{"id":154499,"date":"2026-01-29T05:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T05:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/154499\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T05:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T05:18:13","slug":"taxes-lawsuits-and-location-bans-long-beach-post-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/154499\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxes, lawsuits and location bans \u2022 Long Beach Post News"},"content":{"rendered":"

California Democratic senators advanced a measure Tuesday that would make it easier for people to sue federal agents over civil rights violations, a bill shaped by fears of the\u00a0Trump administration\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0immigration enforcement practices.<\/p>\n

The bill from Sens. Scott Wiener and Aisha Wahab, both Bay Area Democrats, took on additional significance after federal agents gunned down Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and ICU nurse, in Minnesota last weekend. Senators discussed the measure on the floor for more than 90 minutes before voting along party lines, 30 to 10, to send it to the Assembly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sad statement on where we are in this country that this has to be a partisan issue,\u201d Wiener said just before the vote on his bill, which is also known as the \u201cNo Kings Act\u201d. \u201cRed, blue, everyone has constitutional rights. And everyone should have the ability to hold people accountable when they violate those rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s among several bills lawmakers are moving forward in the new year to confront an escalation of aggressive immigration enforcement tactics and to protect immigrant communities. They include bills that would tax for-profit detention companies, prohibit law enforcement officers from moonlighting as federal agents and attempt to curb courthouse arrests.<\/p>\n

Those efforts follow a slate of legislation signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year to resist the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation campaign in California, including a first-in-the-nation measure to\u00a0prohibit officers from wearing masks<\/a>\u00a0and others that limit their access to schools and hospitals.<\/p>\n

While some of those laws are\u00a0facing legal challenges<\/a>, the new batch of proposals offers \u201cpractical solutions that are squarely within the state\u2019s control,\u201d said Shiu-Ming Cheer, deputy director at California Immigrant Policy Center.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at some of the key bills lawmakers are considering:<\/p>\n

No moonlighting as a federal agent<\/p>\n

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat from Culver City, authored a bill that would prohibit law enforcement from taking a side job as a federal immigration agent.<\/p>\n

At a press conference in San Francisco earlier this month, Bryan said the measure is especially timely as the federal administration ramps up its recruitment of California\u2019s local law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t collaborate in the kidnapping of our own community members, but there is a loophole in state law,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile you can\u2019t collaborate with ICE while you are working in your police shift, you can take a second job with the Department of Homeland Security. And I don\u2019t think that that is right.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with CalMatters, he said the legislation is intended to bring transparency and accountability, and to close that loophole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal administration has created not just a secret police but a secret military at the expense of health care, social safety nets, and key benefits that the American people need and rely on to make it through the day,\u201d said Bryan. \u201cAll of those resources have been rerouted to the unaccounted militarized force patrolling our streets and literally killing American citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep ICE awy from courthouses<\/p>\n

Sen. Eloise G\u00f3mez Reyes, a Democrat from San Bernardino, introduced legislation to prevent federal immigration agents from making \u201cunannounced and indiscriminate\u201d\u00a0arrests in courthouses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue is clear cut,\u201d said G\u00f3mez Reyes in a statement. \u201cOne of the core responsibilities of government is to protect people \u2014 not to inflict terror on them. California is not going to let the federal government make political targets out of people trying to be good stewards of the law. Discouraging people from coming to court makes our community less safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legislation was introduced nearly two weeks after a federal judge ordered that the U.S. Justice Department\u00a0halt civil arrests in immigration courts across Northern California<\/a>, ruling that its deportation policies hadn\u2019t addressed the \u201cchilling effects, safety risks, and impacts on hearing attendance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Efforts to bolster protections in California courthouses have also been championed by Sen. Susan Rubio, a Democrat from West Covina, who\u00a0introduced a bill<\/a>\u00a0that would allow remote courthouse appearances for the majority of civil or criminal state court hearings, trials or conferences until January 2029.<\/p>\n

Taxing detention centers<\/p>\n

Assemblymember Matt Haney, a Democrat from San Francisco, introduced a bill that would place a 50% tax on profits from immigration detention centers. Over 5,700 people are being held in\u00a0seven immigration detention centers across California<\/a>, three of which are located in Kern County.<\/p>\n

Escalating \u2018resistance\u2019<\/p>\n

Cheer, of California Immigrant Policy Center, said the early introduction of the bills demonstrates more urgency from the state Legislature to tackle issues around immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope for this year is that the state can be as bold and innovative as possible seeing the crisis communities are facing from immigration enforcement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That means ensuring funding for attorneys to represent people facing deportation, addressing existing gaps in state laws around information sharing with the federal government, and looking into companies that are directly profiting from the business of arresting and deporting people, Cheer said.<\/p>\n

Republicans have criticized the measures, which they characterize as overstepping on federal priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one likes to see what\u2019s happening in Minnesota. No one wants to see that coming to California,\u201d said Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican representing Huntington Beach. Instead, he argued, cities and states should jettison their so-called \u201csanctuary\u201d policies that hamper coordination between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n

He also criticized Democrats for taking precious Senate time to prepare for hypothetical scenarios rather than addressing existing problems in California.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, we have a lot of serious issues here in California, and we need to start focusing on California-specific issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Johnson, an immigration law professor and former dean of the UC Davis School of Law, said state and local governments are trying to figure out how far to go in resisting federal immigration enforcement given Trump\u2019s threats to pull funding from sanctuary jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there\u2019s concern and fear in immigrant communities, there\u2019s some solace being given by the support expressed by state and local officials,\u201d he said. \u201cAs the Trump administration escalates its aggressive deportation tactics across the nation, California has escalated its resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

CalMatters reporter Wendy Fry contributed to this story.<\/p>\n

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Democratic senators advanced a measure Tuesday that would make it easier for people to sue federal agents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-154499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}