Sonoma County, the wine-country county on California's North Bay, has formally released the emergency plan it will follow if federal immigration enforcement comes to its towns at scale. The Department of Emergency Management published the plan on Tuesday, November 11, 2026 — a document called an Operational Area Concept of Operations, or CONOPS — setting out, tier by tier, exactly how the county will respond from the first moment of a potential large-scale raid, according to KRCB News, the county's public-media newsroom.

Source: KRCB News / Northern California Public Media

The document, posted by the county, is unusual because it treats an immigration raid the way the department usually treats a wildfire or a flood: as an emergency to be managed in phases, with named responsibilities, activation triggers and a public-information role. Department of Emergency Management Director Jeff DuVall told KRCB News earlier this year why a department built for fires and flooding took on the task. “We as a department and we as a county push public information out during emergencies,” DuVall said. “This concept of operations for local immigration enforcement impact is no different.”

What the plan says the county cannot do

The plan is blunt about the county's legal limits. County officials cannot interfere with federal operations, and the county will not broadcast information about immigration enforcement actions taking place inside the county, KRCB reported. That means residents should not expect the county to announce where agents are operating or to warn neighbourhoods in real time — the document rules that out in advance, so no one mistakes silence for a promise the county never made.

What the county says it will do

Within those limits, the plan commits the county to a support role. The county will share resources with affected communities, monitor social media for misinformation spreading during an operation, and may activate its emergency operations capacity — including considering opening its Department Operations Center — if certain activation triggers set out in the document are met. The document also plans for the public reaction: it assesses the likelihood of pushback around immigration and ICE actions and plans around the possibility that pushback leads to large demonstrations.

DuVall said the department remains committed to helping local immigrant communities navigate the impact of any operation. “We have programs and resources available and we are prepared and ready to scale up,” he told KRCB. “We are committed to providing our services to our community especially in their time of need.”

The support network the plan plugs into

The CONOPS does not stand alone. Sonoma County's own Support for Immigrant Communities page directs residents to legal-services and family-support providers, including the Secure Families Collaborative, reachable at 707-856-4988, and the North Bay Rapid Response Network hotline at 707-800-4544, as well as 2-1-1 for local services. The county page also points residents to the California Attorney General's form for reporting potentially unlawful activity by federal agents, and to pro-bono removal-defence help, including the University of San Francisco School of Law immigration clinic for Sonoma County residents.

Source: County of Sonoma — Support for Immigrant Communities

The county has been rehearsing this posture for more than a year. In an earlier county update, Sonoma County said it was monitoring reports of potential federal immigration enforcement in the Bay Area and coordinating with local partners, and that it had activated its Department of Emergency Management, its safety-net departments and the Sheriff's Office to prepare for local impacts. County agencies said they were working with community organisations so families affected by immigration actions could be assisted — including caring for children whose parents may be taken into custody. The Board of Supervisors reaffirmed its commitment to protecting civil rights and to complying with the state laws that limit local involvement in federal immigration enforcement.

Why Sonoma, and why now

Sonoma County sits along the Highway 101 corridor north of San Francisco, and its vineyards, dairies, kitchens and hotels run on immigrant labour. Federal enforcement operations elsewhere in California this year — and reports last autumn of a planned federal deployment to the Bay Area — pushed North Bay counties to write down, before anything happens, what their role would be. In a message to residents during that earlier Bay Area alert, county leaders said the Sheriff had not been notified by the Department of Homeland Security of enforcement actions targeting Sonoma County, and that the county executive was coordinating across departments so support for immigrant families — including immediate care and case management for children separated from a parent — would be ready if it was ever needed.

For Punjabi and other South Asian families in the North Bay — in farm work, dairy, trucking along the 101 corridor and small businesses — the practical value of the document is that it is public and specific. It names the hotlines, states plainly that the county will not be a source of raid locations, and shows which county door opens first if a large operation begins: the Department of Emergency Management, not a rumour chain.

What happens next

No federal immigration operation in Sonoma County has been announced alongside the plan, and the document is a preparedness measure, not a response to a raid already under way. The next steps are the ones written into it: if an operation begins, the county will judge it against the plan's activation triggers, decide whether to open its Department Operations Center, push out public information and resources, watch for misinformation, and plan for demonstrations. Residents who need help now do not have to wait for any of that — the county's immigrant-support page and the two hotlines above are live today.