By Richard Hernandez
State and local officials from around California are gearing up to offer what they say will prove to be effective resistance to the incoming Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
For years, California has been at the forefront of the laissez-faire attitude toward illegal immigration into the country, even going beyond simply doing nothing to prevent the massive influx of undocumented foreigners across the international border into the country by declaring the entire state to be a sanctuary for foreigners who refuse to abide by U.S. immigration law.
In his ultimately successful campaign to return to residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., Donald Trump vowed to be even more effective in shuttering the borders than he was in his first term as president from 2017 to 2021. He is now engaged in preparations to make good on that promise.
This time around, President Trump says he intends to be even more diligent in conducting immigration law enforcement efforts by locating and deporting those residing in the United States illegally. He named Tom Homan, former police officer, political commentator and the acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from January 2017 until June 2018, to serve as his “border czar.” Together, Trump and Homan have vowed to carry out what Trump said would be “the largest deportation operation” in the country’s history. Not only does he intend to seal the border in a way that will ensure that no illegal aliens will make their way across the border, he intends to sen 11 million of those now in the country who are in the country illegally or are otherwise undocumented back to where they came from. Trump and Homan have made statements that this effort will emphasize reinstating a ban on those emigrating from what they have characterized as certain hostile majority-Muslim countries and redoubling efforts to seal the border with Mexico in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California as part of the second Trump administration’s immigration policy. Trump said mass deportations will begin on “Day 1″ of his new administration. That policy is to feature “zero tolerance,” which will, if necessary, entail enforcement at border crossings with adjacent internment camps to separate parents from their children if they cross over onto U.S. territory at the border.
Homan has indicated that in major U.S. population centers, i.e., metropolitan areas, most particularly ones that have declared themselves as sanctuary cities, he will have immigration agents, backed by U.S. Army, Navy Seals and National Guard soldiers, carry out a ruthless effort to track down illegal immigrants who have established themselves in this country and that he intends to arrest local and state officials who interfere with the efforts.
A clear strategy is emerging on the part of those state and local officials who have vowed to coordinate with the illegal and undocumented aliens themselves to prevent the effectuation of the Trump/Homan plan. In this way, the California state government’s resistance to the Second Trump Administration stands in 180-degree polar opposition to the welcoming being prepared for it by the state government in Texas.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who was a member of the Texas Supreme Court from 1996 until 2002, the Texas Attorney General from 2202 until 2015 and has been Texas Governor since 2015, two years before Trump became president, absolutely embraced Trump’s border policy throughout the president-elect’s first term and has been the Joseph Biden Administration’s primary nemesis with regard to its immigration policy, has signaled its intent to have his state fully cooperate and integrate with the immigration and border policies to be adopted by the federal government as of noon on January 20, 2025. Indeed, despite federal regulations and laws which hold that the states and Texas in particular do not have constitutional authority to enact or enforce immigration law, under Abbott Texas has fashioned for itself legislative and administrative tools to carry out border restrictions and immigration control which mimic that of the federal government, which, it is several high-ranking Texas officials’ contention, the Biden Administration has not exercised. This included Operation Lone Star, an $11 billion effort enforce a strict immigration policy including interdicting border crossers. Operation Lone Star has included busing migrants to distant states and targeting for prosecution or disincorporation organizations advocating on their behalf.
It is anticipated that upon Trump reassumming the presidency, Texas policy will dovetail with what is to become federal policy, rendering immigration restrictions in that area of the country very effective. Texas will loan to the federal government, at virtually no charge, many of its social and law enforcement facilities and institutions to be put to use in the field of immigration enforcement.
California, on the other hand, is now engaged in ensuring that its facilities and institutions will not be commandeered by the federal government for use as tools in curbing illegal immigration.
Even before all of the return were in on election night, the writing was on the wall and many California politicians, sensing a second Donald Trump presidency was in the offing, were formulating a response to the anticipated intensification of the effort to curtail immigration into California from Mexico. To some, what was being said sounded like the State of California was heading toward a policy of encouraging or being even more intensely supportive of illegal immigration into California than before. California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas on election night said, unabashedly, “What you can expect is California will do everything we can to protect America from Donald Trump.”
While some see what many of California’s elected officials plan on doing as being semi-treasonous and either potentially or actually illegal, those engaged in planning for what is to take place do not see it that way, rather perceiving what they are doing as finessing the system, testing the envelope of the legal maneuvering. California officials in the legislature and members of municipal legislative/administrative bodies are laying down the groundwork for court challenges to the federal government’s regulatory authority from every conceivable angle when it comes to immigration. Even in those cases where the anticipated outcome is that the Trump Administration will in the end prevail, the game plan is to keep the issues tied up in court for as long as possible and without any rulings that can be interpreted as case law being handed down for as long as possible, while court stays on the enforcement action that the administration wants to engage in remain in place.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has gone on record as saying, with regard to the Trump Administration’s efforts to initiate Project 2025, that there will be no grounds to resist “If Mr. Trump comes into office and follows the law. But if he violates the law, as he has said he would, we will be prepared and will be all over that. We have rehearsed exactly what we will do and have determined ahead of time and down to the last detail of what we will do and what court and where we will make our filings.”
President Trump has made clear that if California defies him, he will withhold federal funding, use federal llaw enforcement agents to supersede local authority and deport any foreigners who act in league with the state and local officials who don’t cooperate. In the event that the foreign countries where he intends to deport the illegal aliens the agents with the Department of Immigration and Naturalization have taken into custody refuse to accept their expatriots, he will play hardball with them.
If countries like Mexico or Guatemala or Columbia refuse to accept Mexican or Guatemalan or Colombian deportees, Donald Trump has said he will impose tariffs on those countries or withhold various or all types of visas for those countries’ citizens.
Meanwhile, Governor Gavin Newsom, perhaps having convinced himself that in another four years the pendulum will have pivoted back toward liberalism such that a majority of the country will have come to no longer believe that reducing unbridled immigration is no longer a desirable goal, will once again embrace him as a forward-looking progressive, indeed one they will send, as a result of the November 2028 presidential election into his residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on the evening of November 20, 2029.
Newsom’s dream – what many Republicans believe is his delusion – is to establish California as the anti-Trump state alternative within the United States, one that will take on momentum and grow to create a national majority of Democrats.
In doing so, Newsom is desperately seeking to build a rapport with CHIRLA — the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles.
In addition to programs which aim at educating those in the country illegally – most particularly California, and even more particularly still. Southern California that they have “rights” under the U.S. Constitution which will allow them to block, or at least slow, the effort to deport them.
At the same time, those on the other side of the divide – Donald Trump supporters and their like – who hold the upper hand politically at the national level if not in California, maintain that those undocumented citizens from countries outside the United States have no such constitutional rights, as they are not U.S. citizens.
Both sides are looking toward a test of which side is correct playing out in court somewhere in California, and soon.
In this way, Newsom, who ethnically is decidedly not Hispanic, intends to ally himself even more fervently with the state’s Latinos and cement his legacy as a “non-Latino Latino” in a way that will last beyond his leaving office as governor at the end of 2026. Simultaneously, Newsom is seeking to place his pro-immigration stance and defending against mass deportations into the context of other so-called liberal initiatives, including standing for the perpetuation of lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual-queer rights, reversing global warming and climate change and supporting the reduction in the use of fossil fuels and promoting electric vehicles.
Whether that will give him enough momentum to move into a strong position as a presidential contender in 2028 is a dicey proposition, but one Newsom nevertheless seems determined to pursue.
Perhaps having convinced himself that in another four years the pendulum will have pivoted back toward liberalism such that a majority of the country will have come to believe that reducing unbridled immigration is no longer a desirable goal, Newsom will once again embrace him as a forward-looking progressive, indeed one who will succeed Donald Trump as America’s 47th president.