{"id":431345,"date":"2026-08-13T02:54:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T02:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/431345\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T02:54:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T02:54:28","slug":"city-of-bakersfield-halts-work-on-sanctuary-city-policy-following-public-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/431345\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Bakersfield halts work on \u2018sanctuary city\u2019 policy following public backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 City staff has stopped developing a policy that aimed to make Bakersfield a &#8220;sanctuary city&#8221; following a request from the City Council.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This comes after a <a data-ylk=\"slk:large number of residents;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\/news\/local-news\/conversations-around-bakersfield-becoming-a-sanctuary-city-continue-sparking-concern-among-residents\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">large number of residents<\/a> attended the Bakersfield City Council meeting on Aug. 5 to protest the proposed idea of becoming a sanctuary city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A sanctuary city limits its employees&#8217; cooperation with federal immigration officials to protect immigrants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">At the end of the meeting, Ward 7 Councilman Zack Bashirtash made a referral to have city staff immediately cease to work on anything related to the sanctuary city policy, as well as the TRUTH Act forum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The policy is not expected to return to any City Council or committee meeting at this time, according to city spokesperson Joe Conroy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The referral went into effect without a need for a vote from the City Council as no other Council member objected, Conroy told 17 News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:RELATED: Will Bakersfield become a &#039;sanctuary city&#039;? City officials discuss controversial proposal;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\/news\/local-news\/will-bakersfield-become-a-sanctuary-city-city-officials-discuss-controversial-proposal\/?ipid=promo-link-block1\" class=\"promo-link__link\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0RELATED: Will Bakersfield become a &#8216;sanctuary city&#8217;? City officials discuss controversial proposal\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During the July 15 meeting, Vice Mayor Manpreet Kaur and Councilman Andrae Gonzales asked staff to work on a draft of the sanctuary city policy and a TRUTH Act forum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The city&#8217;s Laws and Legislation Committee was expected to discuss the sanctuary city item during a special meeting this month. The special meeting scheduled for Friday contains no item related to the sanctuary city matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Staff was also expected to explore holding a TRUTH Act forum, a community meeting to provide transparency on whether a government has worked with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 City staff has stopped developing a policy that aimed to make Bakersfield a &#8220;sanctuary&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,25934,153,152,1610,17784,17349],"class_list":["post-431345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-city-council","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-city-council","tag-city-staff","tag-sanctuary-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431345","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=431345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}