A California city tucked in conservative Orange County, California, officially became a "sanctuary city" Tuesday when Santa Ana officials passed a resolution to shield its undocumented immigrants from federal immigration officials. Jessica Kwong writes:
Council members voted 5-0 Tuesday in favor of adopting a sanctuary resolution that requires the city to strengthen various policies that already exist to further protect residents.
Those policies include prohibiting the use of city resources for immigration enforcement, reaffirming commitment to preventing biased-based policing, exercising maximum discretion in policing, protecting sensitive information, and providing training for affected employees, officials and agents.
The council is also considering going beyond the resolution to pass an ordinance, which would be legally binding on city officials.
Elsewhere in California, local school districts are actively working to ease the anxiety of their many immigrant students. Mike McPhate writes:
The automated voice mail went out to every public school parent in San Francisco.
“We are committed to providing a safe space for learning for each and every one of our students, including recent immigrants regardless of immigration status. We will continue to uphold San Francisco’s sanctuary city for all immigrants.” [...]
But students and parents continued to express anxiety over the election of Donald J. Trump.
“A lot of students are coming to school with a lot of distress, there are students who genuinely fear for their future stability in the community based on the things they heard during the campaign,” said Gentle Blythe, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Unified School District. “I don’t think any of those students or those families are in any way reassured about any potential risk that would come in the new administration.”
About a third of SF Unified's students are immigrants, though how many are undocumented is unclear. California continues to be at the center of the resistance to Trump's agenda.