While it was battling the flames in mid-January, California was simultaneously preparing for another major crisis: the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the planned expulsions of migrants by the new Republican administration.
“One of the problems that worries California the most is the mass deportations of undocumented immigrants”which the new president promised to carry out from the first days of his mandate, confirms Jean Reisz, co-director of the immigration legal aid center at the Gould School of Law, at the University of California South (USC). Donald Trump could choose to specifically target California, “for example”she believes.
Because since his first term in 2016, the Republican has never hidden his disdain for this Democratic state and its dashing governor, Gavin Newsom. Record inflation, restrictive environmental standards, illegal immigration, uncontrollable fires: for Trump, the Golden State embodies the failure of Democratic policies and the enemy to be defeated.
Mass expulsions of migrants would effectively deal a blow to the fifth largest economy in the world, where around 7% of the workforce is in an irregular situation, or more than a million workers. “Behind every IT engineer, there is an army of nannies, catering workers and gardeners” without papers, recalls Manuel Pastor, professor of sociology at USC.
The new administration is also threatening to significantly reduce federal funding allocated to so-called “sanctuary” states, such as California, which protect undocumented immigrants by limiting their cooperation with federal immigration police.
Fight in court
To defend itself, the Golden State is banking, as in 2016, on the fight in court: the state had initiated 122 proceedings against the first Trump administration, winning 80% of the cases. Last week, the governor and Democratic parliamentarians agreed on the creation of a fund of 50 million dollars (48.4 million euros), aimed at financing a new legal standoff with Trump.
-Half will be allocated to legal costs generated by the lawsuits that the Golden State intends to take against Washington in the area of immigration, but also potentially in those of reproductive rights and environmental protection. This sum will notably make it possible to finance the army of lawyers that California will have to mobilize against the federal state.
The other part of the envelope will be used to finance grants distributed to Californian organizations helping undocumented immigrants. Thanks to these funds, they “may in particular provide lawyers to those arrested”, during a migratory raid, explains Jean Reisz. Because an undocumented migrant who contests his deportation does not have access to a court-appointed lawyer in the United States. If he has no money, he is forced “to represent himself, weakening his chances of winning in court”, notes the lawyer.
California did not wait for Trump's victory in November to act. In 2022, anticipating a return of the Republican candidate to the White House, the local Parliament approved by referendum the inclusion of the right to abortion and contraception in the state constitution, in order to protect them from a possible federal ban. On November 5, 2024, as America elected Donald Trump, it did the same with gay marriage.
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