This initiative is about protecting everyone's rights - not just the undocumented

Last year, the United States collected almost 300 billion dollars from Californians. We pay this money with the expectation that the federal government uses it to carry out their federal responsibilities – among which are handling immigration and providing border security. They do not. Their immigration laws are obsolete, their immigration system is difficult to navigate and they don't even know who is in the country at any given time.

Much of the debate over illegal immigration is narrowly focused on our porous southern border but just as many of the undocumented who live in this country initially came here legally on a visa – another example of the failed immigration system provided by the federal government and paid for by our tax dollars. We pay taxes and yet the federal government year after year fails to do what is expected of them. Today, twelve million have settled in the United States outside our immigration system – three million of which have chosen California as their home. As a result, Californians are asked to divert funds from our state budget – money that should be going to local law enforcement, to education, to infrastructure, to health care – you name it – to help the federal government detain and deport criminal foreign nationals.

We already pay hundreds of billions of dollars every year for Washington to do this. If they used our money wisely we could have secure borders and a modern, streamlined immigration system with limited bureaucracy – all of which would render illegal immigration an issue of the past. Why should California's city, county or state funds make up for these federal shortcomings? Instead we should demand more accountability and that's what the California Resident Deportation Ban does – by denying city, county and state funds and resources to federal immigration enforcement activities.

But let's abandon these lofty ideas of an accountable federal government. That's just not realistic in the world we're living in today. It's great to talk about what if but more practical to talk about what is. And what is at stake here is California tax dollars taken away from our police, our schools, our roads and our hospitals to be awarded as damages in civil rights lawsuits filed against our counties for 4th Amendment violations.

Such is the case of Miranda-Olivares v. Clackamas County in neighboring Oregon. Earlier this year, a United States District Court ruled that Clackamas County, Oregon violated the 4th Amendment by honoring a federal detainer request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, and the county was found liable for damages. Similarly, a United States District Court in Rhode Island ruled about the same time this year in Morales v. Chadbourne that state law enforcement authorities violated the 4th Amendment by detaining a woman solely in order to comply with a federal detainer request. The court ruled that investigation into one's immigration status is not enough to justify warrantless imprisonment.

The California Resident Deportation Ban simply protects all 58 California counties from similar lawsuits for which there is already federal precedent. As for Morales – detained by ICE agents once in 2004 and again in 2009 – a naturalized U.S. citizen all along. The California Resident Deportation Ban protects all Californians – citizens and the undocumented – from being detained in violation of the 4th Amendment while ICE investigates immigration status. Morales was detained merely because she was born in another county and had a Hispanic family name. How many legal California residents were born in another country? How many legal California residents are Hispanic?

In addition to awarding the plaintiff damages, the Court in Miranda also ruled that federal detainer requests are just that – requests – and local law enforcement is not required to comply. After all, the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the federal government may not commandeer local law enforcement to enforce federal law. In this way, the California Resident Deportation Ban asserts California's rights under the 10th Amendment. For these reasons – and as a direct result of these cases – a surprising number of counties across the country – and specifically across California – have stopped complying with federal detainer requests.

California is unique in the United States for many reasons and immigration is no exception. As previously mentioned, about 3 million undocumented immigrants have chosen to build their lives in California. Can you really blame them? California is a beautiful and wonderful place for which there is so much to be proud. And these people are just as much a part of California as those of us with social security numbers and passports. These people are part of our communities, they are family members of U.S. citizens, they make up 10% of our workforce and contribute 130 billion dollars annually to our economy – which is now the 8th largest in the world. In fact, California owes its impressive ranking, in part, to our undocumented population. The difference between California ranking 8th and falling out of the top ten global economies is close to that 130 billion dollars they annually contribute to our Gross Domestic Product.

Having said that, Sovereign California acknowledges the right of a sovereign State such as the United States of America to remove from within its borders foreign nationals threatening domestic tranquility. That is why the California Resident Deportation Ban does not shield any undocumented immigrant from federal deportation. Instead, in summary, it shields tax-paying Californians from paying double for a federal service already paid for and requires more accountability with our federal taxes, it shields state tax dollars from being awarded as damages in civil rights lawsuits, and it shields all Californians from being detained against their will without due process of law while federal authorities determine their immigration status.

We can only hope that federal politicians modernize our immigration system and secure our borders so that the deportation of criminal undocumented immigrants is no longer an issue that demands our attention. Until then, Sovereign California says no to California city, county or state funds or resources being used to detain and deport a resident of our great state and that is why we are behind this important initiative. I encourage all Californians regardless of ideology, to visit us on the web at SovereignCA.org and to join our campaign which has just only begun.