Item 21 - Assembly Bill 937 (the “VISION Act”)

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AB 937 Page 10 Trump. The Biden administration has admitted only 2,050 refugees at the halfway point of this fiscal year, according to the humanitarian nonprofit organization, despite President Biden’s promises to reverse Trump-era immigration policies, dramatically raise the cap on refugee settlements and respond to what his officials have called “unforeseen and urgent situations,” the IRC report noted. (Rescue,org, “More of the same: Biden to admit fewer refugees than any president in U.S. history,” (April 11, 2021), available at https://www.rescue.org/report/more- same-biden-admit-fewer-refugees-any-president-us -history?edme=true.) This bill seeks to further expand and strengthen existing state laws that limit state involvement in immigration enforcement matters -- an appropriate exercise of state sovereignty. It is a fundamental principle of federalism that state governments —as partners with the federal government in the system of “dual sovereignty” created by the U.S. Constitution in order to “reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse” (Gregory v. Ashcroft (1991) 501 U.S. 452, 457-58) — may allocate their public resources as they see fit. As a result, states are allowed to prioritize the use of such resources on activities they believe serve the greatest need and further the most pressing interests of the state and its residents. (Ibid.) The federal government cannot force states to further its priorities in place of the state’s. In fact, case law makes it clear that the federal government can do neither of the following: (1) "commandeer" local officials by making them enforce federal laws (Printz v. U.S. (1997) 521 U.S. 898); or (2) force participation in a federal program by threatening to cut off federal funds, unless the funds are direct ly earmarked for that program. (NFIB v. Sibelius (2012) 132 S. Ct. 2566 [federal government cannot cut off all Medicaid funding for refusal to participate in Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act].) This bill seeks to limit the use of state resources to assist federal immigration authorities and activities, which is clearly an appropriate exercise of the state’s sovereignty. Although the bill seeks to expand and strengthen the Values Act, it does not do so by amending (or even explicitly repealing) the Values Act. Instead, it creates a new parallel statute that enacts more extensive restrictions on state and local agencies ass isting with federal immigration enforcement efforts and provides that these new restrictions apply “notwithstanding any contrary provisions in [the Values Act].” By failing to amend the Values Act, the bill arguably creates confusion about whether and to what extent the Values Act remains in effect. To the extent that this bill were to be enacted and thereby created a conflict with the Values Act, this bill should control given that it would be take precedence because a later-enacted statute enacted controls over an earlier-enacted one. (Cross v. Superior Court (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 305, 322.) Although this bill clearly would supersede the Values Act in the case of a direct conflict with that law, it is less clear how the two laws would interact in cases where they overlapped, but did not directly conflict. For example, as mentioned in the Assembly Public Safety Committee’s analysis of this bill, the Values Act requires the Attorney General to develop model policies for law enforcement agencies to limit their assistance with immigration enforcement to the fullest extent possible (consistent with federal and state law), including at public schools, public libraries, health facilities operated by the state, courthouses, division of Labor Standards Enforcement facilities, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the Division of Workers Compensation, and shelters. Under the Values Act, certain agencies were required to adopt those policies, and the other entities were encouraged to adopt them. But none of those policies would be consistent with this bill (and likely would, if fact, conflict with it). Furthermore, local public agencies would not be governed by the policie s, while law enforcement agencies in the same jurisdiction would be. If this bill were to become law, would local law enforcement agencies be following different policies than other local government agencies? Should those outdated model