Sigh. I had a feeling this was coming.

As almost all of you are likely aware, Los Angeles has been struggling these past few days with enforcement actions from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which have in turned sparked protests, counter-protests, more police presence, more protests, protests-turned-into-violent-mobs, looting, and then, finally, the calling up of the National Guard and the deployment of a few hundred Marines from Camp Pendleton.

Concerningly, this activity seems to be bleeding into Orange County. Last evening there was a confrontation between Federal officers (of some kind) and protesters at the Santa Ana Federal Building. That protest ultimately turned violent, with protesters lobbing fireworks and bottles at ICE, Homeland Security and Santa Ana Police Department officers. An unlawful assembly was declared and the protesters were dispersed. Now, as of last morning, the National Guard has bene stationed in Santa Ana as well.

I’m not going to pretend to be able to cover all of that.

But what I can tell you is that I am very, very concerned this issue has the potential to really rip the Costa Mesa political scene apart locally.

On the one hand, you have some local leaders, activists and residents that are making noises on social media signaling that they are very, very concerned about Trump Administration’s approach to immigration enforcement. So concerned, in fact, that some of them are referring residents to local nonprofits that identify ICE activity and publicize its location on social media. There are also calls to fund immigrant defense funds and other programs intended to aid individuals and families fearing immigration enforcement. Without naming names, I would describe the tone and energy as something akin to the response to a natural disaster.

On the other hand you have, well, the entire Trump Administration, which has taken a breathtakingly aggressive position on this issue. And I would hazard to bet that a fair number of Costa Mesa residents, including some of its elected and appointed leadership, are sympathetic at least to the President’s position.

A Constitution at odds with itself on immigration

Unfortunately, it’s not just the leadership that is likely split on this issue. The law is, too.

At first blush the authority of ICE to enforce immigration law seems pretty clear cut. Article I of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to “establish a uniform rule of naturalization,” which courts have used to justify the federal government pretty much occupying the field of immigration regulation and enforcement.

But… who, exactly, does that enforcement? The United States is a vast country of more than 300 million people. ICE doesn’t have the capacity to be actively combing through every community hunting for illegal immigrants. So at times, the federal government has tried to leverage state and local resources — particularly highway patrols and local law enforcement agencies — to assist it in immigration enforcement efforts.

However, doing so interferes with these agencies’ chain of command and forces them to spend resources on enforcement actions that they didn’t anticipate. The Tenth Amendment has long been held to bar the Federal government from ordering State and local governments to enforce federal law. Some states and jurisdictions, including California and many of its cities, have exploited this protection to create so-called “Sanctuary State” laws in order to minimize their cooperation with Federal immigration enforcement. Under these laws, local law enforcement agencies can’t hinder ICE agents from enforcing federal immigration laws, but they can’t help ICE enforce those laws, either.

So in California, local law enforcement agencies find themselves stuck between two seemingly immovable mandates: Article I of the Constitution, which states that the Federal government calls the shots with respect to immigration policy, and the retained sovereignty of the State of California under the Tenth Amendment of that same Constitution, which empowers California to order those local agencies to avoid rendering aid to ICE and other federal immigration enforcement efforts.

And cities and counties aren’t in a position to change or challenge either policy.

Aren’t you glad you aren’t in charge? 😅

What policies might be on tap locally?

Which brings us to what the City of Costa Mesa might actually do in this scenario. Likely sensing the palpable panic in the public at the moment, Mayor John Stephens and Mayor Pro Tem Manuel Chavez put out a rare joint statement that defended peaceful protests, promised enforcement for lawbreakers and otherwise affirmed Costa Mesa’s non-interference stance with respect to federal immigration enforcement.

That seems like a good start. While there are certainly residents that want Costa Mesa to firmly side with either the protesters or the Federal government, public safety likely demands prioritizing practicalities over politics. If Costa Mesa tries to defy the Feds and engage in some kind of resistance, it will almost certainly be singled out for national retribution and may lose precious funding and Federal support. On the other hand, if Costa Mesa throws its weight behind ICE, it risks driving a wedge between the Costa Mesa Police Department (CMPD) and the residents that most need its day-to-day policing efforts.

But I doubt a fairly down-the-middle statement like the one released will satisfy either side. So might be next? While none of these options have been discussed publicly in the city to my knowledge, here are some policies other jurisdictions are considering:

Will there be a call for the CMPD to disclose ICE contacts?

Three weeks ago the Santa Ana City Council considered an unusual item: a proposal to publicly disclose all courtesy calls between the Santa Ana Police Department and federal immigration enforcement agencies two days after such calls occurred.

At the time that moved seemed a bit premature. The Trump Administration was still focused — at least in public — on serving valid warrants and identifying individuals who had been arrested or convicted of crimes that might also be eligible for deportation. So poking the bear, so the speak, with a disclosure ordinance seemed like a bad idea.

But right around the same time that approach seemed to change. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for homeland security matters, held a meeting at the White House and vented his frustration that the current approach wasn’t seeing sufficient results in terms of arrests and deportations. That meeting seemed to trigger a sea change at the Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security officials urged ICE agents to increase arrest numbers and “turn up the creative knob up to 11 and push the envelope” to do so. One such “creative” approach was to pursue collateral arrests, meaning rounding up anyone found near someone with a valid order for removal, interrogating them, and investigating them for potential removal proceedings. All without warrants.

This of course means that pretty much all public places might be subject to a broadly targeted ICE raid. So I expect the disclosure ordinance to urgently resurface in Santa Ana, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it made an appearance in Costa Mesa as well.

What about funding legal defense funds?

Another idea floating around other cities is the creation of legal defense funds that empower nonprofit organizations to obtain representation for residents that face removal proceedings.

While the City has used federal ARPA funds in the past to secure some legal representation for renters facing no-fault evictions, setting up this kind of immigration defense fund would be without precedent in the city. I also don’t think it’s fiscally realistic (or responsible) given the tight budget that just passed last week. But keep an eye on this proposal. If the enforcement battle drags out, I could see the State or the counties considering something like this.

What about inviting ICE back into the jails?

What if city policy goes the opposite direction, though? This is a touchy one because, as I mentioned in my “sticky wicket” piece, placing ICE in Costa Mesa’s jails harkens back to a very difficult and tumultuous time in Costa Mesa politics [Update 6/16/25: the Daily Pilot has since published a good summary of that former policy]. Could that policy really return?

Maybe… if it were the least bad option available. I could see some jurisdictions going that way if they thought that doing so might give the city or county more leverage over how immigration laws are enforced more broadly in the city, so as to avoid the extreme disruption of open-ended ICE raids.

However, I don’t think a city can really obtain any meaningful “leverage” with the Trump Administration. Hell, Huntington Beach went full boot-licker — including putting a bust of Donald Trump on the City Council dais like a Roman emperor! — and it still ended up on a list of “sanctuary” jurisdictions, likely out of pure federal negligence.

So the only way I see Costa Mesa going that way is if the City Council and the CMPD substantively believe in that policy. Which, based on our current personnel, seems unlikely to me. But hey, these guys are full of surprises, so what do I know.

What will the city do if ICE asks for help?

This is where things could get even trickier: what if Costa Mesa’s hand is forced, and the federal government requests aid in federal immigration enforcement?

There are a couple of ways that could happen. One would be a request to either render aid or provide protection for ICE officials in the process of carrying out their duties. That seems to be the issue facing the Los Angeles Police Department. Caught between perhaps personal and leadership desires to defend ICE from aggressive protesters and State and local law prohibiting them from doing so, the LAPD seems to be making no one happy. Their “ineffectiveness” has been used by the Trump Administration to justify sending in National Guard and even the Marines, while their “aggressiveness” is being scrutinized in LA City Hall for illegally using city resources to enforce federal immigration law.

Seems like a bad place to be.

Another uncomfortable scenario is if the federal government requests to use city facilities to house detainees. The City of Glendale, for instance, just ended a contract with the federal government to do just that, citing the recent unrest as the motivation for the change.

Given the extremely tenuous legal position faced by law enforcement officers with respect to immigration enforcement, I would think signing onto such a contract would be a very questionable idea. That would turn the Costa Mesa jail into a de facto federal facility. The CMPD, in turn, would be called on to secure that facility. So even if the federal government offers fabulous terms, I would be wary of this option.

All in all, I can’t help but shake a foreboding feeling about this issue. I expect it to get worse as the month progresses. I hope I’m wrong, though.