Community thrown out of Sacramento City Council meeting for expressing disapproval on sanctuary vote

Sacramento, CA – On June 23, community members and organizations pushing for real sanctuary city protections showed up to city hall to demand substantial improvements to the existing Sanctuary City Framework. They cited the current policy having no binding restrictions on Sacramento Police Department and ICE collaboration.

The Sacramento City Council held two votes. The first vote was on their “Community Immigration Action Plan” (CIAP), an outline for the city to follow when approaching their immigrant-related programs and policies; and the second vote was around transforming a recently developed resolution that restricts the city from allowing public property to be used by federal agencies, including ICE.

A previous agenda item had bled well beyond its intended ending time, causing the council chambers to delay opening up until 5:43 p.m., almost 45 minutes past the intended start time. By the time the CIAP and ordinance voting meeting was open, attendees were angry. Adding to constituents’ frustrations, the council decided during the meeting to combine both items into one, effectively cutting public comment in half, causing the community to scurry in order to condense their prepared comments.

The presentations were interrupted by regular outbursts from community members. There was verbal pushback to the claim that police were not colluding with DHS/ICE at the John Moss Federal Building. The mayor called for order several times throughout and warned attendees the council would meet in private if community members didn’t keep quiet during the presentations.

Speakers during the public comment section called the action plan “political theatre” and “performative.” AJ Albano, an organizer from Decarcerate Sacramento stated, “The only mention of enforcement in this document is the city excusing itself of liability from civil and criminal lawsuits, if the ordinance is not followed.” They went on to say, “While it is true we asked for an ordinance, it’s as if you wrote this, in such a way, to prove to us just how ineffective an ordinance could actually be.”

In addition, Councilmember Vang spoke to the city attorney and deputy chief of police about the data sharing practices and scope of Sac PD’s involvement at the federal building. The city attorney claimed that there was largely nothing to be done about federal agencies using Sacramento’s stored data because the existing policy does not permit it to share data in the first place, contradicting Sac PD’s voluntary participation in the Joint Federal Terrorism Task Force. This point was largely echoed by the deputy chief of police, despite the fact that, earlier that same day, a representative of the police department admitted that the department does, in fact, share data with ICE.

The council chambers was cleared when members of the audience erupted with their own personal experiences of police collusion at the federal building, even prompting some councilmembers to leave the chambers before order was called. Those speaking were quickly joined with a wave of disapproving exclamations directed towards the council for ignoring their constituents and voting on an unpopular version of the proposals in private.

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