s office said California’s sanctuary law has
already survived a Constitutional test when the Trump administration
sued the state in 2018. A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
found that the state sanctuary law didn’t conflict with federal law. 

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to put the case on their docket,
effectively affirming the 9th Circuit ruling. 

“Federal courts have upheld (California sanctuary law) and have found it
to not be in conflict with federal law,” the attorney general’s office
said in an email. “We are closely monitoring law enforcement compliance
with (California’s sanctuary law).” 

The original Trump administration lawsuit sought to invalidate
California’s sanctuary law by saying it conflicted with a federal law –
one that forbids state and local law enforcement from interfering with
the communication of someone’s immigration status.  

But Redman is asserting that a different federal statute compels him to
contact immigration enforcement, and that legal theory hasn’t yet been
tested. 

“I’m looking at it as, we’ve got federal law that specifically talks
about harboring in a building. My jail is a building,” he said. 

Maria Romani, immigrant rights program director at the ACLU of Northern
California, said the most typical violations of California’s sanctuary
law are policy issues within a sheriff’s office or police department,
such as where immigration enforcement authorities can legally pick up a
person who is being released from a county jail. 

Romani said most of those incidents are resolved with a conversation
rather than a lawsuit. 

But Redman is the first sheriff she’s encountered who has declared that
he knows he’s violating the law, she said. 

“I think it opens his office to liability and I don’t think it’s good
for his own staff,” Romani said. “That sort of messaging, it’s not good
for public safety. I think the immigrant community will be afraid to
contact the sheriff when it has a sheriff that says I will call (U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement) anytime anyone’s arrested.” 

Sheriff: Deputies want to call ICE
Redman said he’s not a hardline conservative, and isn’t taking this
position based on his feelings about immigration. He describes himself
as a Kennedy Democrat, one who grew up in Los Angeles before moving
north, closer to where his wife was raised. 

He has lived in Amador County since joining the sheriff’s department in
1998. The county has changed significantly in that time, Redman said,
with Bay Area transplants altering the political geography. 

That doesn’t mean it’s become more liberal: Voter registration in Amador
County was split nearly evenly between Democrats and Republicans in the
2000 presidential election. By the 2024 presidential election,
Republican registration was still at about 49%, but registered Democrats
had fallen to just 26% of all county voters. 

Redman insists that, despite his new policy, he’s not involved in
immigration enforcement.  

“We’re not in the enforcement aspect of immigration,” Redman said.
“We’re not going to be involved in roundups. We don’t have that kind of
population.” 

He said that his county doesn’t have a major agricultural base compared
to the larger Central Valley counties to his south. The county’s major
industries are casinos, a prison and vineyards. Redman said his
deputies’ most frequent contacts with unauthorized immigrants happens
during raids at illegal marijuana grows. 

“We just don’t deal with a lot of illegals, however, over my career,
we’ve dealt with the cartels,” Redman said. “Usually it was along the
lines of large-scale marijuana operations here. And we were dealing with
armed subjects who were illegal.” 

If anything, Redman said, he’s responding to the requests of his
deputies, who fume at the limitations placed on them when they encounter
someone in the country illegally but cannot hold the person or refer
them to immigration enforcement. 

“They look at it as, the person’s here illegally, it’s against the law,
why can’t we do anything?” Redman said. “It’s kind of that black and
white.” 


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
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Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
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queer liberal democrat donors.