Community members gathered at the city council meeting this week to ask the council members to make Bakersfield a sanctuary city. The ask came as a response to seeing the two most recent accounts of people being killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the country.
Vice Mayor Manpreet Kaur made a referral for the city attorney to organize a truth act forum.
Councilmember Andrae Gonzalez made a referral for the city manager to work with the law and legislative subcommittee to draft a policy for what a sanctuary city can look like and continue that discussion. City Manager Christian Clegg stated that they will need to have a special meeting in the next three or four weeks.
Prior to the referral, Manuel Remierez gave public comment asking the council to put the sanctuary city to a vote on the next city council meeting agenda.
“Declaring the city of Bakersfield a sanctuary city and protecting our undocumented makers,” said Ramirez. “Folks that get up every morning like my grandfather did and go to work. I fear, and I’m glad that my grandfather isn’t alive today because if he was working these fields today, he would have a target on his back.”
Miguel Bautista spoke about the fear he has seen in the community during his work as an organizer with the United Farmworkers Foundation.
“As an organizer, I can tell you that it is my job every day to knock on people’s homes, and I can see the fear in their eyes,” said Bautista. “I can see whether they do not know if it’s going to be a neighbor that’s knocking on their door or an ICE agent. Recently, I was just in Oxnard fighting for people’s rights, fighting so that they can better their working conditions, and it’s that same fear that I saw.”
Carter Beardsley stated he is cautiously optimistic after the council’s decisions. While he understands that federal law overrides local policy, he still wants the city to do whatever it is that they can.
“We don’t want anyone to have this false sense of security. What we want people to understand is that where there is an opportunity to act that we are doing everything we can,” said Beardsley.
During the discussion between council members, Kaur had originally included in her referral to the city attorney to draft a policy for a sanctuary city and present it at the next city council meeting. Council member Larry Koman spoke in objection to bringing the draft policy to the next meeting.
“I understand the tensions around this issue. It’s a very important issue, and I’m not trying to diminish it, but the state law is very clear on this. The state has the ultimate authority on this issue. Gavin Newsom himself had asked the cities to let them fight the battle. Let the state fight the battle on our behalf. And so, I don’t want to see any time spent from staff developing a sanctuary city policy until it comes back to city council for further discussion,” said Koman.
Kaur stated that her priority was to ensure the discussion did not get pushed out or not make its way back to council. Clegg stated that, because the next subcommittee meeting is so soon, they would need to hold a special meeting afterward to allow time to prepare.
Council member Eric Arias supported Gonzales’ referral to the subcommittee to continue the discussion and find the most effective way to implement a policy, if they do so.
“I too don’t want to give false hope and a false sense of security to our neighbors who you know are literally under attack,” said Arias. “I want to make sure that what we pass has some ability to both send a message to folks in Washington but also identifies ways in which, you know, we can be even more helpful, and perhaps that’s mostly through education. Perhaps there are other ways that I’m simply not aware of. But I think that it’s going to require some additional research about what other cities have done.”
Ramirez stated that he hopes the city council is able to see past the politics and remember the humanity of the community.
“The city of Bakersfield is a city of immigrants. Everyone on that dais is connected or related to somebody who has immigrated to this country. And I want them to see past the optics, right, to see past the politics and remember the humanity of the people that are being affected,” said Ramirez. “Our neighbors, our friends, our family, folks that we work with, folks that we go through life with every day. I hope that they remembered and were reminded that we are a city that protects our neighbors and that we will hold their hold their feet to the fire.”