Huntington Beach’s city council in Southern California unanimously voted on Jan. 21 to declare the Orange County city a “non-sanctuary city.”
The declaration, proposed by Mayor Pat Burns and intended to prevent crime, comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom convened a special legislative session to, in part, help protect illegal immigrants from deportation.
“We are going to provide the best safety for our citizens, plain and simple,” said Burns during the city council meeting. “It’s going to be what’s best for Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach first.”
The mayor also addressed concerns that the declaration would be used to attack immigrant communities, saying that it would make immigrant neighborhoods safer.
Huntington Beach City Council wrote in a joint statement that “Neither the Governor nor the State Legislature with the passage of laws may interfere with the City’s voluntary cooperation with federal authorities, nor cause or compel the City to violate federal laws such as Title 8 Section 1324 for the harboring of illegal immigrants.”
According to Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates, California’s sanctuary state law interferes with local agencies’ ability to comply with federal law.
“In California in particular, fighting crime is difficult enough with the relaxed criminal laws and lack of enforcement,” Gates said in a statement. “The State should get out of the way of local law enforcement, stop handcuffing our police officers and California’s cities, and get back to the business of protecting innocent citizens. Emphatically, the State should not take a position of violating federal immigration laws or encouraging cities to violate federal immigration laws.”
During the Jan. 21 meeting, councilman Chad Williams criticized Senate Bill 54, which went into effect in January 2018 and prohibits state and local resources from being used to aid federal immigration enforcement.
“I find it fascinating and really kind of disturbing the way that Sacramento plays word games with laws like SB 54—the so-called Values Act or the sanctuary law—while they freely are admitting that entering the country illegally is a violation of federal law,” said Williams.
“As a charter city in Huntington Beach, we have the right, we have the responsibility, I think, to do better. Upholding the U.S. Constitution isn’t just some abstract idea.”
Huntington Beach’s action is in contrast to other jurisdictions, such as San Diego County, which declared itself a sanctuary region in December 2024. Around the same time, Los Angeles also finalized its sanctuary city policy.
“We’re going to send a very clear message that the city of Los Angeles will not cooperate with ICE in any way,” Los Angeles Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez said at the time, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We want people to feel protected and be able to have faith in their government and that women can report domestic violence, crimes.”
Huntington Beach has long supported federal immigration enforcement. The city signed in February 2024 a letter of solidarity with Texas over its efforts to secure the border.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, there are at least 2.5 million illegal immigrants in California.
