The TRUST Act, or the Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools Act, will prevent local law enforcement agencies from detaining undocumented individuals on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than 48 hours if they are eligible for release or have not committed a serious felony.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced the bill as a response to the Secure Communities federal program, which allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to screen detainees based on their immigration status by running their fingerprints through a federal database.

“While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead,” Brown said in a press release. “I’m not waiting.”

Last fall, Brown vetoed an earlier iteration of the law, requesting that certain types of serious crimes that were not part of that version, such as child abuse, be included in the list of serious felonies.

The law Brown signed had been amended to include the changes and is designed to  help rebuild trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement. According to the law, undocumented residents are less likely to cooperate with police when it “could result in deportation.”

Secure Communities has led to the deportation of more than 90,000 California residents — more than in any other state, according to data from the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

Last Tuesday, UC President Janet Napolitano, previously Secretary of Homeland Security, met with students who were part of the Statewide Multicultural Student Coalition, a universitywide group of undocumented students and their supporters that formed in response to her appointment.

At the meeting, Napolitano informed the students that she had discussed the TRUST Act with Brown, telling him she thought it would be “good for the state of California,” said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron.

Leti Volpp, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, said California should encourage legislation that recognizes immigrants as part of the community rather than removing them from it.

However, Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., raised concerns about public safety issues and how law enforcement officials would be able to arbitrarily determine which individuals will be subject to immigration enforcement.

“(The law would) force them to release people who should be left in custody,” Vaughan said.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, undocumented individuals accounted for 6.8 percent of California’s population and 9.7 percent of the state’s labor force in 2010.

There are about 200 undocumented students on campus as of 2012, according to Meng So, the campus’s first undocumented student program coordinator.

Volpp said she hopes the TRUST Act will “remove daily insecurities” for undocumented students in California.

Contact Jeff Landa at jlanda@dailycal.org.

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The vetoed TRUST Act — or AB 1081, introduced by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano — would have prohibited local law enforcement officials from complying with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless the undocumented immigrant was previously convicted or charged with a serious or violent felony.

Despite the bill’s passage in both the state Senate and Assembly, Brown vetoed it because he said the bill fails to include many types of serious crime.

“I am unable to sign this as written,” Brown wrote in a released statement addressed to the members of the California State Assembly. “The bill is fatally flawed because it omits many serious crimes.”

Brown cited examples of serious crimes such as child abuse, drug trafficking and selling weapons, which were not included in the definition specified by the bill.

“(Brown) has always been on the side of Latinos and immigrants, but the bill has to be better,” said Gil Duran, the governor’s press secretary.

Under current policies, undocumented immigrants can be detained and held by local authorities if they cannot produce documentation of their citizenship. Authorities are then able to call ICE, which can decide to arrest or deport the immigrants under the federal Secure Communities program.

Berkeley City Councilmember Jesse Arreguin said Brown’s veto comes as a huge disappointment because of how much effort went into crafting the bill.

“I am very dismayed that he didn’t sign it,” Arreguin said. “It’s a setback for justice and fairness.”

Arreguin said he was concerned about how a deportation affects a family and the community, since many immigrants are deported for minor offenses such as being pulled over for running a stoplight.

“The majority who are detained and deported are charged with low-level offenses,” he said. “It negatively divides families.”

A UC Berkeley student who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of deportation said her sister — an undocumented immigrant — could have avoided the fallout from a run-in with law enforcement last year if legislation such as the TRUST Act had existed at the time.

Police questioned her sister in Southern California because she was sitting in her car in a parking lot after hours. Since the sister was unable to present a valid California ID, she was detained for four days.

“Just because (my sister) didn’t have an ID, it’s not a good excuse to kick her out of the country,” the student said. “She’s a good student and athlete — it’s not fair.”

While the issue may not be as significant in Berkeley, other places, like Richmond and Southern California, face higher numbers of mass deportation, Arreguin said.

Despite the veto of the TRUST Act, Berkeley city officials are working on changing the policy of holding undocumented immigrants in jail, Arreguin said. He hopes to present the policy change to City Council soon.

“This is not a setback locally,” he said. “We are in the process of developing a policy that would model the TRUST Act.”

Although Brown vetoed the bill, he is not opposed to the general concept of the act and said he will work to fix the issues.

“The significant flaws in this bill can be fixed, and I will work with the Legislature to see that the bill is corrected forthwith,” he stated in the release.

Contact Andrea Guzman at aguzman@dailycal.org

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Several hundred people gathered on the steps of City Hall at 11:30 a.m. for the rally, which was sponsored by Americans for Safe Access and San Francisco United, a campaign aimed at encouraging city officials to protect access to medical cannabis. Many of the attendants were patients or business owners affected by the crackdown that began last fall.

Although medical marijuana was legalized in the state in 1996, the federal government has said that marijuana is still a federally controlled substance and therefore falls under federal regulation.

Several members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voiced their support for medical cannabis access in California to the crowd at Tuesday’s rally, while the San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and state Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) sent along statements supporting safe access for patients.

“We’re here to send a clear message to the federal government that San Francisco marijuana programs are fully supported by the city government,” said Stephanie Tucker, one of the organizers for the event and a member of the Medical Cannabis Task Force that advises the board on medical cannabis issues.

Supervisor David Chiu told the crowd that he hopes growing support from the public and continued efforts within the medical marijuana community will eventually sway federal opinion.

“There are some confused attorneys in Washington who need to understand that we are standing on the right side of history on this issue,” Chiu said at the rally.

Protesters marched down the street to the federal building on Golden Gate Avenue where U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag’s office is located. Haag’s involvement with the federal crackdown has resulted in several San Francisco dispensaries closing their doors under threat of legal action.

Charles Pappas — a member of Berkeley’s Medical Cannabis Commission and the owner of a San Francisco dispensary which was forced to close last fall — spoke about his frustration with the Department of Justice’s actions against medical cannabis businesses.

“I’ve written five letters to Obama, three or four to (U.S. Attorney General) Eric Holder and five to the governor,” said Pappas, who added that he also sent Haag 50 testimonials in support of medical cannabis when she met with Ammiano in December.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raided Oaksterdam University in Oakland Monday afternoon, reportedly as part of a criminal investigation. While Oaksterdam has been allowed to remain open, marijuana advocates say this is just the latest in a series of intimidation efforts by the federal authorities.

Adelyn Baxter is the lead city government reporter.

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