photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB
The Sonoma County Administrative center and board of
supervisors chambers in Santa Rosa.

 Dozens of Sonoma County residents left county board chambers just before lunchtime on Tuesday. That was after two hours of passionate appealing for the supervisors to finalize an ordinance limiting county cooperation with federal ICE actions.

The five supervisors approved the ordinance that memorializes existing county practices prohibiting departments under the board’s authority from using staff, resources or county property to assist federal immigration enforcement — unless required by law.

It also bars ICE from using county‑owned spaces and limits the release of sensitive information, including immigration status.

But the ordinance does not apply to independently elected offices like the county sheriff.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office remains the only county agency that still responds to certain ICE requests involving people booked into the jail, a key concern for advocates.

“We gave the pledge of allegiance. You all did, and many here and said, with liberty and justice for all. And some of us said, oh, really?”

“My beef is that last year the sheriff chose to voluntarily in his sole discretion and without a judicial warrant obligation, he chose to transfer approximately 67 inmates out of county jail and into ICE custody. These practices are an affront to my sense of equal justice, especially when we know with no equivocation or doubt of the significant human and civil rights abuses that the ICE paramilitary regime is intentionally perpetrating to advance its authoritarian agenda.”

“By invitation, this board and the sheriff is bringing ICE to Sonoma. I say invitation because there's no other word for it. Under the law, localities are not required to collaborate with federal immigration officials, yet this board and the sheriff insist on inviting ICE to Sonoma County,”

That was Diane Bains, Scott Johnson, and Nia Solenteacora, who identified herself as a staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, addressing the county board of supervisors Tuesday morning during public comment on the consent calendar, which included the second reading of the ordinance.

As the board was voting, activists started singing "We Shall Overcome" because they wanted the board to pass an even stronger local law pushing the county to cut ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement completely and adopt a stance of total noncooperation.

Sonoma County supervisors and county staff have been exploring ways to implement a non‑collaboration ordinance since last August, when the board created a “Supporting Immigrant Communities” ad hoc committee.

Margaret Howe was among one of many advocates who urged the board to take a stance against all ICE collaboration in the county.

“Every time that we collaborate with an inhumane institution in our community… it validates it.”

Advocates say they’ll continue pushing for a full non‑collaboration policy that includes the sheriff.