"When immigrant communities are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!"
That was the call-and-response at Tuesday's gathering outside the County Administration building in Martinez, where the Contra Costa Immigrant Rights Alliance gathered a coalition to urge county supervisors to commit to stronger protections against cooperating with ICE.
For over a year, organizers say they’ve been working with supervisors to pass an ordinance limiting county funds and resources from being used to assist ICE operations.
Miosotti Tenecora is a senior staff attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. She says that the proposal they’ve been working on has been weakened from an ordinance — a local law — to a policy, which is essentially a guideline.
"They diluted it," Miosotti says. "[They] took off the contractor provision, and also added that departments can pass their own policies.
The proposal wasn’t on the agenda for Tuesday’s board meeting.
Supervisor John Gioia says it’s being reviewed by the county counsel. He says he’s in full support of an ordinance.
"Counties, much more than cities, are the ones that are at the center of providing services to immigrant families," Supervisor Gioia says.
Supporters say these protections are more important than ever. After the San Francisco immigration court closed in May, the Concord court in Contra Costa became the largest in the Bay. The county’s Sheriff’s Office also admitted to voluntary cooperation with ICE during a 2025 Truth Act Hearing.
The non-cooperation proposal is expected to return to the Board of Supervisors on September 8.
