The state Legislature just made it easier for Trump to deport immigrants

The California Legislature is having brain tumors for breakfast again.

Last Friday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed big, bad AB379 into law, affirming legislators’ priority to “fight trafficking”—a misnomer that actually means “arrest sex workers,” which under the new administration also means “deport immigrants.”

AB379, an ambitious piece of legislation, introduces a swarm of new and harmful statutes. 

For example, it creates a new offence—to “loiter in any public place with the intent to purchase commercial sex.” This is almost certainly a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures.

One of the bill’s proponents, Rep. Jesse Arreguin (D-Berkeley), admits it’s created a deportable crime, but says that fighting trafficking is more important. On the Assembly floor, in a feat of logic gymnastics, Arreguin said that it made sense to spend the state’s recently allocated legal aid funds of $100 million to defend residents—from charges leveled by these state statues. 

What could be more counterproductive than passing a law that requires spending millions in state funds to defend people from that same law?

When it comes to making no sense, with AB379, the limit does not exist.

Loitering laws are designed to be weaponized against perceived undesirables. It’s a quasi-legal way for groups with privilege to tell groups without privilege, “You can’t sit with us.” They invariably target people of color, queer people, and, now more than ever, the immigrant community. 

That’s why, as Sen. Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) pointed out in his arguments against the bill, we worked so long and hard to shut down the state’s loitering law just a year ago. 

Defending people in court is not going to prevent people from getting deported. ICE has a regular practice of sitting outside courthouses where immigrants inside have conveniently been identified and made to appear before a judge. Snick goes the kidnapper, and another immigrant is disappeared.

By passing AB379, with its overbroad language that allows law enforcement to pick people up off the street, (the reason a previous loitering law was repealed) Legislature and Governor Newsom played right into the Trump Administration’s hands. 

Not only that, the championing of AB379 was led by Democrats.

AB379 will take effect in January 2026, just in time for Super Bowl and FIFA games, where it will be used to conduct human trafficking sting—actually prostitution stings, which are really deportation stings, because Homeland Security (of which ICE is a subset) runs the “trafficking” stings.

Maybe you thought California had an injunction that blocks ICE from unconstitutionally stopping people. AB379’s loitering statute (653.25) performs an end run around on the that injunction.

Here’s why: Even though the federal courts have granted a temporary restraining order, blocking Customs and Border Patrol agents from unlawfully stopping Los Angeles residents during immigration sweeps, the new state law will give homeland security the authority to do lawful stops. 

Also relevant: As of this writing, the Justice Department has filed lawsuits against states and jurisdictions with sanctuary policies, including California, arguing they impede federal immigration enforcement and violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Back to the loitering law, about to be reinstated and more arbitrarily enforced: The overly broad language of “commercial sex act” can be used against almost anyone—entirely based on a police officer’s determination of their “intent.” 

Newly empowered to decide who is loitering in a public place with the intent to commit a commercial sex act, law enforcement, including Homeland Security and ICE, will weaponize the vague language of this statute as a deportable crime.

You could argue that people will still get due process because state funds have been set aside to defend them, but that ignores that this statute will be used against people of color in low-income neighborhoods, and that it will result in displacing and deporting people.

By signing AB 379 into law, Newsom has created yet another deportable crime This administration has vowed to make deportations to countries like Libya—regardless of their country of origin—to be treated in unconscionable, cruel, and blatantly illegal ways. 

You heard that right. AB379, in the hands of the Trump administration, can send migrants to a country that they didn’t come from, and where they could face torture and inhumane treatment. This is appalling and criminal. 

Amnesty International has described conditions in Libya’s detention centers as a “hellscape” and “life threatening.” There are reports of human trafficking and sexual violence. No human being should be subjected to these horrific conditions.

California should not be passing laws like AB379 making it easier to traffic humans.

Rep. Arreguin concluded his Assembly floor speech by claiming that AB379 “centers victims.”In truth, AB379 is political theater, and ultimately, all it does is create victims. 

With a day job in nonprofit strategy consultation, Megan Hobza has reported on culture and regional news in Southern California for more than three decades. She is the former executive editor of hyper-local Sustainable City News in Whittier.