San José Aims to Thwart ICE With New Policies on Masks and Public Properties

San José leaders, in a bid to protect immigrants amid sweeping federal crackdowns, are moving ahead with a pair of local policies aimed at restricting how and where immigration authorities can do their work in the city.

The City Council unanimously voted to approve a local law on Tuesday that bans all law enforcement officers, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, from wearing face coverings that obscure their identity and requires them to wear clearly visible identification.

The council also advanced a plan to put restrictions on city-owned properties like parking lots, garages and land, barring them from being used for some immigration enforcement operations.

District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who represents a chunk of the East Side with significant Latino and Asian immigrant populations, led the charge on both policies, and said they reflect the city’s commitment to immigrants, community safety and accountability as fear of deportations and federal surges rise.

“When ICE and other federal agencies operate without transparency, and when they use local property as staging grounds, that fear multiplies in our communities. It erodes the trust we’ve worked so hard to build,” Ortiz said. “This is what local leadership looks like. When the federal government chooses fear, we choose community. When others look away, we act.”

The actions come less than a week after President Donald Trump said he was targeting San Francisco as the next city where he planned to deploy the National Guard, before backing off the threat after conversations with Mayor Daniel Lurie and billionaire tech CEOs.

The local masking law closely resembles the state law approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month, which will go into effect in January.

San José’s plan to limit how immigration authorities can use public properties is modeled after the “ICE Free Zones” executive order issued by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson earlier this month. Trump sent the National Guard to Chicago in early October, but a court has paused the deployment.

The council on Tuesday approved asking city staff to inventory the myriad properties that could be “commandeered for civil immigration enforcement activities like staging, processing, or establishing an operational base” and to have the city attorney’s office draft a policy to restrict those activities. The policy is expected to come back to the council for another approval vote later in the year.

Santa Clara County Supervisors, in a coordinated effort, approved a similar plan to restrict federal agents from using facilities and land for immigration enforcement last week. San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood on Tuesday also said he wants to see a similar plan put in place there.

Residents and immigrant support organizations in the South Bay, such as Amigos de Guadalupe, broadly supported the policies.

Dilza Gonzalez, head of organizing for the nonprofit Sacred Heart Community Services, said city leaders have a responsibility to protect all residents, regardless of background.

“Right now, many of our immigrant communities, and anybody that speaks a different language or doesn’t look American enough…we are in constant fear of getting kidnapped, of getting taken away from our families,” Gonzalez told the council. “You need to show us and our families that San José stands with them, not against them.”

While officials say the local rules and policies are aimed primarily at making sure immigrant residents feel supported by their local leaders, it’s unclear how much the restrictions would thwart federal immigration authorities’ work on the ground.

Federal officials, like the US Attorney for California’s Central District, Bill Essayli, have said federal agencies will simply ignore the masking law in the state, and even local leaders acknowledge the laws could be subject to court challenges.

City Attorney Nora Frimann told the council that the public property policy would likely only apply to places that could be used as staging areas and would need to have signs and physical barriers like chains to help restrict their use.

“There are some city properties that are open to the public, and we really cannot impede enforcement efforts in those areas that are public,” Frimann said.

Mayor Matt Mahan said public safety is built on trust, and praised local policing efforts, noting local officers rarely wear masks when working in the city.

“And I would like to see our federal government emulate the approach taken here,” Mahan said.

“And I do understand ICE’s responsibility for enforcing immigration laws, but I think we can all agree that it could be done in a much clearer, more consistent, more transparent, fairer, kinder way without the level of fear and uncertainty that’s been injected into all of our communities.”

Correction, Nov. 3: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported a community organization’s support for these policies. The name of the organization has been removed from the story.