As President Donald Trump continues his crackdown on immigrants living in the country illegally — including pushing large-scale enforcements in Democratic-controlled cities like Los Angeles and Chicago — Santa Clara County leaders want the county to expand its role in fighting back.
The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a referral on Tuesday from Supervisors Sylvia Arenas and Betty Duong to craft a plan on how the county can coordinate a regional response to immigration enforcement activities and maximize the $13 million already allocated by the county, the city of San Jose and other organizations to support immigrant communities.
Santa Clara County has the largest share of immigrant residents of California’s 58 counties — more than 40% of its residents were born outside of the United States. One in five of immigrant residents also are undocumented, according to county officials.
“(The Trump Administration) is creating a humanitarian crisis right here at home where children are afraid to go to school, parents are afraid to go to work and families are pushed into hiding,” Duong said. “It is our responsibility as public servants to ensure the safety of everyone in our community, no matter what their status, no matter who they are.”
Arenas and Duong expect the work to be “cost-neutral” — leveraging the $11 million the county has allocated since Trump was elected to a second term in November — while potentially temporarily shifting staff to work on the plan.
“What this is actually doing is offering the Board an opportunity to shape the details of the work plan so that you can see what the objectives are, what the goals, what the activities are that are going to make this work effective and efficient,” Arenas said. “The money is already there. We have already approved it.”
While details of the plan are pending, Arenas and Duong requested that the Sheriff’s Office work with local law enforcement agencies to ensure everyone is complying with “sanctuary” jurisdiction policies that prevent using local resources to aid in federal immigration enforcement.
Santa Clara County allocates $6 million annually through its Office of Immigrant Relations to support immigration legal services. But in December 2024, supervisors upped that investment, shifting $5 million out of a reserve fund for actions like legal support to prevent family separation, rapid response efforts and “know your rights” education.
The county is the main funder of the local Rapid Response Network. In June, as federal authorities started carrying out arrests at immigration courts in San Francisco and Concord, the network’s hotline saw a surge of calls reporting possible Immigration and Customs Enforcement sightings.
The proposed plan received praise from advocates during Tuesday’s board meeting.
Dilza Gonzalez, the director of organizing for Sacred Heart Community Service, urged the board to “protect urgent community needs.”
“Right now the premise of protection against unreasonable searches and equal protection clause under the 4th and 14th amendments have been stripped away from people who don’t look white or don’t speak perfect English regardless of your immigration or legal status,” she said. “Our communities are being unfairly targeted, and it is our shared responsibility to step up and defend their rights.”
But several residents criticized the county for trying to interfere with federal immigration activity.
One woman, who identified herself only as Alice, questioned why the county wasn’t advising individuals living here illegally to self-deport. As part of its broader immigration enforcement efforts, the Trump administration has tried to persuade undocumented individuals to self-deport by offering them a $1,000 stipend.
“Are you really trying to help illegals or are you trying to exploit them?” Alice told the Board of Supervisors. “It’s not compassionate but cruel to mislead them into thinking you have legal authority to defend them when in fact you don’t.”
While Trump has sent the National Guard into other Democratic-controlled locales like Los Angeles and Washington D.C. as part of his crackdown on both immigrants living in the country illegally and crime, and made threats to other blue cities like Oakland, Santa Clara County has so far managed to stay out of the president’s crosshairs.
Last month, the Justice Department published a list of cities, counties and states that it identified as “sanctuary” jurisdictions. While Santa Clara County has had the aforementioned policy on the books since 2011, San Diego County, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Berkeley were the only California locales to make the list.
“Sanctuary policies impede law enforcement and put American citizens at risk by design,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a recent news release. “The Department of Justice will continue bringing litigation against sanctuary jurisdictions and work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to eradicate these harmful policies around the country.”
With other cities in the spotlight of the Trump administration, Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga asked that the county ensures they “are not taking any strategies that jeopardize our immigrant residents through drawing federal scrutiny.”
“That’s my concern,” she said. “I don’t want a bigger bullseye on our back rather than protecting our community.”
