After two hours of public comment, Marin County supervisors unanimously approved an administrative policy that bars federal immigration operations from county property, a step activists said falls short of the binding law other Bay Area counties have passed.
By Staff Reporter
The Marin County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a policy barring federal immigration agents from using county property as a base for enforcement operations, bringing the county closer to its Bay Area neighbors while rejecting activists’ demand for a formal ordinance.
The vote, at the Civic Center in San Rafael, followed about two hours of public comment, according to Bay City News. Protesters who have attended nearly a dozen board meetings over the past year said they would return to the next one.
The Inquirer reported on Monday on the proposal ahead of the vote. Here is what the board adopted and what it does not do.
What the policy does
As the county described it in a news release before the meeting, the policy prohibits federal immigration agencies from using county-owned or county-controlled property as staging areas, processing sites or bases of operations, except where the law requires otherwise. Agents seeking access to nonpublic county facilities must present a judicial warrant or other legally sufficient authority.
County employees may not voluntarily use public funds, personnel or equipment to assist federal civil immigration enforcement, and must notify the county executive within 24 hours when immigration personnel conduct enforcement on county property, including parking lots and staging areas. Beginning in January, the Sheriff’s Office and the Probation Department must report monthly on their interactions with federal immigration authorities, according to Bay City News.
The policy also reinforces existing restrictions on sharing confidential county records for immigration enforcement.
What it cannot do
County lawyers were explicit about the limits. “In terms of places like the farmers market or other areas that are generally open to the public, the county cannot take an action to restrict individuals from entering an area open to the public based on them being a federal immigration official,” Kate Stanford, the chief deputy county counsel, told the board.
Laura Rosas, an assistant county executive, described the legal footing for what the county can do: “Under the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine, the federal government cannot compel state or local governments to administer or enforce federal regulatory programs, including federal immigration laws.”
Ms. Stanford also pointed to Assembly Bill 1807, a new state law that she said bars federal immigration enforcement on state property, and said “it’s very similar to what is in our policy.”
Policy versus ordinance
Much of the testimony centered on the form of the action. The “No ICE in Marin” coalition has pressed for a year for a binding ordinance, which it says is backed by 10,000 signatures, KALW reported last week. “An ordinance is a law. A law is binding countywide. A policy is not,” Patty Hoyt, a volunteer who monitors releases at the county jail, said at an Oct. 13 meeting.
“The county is resisting an ICE-free law on two erroneous grounds,” a commenter, Tammy Edmonson, said on Tuesday, arguing that a policy and a law “serve two very different purposes.”
County officials disagreed. “The legal limits on the county’s authority to regulate the federal government are the same under either a policy or an ordinance,” Ms. Stanford said. County Executive Derek Johnson told the board that an administrative policy offers the same core protections while allowing faster implementation and easier revision. “Unfortunately, neither can prevent federal authorities from exercising lawful federal immigration powers in Marin County,” he said.
The sheriff and the booking log
Some protesters turned their backs as Sheriff Jamie Scardina addressed the board. Mr. Scardina said his department is implementing technology that will restrict public access to booking logs at the county jail, so they cannot be used by immigration agents to find people being released.
The booking log has been a flashpoint. Ms. Hoyt has said, according to KALW, that she watches people leave the jail for “their 1.5 seconds of freedom” before ICE picks them up. On Tuesday, a commenter, Renee Goddard, described seeing seven masked agents detain a young man as he walked out of the jail two weeks earlier.
“I do not want someone to hesitate to call 911 because they fear asking for a deputy for help will expose them or their family to immigration enforcement,” Mr. Scardina said.
The regional picture
The vote puts Marin in line with Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma and Santa Cruz Counties, among others, which have adopted measures restricting immigration enforcement on county property and requiring reporting, according to Bay City News. Alameda County’s ordinances, adopted in January, went further, establishing “ICE-free zones” with signage and physical barriers.
The federal government has rejected such measures. When Alameda acted, Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, called the approach “legally illiterate” in a statement to Newsweek, adding, “Enforcing federal immigration laws is a clear federal responsibility under Article I, Article II and the Supremacy Clause.”
Immigration enforcement has reached Marin directly: ICE has detained 55 county residents and deported 13 since March 2025, according to the Marin Rapid Response Network, as cited by KALW. About 20 percent of Marin residents were born outside the United States.
The county has also taken other steps. This year the board added $1 million for immigration legal services, emergency aid and the rapid response network, for a two-year total of $1.5 million, and the county is a plaintiff in San Francisco v. Trump, the suit challenging federal efforts to condition funding on local cooperation with immigration enforcement.
Whether the policy changes much on the ground is an open question. Supervisor Brian Colbert wrote to KALW before the vote that “counties that have adopted ordinances have not seen a change in the level of ICE enforcement.” The first monthly reports from the sheriff and probation, due starting in January, will offer the first public measure of how often federal agents and county officials cross paths.
