Sacramento's city government and its public school district agreed on Friday to build a shared alert system for federal immigration enforcement activity near schools, after a string of arrests near campuses left parents frightened and district leaders complaining they were learning about operations from social media instead of from the city.
Mayor Kevin McCarty laid out the plan at a news conference at City Hall on Friday, November 13, after meeting with four leaders of the Sacramento City Unified School District. McCarty said the city and the district are “united in vehement opposition” to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity around Sacramento schools, Abridged, the PBS KVIE news service in Sacramento, reported.
Source: Abridged (PBS KVIE), Sacramento
Who sat at the table
The district delegation that pressed the city for a stronger stance included Superintendent Cancy McArn and board trustees Jasjit Singh, April Ibarra and Chinua Rhodes. Councilmember Mai Vang said the two institutions agreed to open stronger lines of communication directly between the city manager and the school superintendent whenever immigration enforcement is under way in the city.
“We fall short of being a sanctuary city when we're not collaborating,” Vang said. McCarty said he wants the city and the district to share information about ICE activity through official government-to-government channels rather than depending on social media posts. “The more we can have official government-to-government communication, the more we can make us safer,” the mayor said. Trustee Jasjit Singh added: “The biggest thing we're walking away with is an intention to work together.”
How the dispute built up
School leaders say they have seen an uptick in federal immigration agents and possible arrests near Sacramento schools in recent weeks. On October 27, the district released a video urging parents to make sure the “safest person” available handles school pick-ups and drop-offs. “If you are undocumented, you are at risk,” Singh said at the time.
Earlier this week, the father of an Earl Warren Elementary student was arrested three blocks from the school, The Sacramento Bee reported. About two weeks ago, a man who was following an ICE vehicle to observe it was pulled over by a Sacramento police officer near Ethel Phillips Elementary, according to Fox40. That stop prompted City Manager Maraskeshia Smith to issue a memo directing Sacramento police officers not to act as a “security detail” for ICE.
Smith's memo states that “the mere presence of individuals observing federal agents, even when those agents find the attention unwelcome or uncomfortable, does not establish a public safety emergency or justify a police response,” and that Sacramento police may respond only to a “legitimate emergency involving ICE personnel,” limited to addressing the specific threat or emergency.
Pressure from 29 community groups
The City Hall meeting came a day after a coalition of 29 activist organizations told the city on Thursday that Sacramento's current sanctuary-city policies were only “empty statements.” The coalition is calling on the city to end its contracts for automated licence-plate readers, saying the personal data they collect has been accessed by the federal government. The groups also accused the Sacramento Police Department of “citing and brutalizing” protesters outside the John Moss Federal Building downtown, which houses local ICE offices and the immigration court and has been a frequent protest site during the second Trump administration.
A Safe Haven district since 2017
Sacramento City Unified has called itself a Safe Haven school district since 2017. On Tuesday, November 10, members of its board of education held a media availability at the Serna Center, 5735 47th Avenue, to reaffirm that commitment in the face of enhanced immigration enforcement activity that the district said has caused fear and panic in the Sacramento community, according to the district's own press release.
Source: Sacramento City Unified School District press release
Sacramento and the wider Central Valley are home to one of the largest Punjabi communities in the United States, and trustee Jasjit Singh is one of the district's public faces on this issue. For immigrant parents — including Punjabi families with mixed-status households — the new city-to-district alert line is meant to replace rumour with verified word from City Hall and the superintendent's office when agents are seen near a school.
What happens next
No formal written protocol was published on Friday; what the two sides announced was an agreement to communicate directly and quickly, city manager to superintendent, when ICE activity is reported. District families should watch for the district's own family-resource notices, and the coalition of 29 groups is expected to keep pressing the City Council on the licence-plate-reader contracts and on turning Friday's intention into a written, public policy.