Should someone’s work in immigration enforcement during the Trump administration preclude them from having a job in California civil service?<\/p>\n
Many California Democrats, alarmed by the administration’s aggressive immigration tactics, are prepared to take that step.<\/p>\n
On a party line vote, legislators in the state Senate’s public safety committee passed a bill Tuesday that would disqualify people from becoming local or state police officers if they personally participated in federal immigration enforcement beginning on or after Jan. 20, 2025 — the date when President Donald Trump started his second term.<\/p>\n
Former agents at, say, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection would be able to apply to be police officers only after at least 10 years have passed since leaving the agencies. That could be a setback for them because jobs in California law enforcement often pay better and offer more generous benefits than ones in the federal government.<\/p>\n
During her testimony in support of the bill, Margo George of the California Public Defenders Association said that the bill is protective rather than punitive, and that police officers “wield extraordinary authority.”<\/p>\n
-George: The bill “recognizes that individuals who have participated in or enabled unlawful enforcement and custodial practices — where cruelty and racial discrimination are not only tolerated but incentivized — should not occupy roles of public trust in California.”<\/p>\n
California law enforcement groups oppose the measure, arguing that the bill does not specify for individuals who have a record of wrongdoing or improper conduct. Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Murrieta Republican who cast the lone “no” vote, called the bill “ridiculous.”<\/p>\n
-Seyarto: “It’s unfair to so many people that are good people that are working for an agency and they’re just doing their job. … It is pigeonholing people that have no reason for us to be pigeonholing them and keeping them from employment.”<\/p>\n
The committee also raised concerns that the bill could violate the U.S. Constitution. A federal judge recently halted a new California law banning local and federal officers from wearing masks, and Menjivar’s proposal, the bill analysis warns, could face the same scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Two similar bills also passed out of the Assembly’s public safety committee Tuesday: One, authored in part by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of Salinas, would ban current immigration agents from California police jobs. Another would prohibit agents who worked at ICE from Sept. 1, 2025 to Jan. 20, 2029 from being hired as police officers.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24\/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Should someone’s work in immigration enforcement during the Trump administration preclude them from having a job in California…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-283511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283511","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=283511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}