Sacramento Border Patrol raid adds pressure for California Legislature to act

Lia Russell, The Sacramento Bee on Jul 17, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The arrests of 12 people — including a U.S. citizen — by masked and armed Border Patrol agents at a Sacramento Home Depot on Thursday have added new urgency for state lawmakers to respond as the Central Valley and Northern California have been drawn into the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown after previously escaping federal attention.

State Sens. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Alhambra, and Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, are carrying bills that would require federal agents to identify themselves and bar them from donning masks to obscure their faces when interacting with the public. Thursday’s raid has added new pressure for the Legislature to pass Senate Bill 805 and Senate Bill 627, as reports of masked, anonymous agents (and sometimes, self-deputized impostors) storming California neighborhoods in search of undocumented residents have proliferated in recent months.

At the federal level, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who was briefly handcuffed last month after confronting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has introduced legislation to unmask officers and require visible identification. It’s unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Senate, putting the onus on the Democratic-led state Legislature to act.

Until Thursday, immigration raids in California had largely been confined to the South State, where the Pentagon ordered national and federal troops to protect federal workers from mass protests.

“It’s critical for California to step up and protect our residents against the terror and violence being inflicted upon them by ICE,” Wiener said. “Congress has been complicit in the creation of this fascist police state.”

Wiener and Renée Pérez’s bills have urgency clauses, which means they will go into effect immediately upon receiving a two-thirds vote from both the Senate and Assembly and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. The Legislature goes into recess next week, though the Latino and AAPI caucuses have asked Legislative leaders to fast track a spate of immigration bills, including SB 805 and SB 627, to act quickly, and a vote could come in a matter of weeks.

It’s unclear whether the governor, who has been feuding with Trump over immigration agents’ incursion into California, will support them. His office declined to comment on pending legislation, though they condemned Thursday’s raid in a statement.

“Trying to escape a court order stopping their reprehensible and illegal racial profiling and illegal arrests in L.A., Border Patrol came to Sacramento to spread more of their chaos and fear,” Newsom spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo said. “They should do their jobs — at the border — instead of continuing their tirade statewide of illegal racial profiling and illegal arrests.”

Renée Pérez said she had updated but not yet met with the Governor’s Office to discuss her legislation. She has backing from several law enforcement agencies, including the Peace Officers Research Association of California, after the federal administration put local officers in an “odd position.”

“Many police chiefs report there’s been no coordination” or prior notice when federal authorities raid a community, she said. Their lack of transparency has created confusion, allowing impersonators posing as federal agents to stop school buses, detain a group of Latino men, and sexually assault a woman.

CBP notified the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office minutes after their agents raided the Home Depot lot, when witnesses had already called 911 to report seeing day laborers being arrested.

PORAC initially opposed SB 805 but agreed to back the bill after Renée Pérez said she amended it earlier this week to verify that local law agencies would be considered in compliance if they already had policies on masking and visible identification.

A PORAC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The raid in Sacramento occurred the same day the Trump administration asked California sheriffs for information on immigration inmates, and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Bergum toured Alcatraz in San Francisco to announce plans to reopen the former federal prison as a detention center. The plan is almost certainly unlikely, given the site’s current status as a tourism destination and the exorbitant cost of renovation.

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