County to debate support for state legislation directed at masked and unidentifiable federal agents
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. – The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors announced Thursday that Supervisors will consider declaring official support for bills moving through the state legislature that would require law enforcement officials, including federal agents, to display organization identifications and ban the use of face coverings while conducting enforcement actions.
The decision will be made during the Board of Supervisors upcoming hearing on Aug. 26 at the Joseph Centeno Betteravia Government Administrations Building in Santa Maria stated the County of Santa Barbara in a press release Thursday.
The announcement comes after the county government's meeting in July where community members and elected leaders expressed frustration with expansive federal law enforcement actions in the area including a pair of simultaneous raids on cannabis farms in Camarillo and Carpinteria that resulted in the detention of 361 people and 14 children, the largest immigration enforcement action this year.
The status and location of those detained has not been confirmed or shared by federal authorities despite multiple requests for more information by Your News Channel.
"When families live in terror and fear, our entire community suffers," said Supervisor Laura Capps. "Santa
Barbara County has long been a place of resilience and compassion - a community rooted in dignity and
inclusion. The ICE raid we witnessed on July 10th was a stain on the history of our county, a painful
reminder of why we must remain vigilant in defending our values. Supporting these bills is a firm stand
for transparency and accountability from law enforcement. It is a clear statement that we stand with our
immigrant neighbors and will continue to fight for their safety, dignity, and right to thrive."
During the July 10 raid, a U.S. Citizen and Army veteran heading in for work as a security guard, George Retes, was taken into custody and detained for three nights in Los Angeles before being let go without charges and Jaime Garcia, a man working at Glass House Farms at the time, fell to his death.
"My uncle Jaime was just a hard-working, innocent farmer. He has his wife and daughter waiting for him. He was chased by ICE agents, and we were told he fell 30ft," wrote Garcia's family in a GoFundMe post. "He was his family's only provider. They took one of our family members. We need justice."
The two bills to be discussed SB 627 (Weiner and Arreguin), also known as the 'No Secret Police Act', and SB 805 (Pérez), also known as the 'No Vigilantes Act', will join other agenda items discussed in mid-July including:
- Approving $345,000 in funding for the Immigrant Legal Defense Center
- Requesting Information from the federal government about operations in the County
- Asking a representative on behalf of Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to attend a future Board of Supervisors meeting
"We are seeing more and more law enforcement officers, particularly at the federal level, covering their faces entirely, not identifying themselves at all and, at times, even wearing army fatigues where we can’t tell if these are law enforcement officers or a vigilante militia," explained State Senator Scott Wiener who is a coauthor of SB 627.
SB 627, if passed, would take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
"I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is," stated Todd Lyons, acting Director of ICE during a June press conference in Boston.
