March 3, 2026
Dear Mayor Patino and City Council Members,
An Immigration Ad Hoc Committee likely will have a variety of topics and policies to discuss, but I would ask you to set as a ground rule that the City of Santa Maria will not move beyond the state-mandated non-enforcement of federal immigration law to cross the line to defy federal law and agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Attempting to do so would be illegal and futile.
ICE agents enforce laws passed under the Constitution of the United States, and you have sworn to uphold that Constitution. In addition, two U.S. Supreme Court decisions—interestingly, both of them involving California--have held that states (and thereby local governments) cannot interfere with employees of the federal government carrying out their assigned duties.
The strident criticism and unhinged slander of ICE agents that has been circulating nationally lacks foundation. ICE agents do not kidnap people, nor do ICE agents arrest whoever they decide they would like to.
Although ICE agents can arrest for probable cause anyone in the country illegally, the agency is prioritizing arrest of criminal illegal aliens, lawbreakers who could be arrested regardless of their immigration status.
In the absence of warrants, an ICE agent cannot go beyond a casual conversation or stop someone to ask about the person’s immigration status unless the agent has a “reasonable suspicion” (which has a legal meaning) that the person is illegally in the country.
ICE agents can only arrest someone for immigration violations with “probable cause.” That is usually established by a warrant signed by an authorized immigration official or an immigration judge on the basis of probable cause. An ICE agent can make a warrantless arrest only if he himself has probable cause to know the subject is violating the law and also is likely to abscond before reporting to court.
Besides being illegal, interfering with ICE agents will be futile. The recent sad example of Minneapolis showed that harassment and even mounting violence will not stop ICE agents from doing their job. Instead, as arrests for immigration violations continued, other arrests were made for criminal interference, and violence caused injuries and deaths.
If you decide to set up a committee on immigration, I urge you to set down clearly as a principle for it that the City of Santa Maria will not countenance defiance of or interference with ICE agents by city employees or by citizens.
Yours sincerely,
Hunter Jameson
Santa Maria, California