Use Letterhead (if possible)
February 10, 2016
VIA FACSIMILE TO (916) 558-3160
The Honorable Edmund G. Brown Jr.
Governor, State of California
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Re: The TRUST Act (AB 4) – SUPPORT
Dear Governor Brown:
On behalf of [ORG], I write in strong support of the TRUST Act (AB 4-Ammiano), which will reform
California’s participation in the fundamentally flawed “Secure” Communities or S-Comm deportation
Program. This bill will advance public safety by rebuilding the trust that S-Comm has undermined between
immigrant communities and local police. The TRUST Act will also ease the unfair burden which the
program has saddled upon local governments.
S-Comm is a controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program which has undercut
community policing strategies. Since its implementation, S-Comm has led to the deportation of over 90,000
California residents as of December 2012 - more than any other state. Contrary to this program’s stated goal
of prioritizing serious felony offenses, the vast majority of those deported, about 69%, are categorized by
ICE as either “non-criminals” or individuals with lesser offenses, including traffic violations. Even U.S.
citizens, survivors of domestic violence, and immigrants arrested only for selling street food without a permit
have been unfairly detained due to S-Comm.1
Despite changes announced to the program, a report from University of California Irvine’s Immigrant Rights
Clinic found that “ICE’s failure to adhere to its own stated priorities is a feature rather than a reparable flaw”
of S-Comm.” 2 Thus, immigrant victims and witnesses of crime may be afraid to come forward to cooperate
with law enforcement for fear that they could be detained for deportation by ICE.
The TRUST Act will set reasonable limits for local responses to ICE’s burdensome
“detainer” requests, the linchpin of the failed S-Comm program. These holds are voluntary under federal
regulations and federal statute.2 Currently, local jails bear the brunt of the costs of responding to these
requests. This includes the cost of tracking and responding to ICE detainers, and the additional time
community members are held beyond the point they would normally be released.
We believe California can do better. Thus, we respectfully urge you to sign AB 4 into law. Passage of this
bill would go a long way toward restoring trust between local law enforcement and the diverse immigrant
communities we serve.
Sincerely,
[NAME, TITLE]
CC: Angela Chan, Asian Law Caucus, email at angelac@asianlawcaucus.org or FAX at 415.896.1702
See U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Secure Communities IDENT/IAFIS Interoperability Monthly Statistics October 27, 2008
through December 31, 2012, http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/sc-stats/nationwide_interop_stats-fy2013-to-date.pdf.
2 See, e.g., http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/15/local/la-me-1215-detained-citizens-20111214; and “Secure Communities by the
Numbers,” Oct. 2011, by UC Berkeley’s Warren Institute, which estimated that 3,600 US Citizens have been arrested by ICE through S-Comm.
2 The federal regulation applying to immigration detainers states clearly in section (a), entitled “detainers in general” that “[t]he detainer is a
request.” 8 C.F.R. § 287.7(a); see also id. (describing a detainer as a means to “advise another law enforcement agency” of ICE’s interest in a
person in their custody). The federal statutory provisions that federal regulation §287.7 purports to implement do not authorize ICE to
mandate compliance with detainers. Instead, the statutes authorize ICE to support and cooperate with those localities that chose to
participate in immigration enforcement. See 8 U.S.C. §1103(a)
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