The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors declared its official support of two state bills calling for more transparency and accountability in federal immigration enforcement operations. The two pieces of legislation — the “No Secret Police Act” (SB 627) and the “No Vigilantes Act” (SB 805) — would ban federal agents from wearing masks on duty and require all federal, state, and local law enforcement officers to display identifying information at all times.
Federal immigration operations have been hitting California communities for the past several months, with the largest single-day operation coming on July 10, when several federal agencies arrived together in a joint raid of two Central Coast cannabis facilities in Camarillo and Carpinteria. In Carpinteria, a normally quiet beach town, chaos erupted after 10 workers were detained and hundreds of community members showed up in protest, eventually leading to armed federal agents deploying smoke grenades and rubber pellets on the crowd.
Community members packed the County Administration Building on July 15, voicing concerns about “indiscriminate” immigration arrests in Santa Barbara County neighborhoods and the highly militarized raids in Carpinteria. Supervisor Laura Capps said one of the loudest messages that came from that meeting was the “terror felt from so many people” due to the fact that ICE officers were often masked and refused to identify themselves to the public…