A problematic clause in a California law is targeting immigrants for deportation

It’s a country he hasn’t seen since he was 4, when his family fled the Khmer Rouge genocide and landed in California. A tough upbringing led to You killing someone when he was 20, and he served 26 years in San Quentin State Prison. He earned parole in January after making amends for his crime and living the life of a model prisoner. But rather than be released to his family, he was instead transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

SB54, the California Values Act, seriously limits how state and local law enforcement agents can work with ICE. The bill was the result of decades of work from advocates, but got a much-needed push when then-president Donald Trump instituted hundreds of changes to the country’s immigration policy — ranging from travel bans to the separation of migrant children from their parents. As photos emerged of children in cages, democratic strongholds sought to set themselves apart.

SB54 worked — to an extent. A study showed a 40% decrease in people being turned over to ICE by local law enforcement immediately after SB54 was passed in 2018.

But You is one of many impacted by a clause in the policy that allows state agencies to notify ICE when immigrants convicted of specific felonies are exiting incarceration. As a consequence, immigrants convicted of felony manslaughter, for example, are treated differently from those born in the United States. Even if a parole board rules they have served their time and are fit for reentry into society, they may not be given the chance.

Subsequently, California still turns over an estimated 3,000 people to ICE each year.

AB937, the Vision Act, seeks to fix that. It’s a more sweeping statement than SB54 — that California cannot use state resources and personnel to assist ICE with any immigration enforcement, detention or deportation.

AB937 cleared the Assembly and is getting a last-minute push to be heard by the Senate before the Legislature’s Aug. 31 deadline to pass bills this year. If that effort succeeds, it will then have to get past Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has a dubious history on immigration: 167 youth were transferred ICE due to policies he supported while mayor of San Francisco. Many of them were charged with a crime, but not convicted; in one case, a 13-year-old boy’s family was threatened with deportation after he punched another teenager and stole 46 cents.

Angela Chan of the San Francisco Public Defender’s office, who has worked on immigrant rights issues for years, says the need for AB937 is timelier than ever. Criminal justice reforms passed by voters and the California Legislature in recent years have increased the number of people eligible for parole board hearings. And due to a perfect storm of war, migration, poverty and politics, this is affecting Southeast Asian Americans at a particularly high rate.

“These are people who’ve been in this country for a very long time, many who came here as refugees from Cambodia or Laos or Vietnam, who’ve survived a lot of trauma themselves and who have had to survive the conditions of poverty,” Chan says.

You is one of those impacted.

So is Salesh “Sal” Prasad, 50, who was born in Fiji, but has lived in the United States since he was 6. After a childhood of abuse and neglect, he killed someone at age 22. He was convicted of second-degree murder and served 27 years before earning parole a year ago. He was immediately transferred to ICE.

Prasad is gay and now faces deportation to a country a history of anti-LGBTQ+ violence. Naturally, he is terrified.

As of Tuesday, there were 19 votes in the state Senate for AB937; 21 are needed. But lobbying from law enforcement is stymieing commitment from state senators.

This opposition is darkly ironic. By supporting the narrative that immigrants convicted of violent crimes deserve to be deported, the same system that helps determine that parolees don’t present “an unreasonable risk of danger to society,” a requirement for parole, is bringing into question the rehabilitative capabilities of incarceration.

Currently, there are half a dozen counties in California, including San Francisco, that have passed sanctuary laws to prevent local law enforcement agencies from conducting these sorts of transfers. Other states, like Illinois, have passed sweeping laws like AB937. It’s time California caught up. Immigrants are not less capable of rehabilitation, or of atoning for their crimes, than people born in this country.