South Bay Leaders Back Bill to Protect Immigrant Crime Victims From Deportation

South Bay leaders are hoping to boost safety in their communities by beefing up deportation protections for immigrants who are victims of or witnesses to crimes.

Democratic Rep. Jimmy Panetta, who represents portions of San José, Santa Cruz and southern coastal communities, announced Thursday that he is taking another crack at getting his Immigrant Witness and Victim Protection Act passed into law.

“It’s a very straightforward, simple, common-sensical fix that’s needed now more than ever,” Panetta said during a press conference on Thursday outside San José City Hall, flanked by a cohort of local elected officials and law enforcement brass.

It’s unclear, however, if the bill will be able to find enough bipartisan support with a Republican controlled Congress and under the watch of the Trump administration, some officials said.

Panetta said his bill would remove “arbitrary” caps on U visas, a special visa that can be granted to undocumented immigrants who are victims of crime, abuse, or human trafficking and who cooperate with law enforcement or government agencies.

Critically, it would also prevent people applying for the U visas, and a similar T visa, from being detained or deported while their application is pending. It would also set timelines, allowing applicants to gain work permits while waiting for their case to be decided.

“At a time when there is great distrust in government, the Immigrant Witness and Victim Protection Act allows witnesses and victims to trust our criminal justice system, to come out of the shadows and to come forward,” Panetta said.

U visas are currently capped at 10,000 annually nationwide, and apply to people who have “suffered mental or physical abuse,” including many forms of domestic violence and sexual assault or rape, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. T visas, which apply to people who faced a “severe form of trafficking,” such as sex or labor trafficking, are capped at 5,000.

In fiscal year 2018, there were over 117,000 pending applications for U visas, and a three-year waitlist. By 2025, the waiting period increased to five years, according to Panetta’s office.

The annual cap on T visas has not been reached since its creation in 2000, his office said.

Panetta said the Trump administration has cast a wide net in its enforcement of immigration laws, led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

“Basically a shotgun approach to rounding up anybody and everybody who is undocumented or even documented and has a misdemeanor or an arrest or has no record at all,” Panetta said.

In the Bay Area, residents and advocates have protested those actions, including waves of arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at U.S. CIS offices and immigration courts in San Francisco, San José and across the country.

San José Mayor Matt Mahan said the actions and the rhetoric from the administration have had an “unacceptable chilling effect” in the city, where more than 40% of the population is immigrants.

“I’ve heard first-hand from residents who are now too afraid to leave their homes, too afraid to go to work … too afraid to engage with law enforcement,” Mahan said.

“When any of our neighbors live in fear that reporting a crime might put their life in this country at risk, it makes everyone less safe. Our police officers lose the ability to build cases. Our prosecutors lose key witnesses. And our communities are left all the more vulnerable to violent crime.”

The rate of abuse against immigrant women is roughly 49% — nearly three times the national average — according to the National Organization for Women. Those same victims are much less likely to report the crimes due to fear of deportation.

Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Terry Harman said that nearly half of all U visa applicants locally are women who have been victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, and that the county has seen a 50% increase in applications over the last five years.

“We care about people being held accountable for committing crimes against others. We care about making sure that dangerous people don’t hurt anyone else,” Harman said. “The fact that victims are undocumented does not decriminalize the rape, the murder, the robbery or the scam.”

Panetta said he is optimistic about the bill’s ability to find support in the House and Senate, despite the fact that he has introduced the legislation four previous times since 2017, only to see it stall out in committee reviews.

“I have seen members on both sides of the aisle who actually want to do something, who understand how beneficial it is to have people who are willing to come here, work here, contribute here, abide by the law and to live that American dream,” Panetta told KQED.

He blamed President Trump for using immigration policy as a “political tool” in a nation of immigrants.

He said whether on its own, or as part of a broader immigration bill, he hopes to see the changes in his bill enacted into law.

“It’s obviously going to take leadership. We’ve got to continue to stand firm, continue to call out ICE for what they’re doing, how they’re acting, and push back on them,” Panetta said. “But at the same time, we can’t just do that. We’ve got to put forward these meaningful reforms to show where we can go in the future.”