Close up of Border Patrol at the San Diego and Mexico international border wall, May 12, 2023. (Photo: Aaron J. Hill/Shutterstock)
CA Democrats Want to Ban ICE Officers From Future State/Local Law Enforcement Jobs and Impose Selective Taxation
‘This bill is nothing more than an attempt to impose an ideological test for peace officers’
By Katy Grimes, March 30, 2026 3:15 pm
California Democrats are seeking to disqualify federal immigration and DHS agents from future employment as California state or local police, or sheriffs, and prevent them applying for tax breaks, because they oppose President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
This is the rock-bottom state of politics in California.
In response to the deaths of ICE protestors Renee Good and Alex Pretti, State Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Los Angeles) said she is “mobilizing a coalition of experts and legislators to fight back against the egregious and murderous overreach of this federal administration.”
Menjivar called Good’s and Pretti’s deaths at the hands of federal ICE agents “public executions.”
Here is Sen. Menjivar’s description of Senate Bill 938:
“The Community Trust Act to prevent former Department of Homeland Security agents from working in state and local law enforcement. The dehumanizing tactics of these immigration agents do not align with California and the community trust we are building with state and local law enforcement agencies. If enacted, SB 938 can help ensure that those responsible for our safety are committed to treating every neighbor across California’s diverse communities with dignity and respect.”
According to SB 938, the law would disqualify a person from being a peace officer if they were previously employed by a government entity that assists in immigration enforcement, after January 20, 2025 – the day of President Trump’s inauguration. The bill would authorize a person to apply for eligibility as a peace officer only after a minimum cooling-off period of 10 years from the date of separation from prior the federal immigration enforcement agency.
Democrats are targeting a class of federal employees, to ban them from future employment in law enforcement.
“Senate Bill 938 imposes an absurd blanket ban that disqualifies former ICE agents and others who ‘assisted’ ICE even if they disagreed with ICE policies that this bill targets,” San Luis Obispo District Attorney Dan Dow told the Globe. “This bill is nothing more than an attempt to impose an ideological test for peace officers but one that is based on work history status rather than evidence of any individual misconduct. California POST already requires a lengthy background investigation for all peace officer candidates that thoroughly screen for misconduct, bias, and ethical fitness—rendering this crude legislative presumption unnecessary. This is not a good-faith effort to ensure quality peace officers; it is a political statement opposing President Trump’s immigration enforcement.”
According to AB 1675, this bill, beginning on or after January 1, 2027, and before January 1, 2032, would enact the No Tax Breaks for ICE Contractors Act of 2026, which would deny all tax expenditures/tax breaks otherwise available under the Corporation Tax Law to any taxpayer that contracts with United States Department of Homeland Security.
This bill would include a change in state statute that would result in a taxpayer paying a higher tax within the meaning of Section 3 of Article XIII A of the California Constitution, and thus would require for passage the approval of 2/3 of the membership of each house of the Legislature.
Revenue “saved” (i.e., extra taxes collected) would flow into a new California Immigrant Resilience Fund, available for appropriation to provide legal services, removal defense, and other immigration-related aid to individuals in the federal immigration system. The bill claims this will prevent California from “subsidizing” companies “profiting off of ICE.”
It requires a two-thirds vote as a tax measure and takes effect immediately as a tax levy.
“Assembly Bill 1675 violates basic American principles of freedom by expanding government’s reach to impose ideologically driven, selective taxation that punishes corporations for lawful federal contracting—a blatant violation of equal protection that treats similarly situated businesses differently based solely on their customer identity,” DA Dow said. “This bill appears to be the Legislature’s version of ‘cancel culture.’ Instead of implementing viewpoint neutral tax policy, it weaponizes the tax code against disfavored federal contractors and sets a dangerous precedent that tomorrow’s Legislature could deny tax breaks to any corporation contracting with agencies it politically opposes.”
Lastly, Assembly Bill 1627, the “Misconduct Ends Law-Enforcement Trust Act” or “MELT ICE Act,” by Assemblywoman Anamarie Ávila Farias (D-Martinez), would permanently disqualify anyone who worked for ICE between September 1, 2025, and January 20, 2029, most of President Trump’s second term, from serving as a law enforcement officer in any state or local police agency, and from working as a teacher or administrator in K-12 public schools, community colleges, or University of California or California State University systems.
As District Attorney Dow said, these bills violate basic American principles of freedom, and impose ideological tests for peace officers, for jobs which already require lengthy background investigations. Expect legal challenges on all of these bills should they be signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom.
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
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