A hodgepodge of amnesty advocacy and “civil justice” groups have joined together in an unholy alliance to achieve their goal of making sanctuary protections “real” throughout California.
Unsatisfied with obstructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities and local police departments in their duty to enforce U.S. immigration law, #DeportICE has taken aim at any company that enters into a contract to “provide data to identify, profile, or target undocumented California residents” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
With a membership that includes local chapters of the National Council of La Raza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the California Sanctuary Campaign, the group is lobbying local governments to adopt the group’s draft Sanctuary City Contracting and Investment Ordinance.
The central targets of the ban on the use of city funds are Thomson Reuters, a media and information firm, and Vigilant Solutions, a California company which provides technology to the government for license plate readers. The coalition has identified other targeted so-called “data brokers” for targeted boycotts as well.
Tonight, the Alameda City Council will consider an ordinance sponsored by Vice Mayor Malia Vella that would go even further and would withdraw any municipal funds that have been invested in any company working on information systems with the Federal government.
Vella’s proposal would bar “data brokers” who work with ICE from bidding on city contracts and advocates for a ban companies who furnish ICE with “extreme vetting” services from getting city contracts.
Alameda’s complicity with the agenda of #DeportICE is not surprising since the city and San Francisco Foundation pledged a combined $1.5 million in funds for legal aid services for immigrants and refugees last year.
In early April, Berkeley addressed a similar ordinance from Councilmember Kriss Worthington, a Democrat. A decision might not be reached for at least eight weeks, according to Bloomberg Law.
The group does not hold back in its rhetoric by drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany.
“[Thomson Reuters] is the IBM of the 21st century, feeding vast amounts of data into an automated human tracking system and building out the deportation machine of today and the concentration camps of tomorrow,” reads their website.
The Nazi comparisons and campaigns to threaten firms that cooperate with federal immigration officials are efforts to undermine the rule of law and all will have the potential consequence of making Californians less secure.