{"id":282422,"date":"2026-04-23T18:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/282422\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T18:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:47:07","slug":"oc-lawmaker-proposes-feds-foot-the-bill-for-local-costs-incurred-helping-ice-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/282422\/","title":{"rendered":"OC lawmaker proposes feds foot the bill for local costs incurred helping ICE \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Dave Min<\/a> has introduced legislation that would require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reimburse local police and fire agencies called on to assist federal agents during immigration enforcement operations.<\/p>\n

The proposal would shift responsibility, Min said, for what he called an \u201cunfair burden\u201d of costs placed on local taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The RECOUP Act of 2026<\/a>, introduced in Congress this month, would require DHS to reimburse state and local first responders for operational costs incurred while assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Patrol officials during arrests, detentions or deportations.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal law enforcement is already required to respond. They don\u2019t have a choice, right? Because they\u2019re asked to protect public safety,\u201d Min, D-Irvine, said in a phone interview Tuesday. \u201cBut why should local taxpayers pay for a mess that ICE created?\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspiration for the legislation came when Min attended a January field hearing in Minneapolis<\/a>, where Minnesota officials testified that federal agents often lacked personnel to manage volatile crowds and frequently called on local police to \u201cbail them out.\u201d The bill targets enforcement tactics Min called \u201coperationally unwarranted policing\u201d in high-profile public places that \u201cinflame the masses\u201d, rather than discrete, warrant-based arrests.<\/p>\n

Min said creating a streamlined automatic payment process might deter \u201cshock and awe\u201d tactics, which he argued \u201cstir the pot\u201d and escalate into confrontations requiring local crowd control, leaving jurisdictions to address \u201cmesses and bad situations created by ICE.\u201d The bill could include retroactive reimbursements.<\/p>\n

Does that mean the Santa Ana Police Department could potentially bill the federal government for more than half a million dollars for resources expended responding to anti-ICE demonstrations in June 2025?<\/a><\/p>\n

At Tuesday\u2019s City Council meeting, Santa Ana Police Chief Robert Rodriguez said the decision to deploy officers on the first day of community demonstrations last June was intended to \u201ctry to create some distance between our community and the federal officers,\u201d after City Attorney Sonia Carvalho received a direct call from the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t in a threatening manner,\u201d said Carvalho, who told the council she was informed by DOJ officials that federal resources would be brought in to assist immigration agents if the SAPD could not \u201cprovide the security that we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a discussion about what that might look like in terms of safety for our community and what that would mean to people in our community,\u201d Carvalho explained.<\/p>\n

The protests erupted in Santa Ana after immigration enforcement operations targeted day laborers at Home Depots across the city that day. According to a staff report<\/a>, the demonstrations \u2014 later declared an unlawful assembly by police, required \u201cenhanced staffing levels, extended deployments, and mutual aid coordination,\u201d resulting in overtime and additional personnel costs.<\/p>\n

At this early stage in the bill process, it\u2019s not immediately clear how successful the legislation will be in the Republican-controlled Congress.<\/p>\n

Anaheim spokesperson Mike Lyster, also part of the Contigo team that responds to reports of immigration enforcement activities in the city, said there\u2019s been an observable shift away from roving or random federal enforcement operations following the highly publicized shooting of two civilians in Minneapolis earlier this year. Now the trend has been more targeted actions about once every 10 or so days, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur most disruptive incident was at a car wash where chemical agents were used,\u201d Lyster said. \u201cThere was a bit of a scuffle and a large crowd, and those are the kind of scenes that you just don\u2019t ever wish to see in your city.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about the bill, Lyster said the city is aware of the early-stage proposal and will continue to monitor it. He added that as of right now, prospective costs incurred by agencies such as the Anaheim Police Department wouldn\u2019t extend much beyond normal operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a relatively narrow bill,\u201d Min said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is force the federal government to actually pay for the cost here.\u201d<\/p>\n

DHS officials did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The bill would also restrict DHS from releasing the names, badge numbers or agencies of local first responders without a court order. Min said the clause protects officers from guilt-by-association when legally obligated to assist federal operations. He emphasized that the exemption does not apply to police misconduct, which remains subject to California transparency laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not ICE,\u201d Min said. \u201cWe want to make that distinction to not create further distrust with law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Lloyd, legal director with the First Amendment Coalition, confirmed that the bill\u2019s privacy clause would not preempt state and local agencies\u2019 obligations to disclose information about their officers.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Min said the bill\u2019s success, if it makes its way through Congress, would be measured not by dollars collected, but by dollars never spent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this bill becomes law and we end up actually having $0 spent, that\u2019s a good thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt means that ICE is not behaving badly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rep. Dave Min has introduced legislation that would require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reimburse local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,400,1752,14,23,100,611,13],"class_list":{"0":"post-282422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-california-politics","13":"tag-congress","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-orange-county","18":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282422","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=282422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}