Is San Mateo County a ‘sanctuary county?’ 

No state or local sanctuary policy can prevent an organization like ICE from deporting undocumented individuals, however. 

“The ordinance does not stop or protect an individual from deportation,” David Canepa, San Mateo County Board of Supervisors president, said. “It simply ensures the country is not using its own resources to assist ICE, an agency that already has a $90 billion budget to do their job.” 

San Mateo County doesn’t call itself a sanctuary county — it is a certified “welcoming county,” Chief Communications Officer Michelle Durand said — though that might not matter, Canepa said. 

“Although we never declared ourselves as a sanctuary county, that might not be how the Department of Justice or the Trump administration may see it, and that may be a potential concern,” he said. 

The American Immigration Council notes that while no legal or standard definition of the term sanctuary policy exists, it is often used in reference to a state or locality’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities. 

And because the entire state of California already has a so-called sanctuary policy in place prohibiting local and state agencies from cooperating with ICE, any pressure might not be on San Mateo County in specific but rather the state as a whole, Canepa said. 

“I do think that California, collectively, is seen as a potential target because of Senate Bill 54,” he said. 

As part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, a Jan. 20 executive order, entitled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” calls for so-called sanctuary jurisdictions not to receive any federal funding. The administration has expounded on that executive order in recent days, suing the city of Chicago for its sanctuary city policies. 

But blue jurisdictions, including neighboring counties like San Francisco and Santa Clara, are fighting back, alleging that the Trump administration’s war against sanctuary jurisdictions and threats to withhold federal funding are unlawful. 

That’s likely not a tactic San Mateo County will be taking for now, Canepa said, though he acknowledged how quickly the political landscape has been shifting in recent weeks makes it challenging to rule any one action out. 

“I just think with the federal government, communication is going to be key,” he said. “I think there may be better ways diplomatically to see what we can do to communicate with the administration.” 

The Trump administration’s legal fights and executive orders are one part of a multifaceted mechanism to install fear in immigrant communities and embolden nativist and hateful rhetoric, Ayudando Latinos A Soñar Assistant Director Enrique Bazán said. 

“It is symbolic, Trump going after the migrants,” he said. “Now we’re getting hate mail, postcards … that’s not people from the government or ICE. That’s people that feel enabled.” 

As a coastside cultural arts and programming organization, ALAS is aiming to make San Mateo County immigrant communities feel safer by responding to rapid response reports and rumors of ICE. So far in the county, there have been no mass deportation raids, Bazán said, though they’re preparing for the possibility. 

Though they can help individuals know their rights, obtain legal representation and see their families, the tangible assistance in deportation cases is often with family members and loved ones who remain in the United States, Bazán said. 

“What if that person is the breadwinner of the family? What’s going to happen with the family, with food, with health care, taking the child to school?” he said. “It’s nonprofits and community responsibility to respond to the needs of those people.” 

Any immigrant going through legal processes in the United States should feel confident in the fact that they deserve to be treated with dignity, Bazán said. 

“If we feel humiliated there is something wrong, and there is a system of community response — because nobody should be humiliated in this country,” he said. 

And when it comes to sanctuary, Bazán emphasized the ways that communities can create those feelings of safety and love to the extent possible within their own capacity. 

“How do we interconnect [with] each other? What are the micro and macro things that we do within our own community, our own family?” he said.