On September 28, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed five bills supporting California veterans and servicemembers and had a message for those who served.
“Veterans served us honorably; now it’s our honor to serve them,” Newsom declared. “California has their backs.”
One day later, he signed a law that says otherwise.
Assembly Bill 1896, the so-called GTFO Act, (González and Rivas) creates a new disqualification from California public employment beginning in 2028 for people previously employed as sworn law-enforcement officers or individual contractors who personally engaged in immigration enforcement. The law is broad enough to potentially reach members of the United States Coast Guard who qualify as sworn law-enforcement officers and personally performed the service’s immigration-enforcement mission.
The Coast Guard occupies a unique place among America’s armed services. Its men and women are servicemembers, rescuers and law-enforcement officers who have a broad mission. They rescue mariners from sinking vessels, evacuate the sick and injured from ships at sea, respond to maritime disasters, protect our environment, intercept illegal drugs and enforce federal law. The USCG official motto is Semper Paratus – Always Ready. But another saying long associated with the service speaks to the courage its missions sometimes require – “You have to go out – you don’t have to return”.
Most Americans encounter the Coast Guard when someone in trouble on the water and is rescued by a crew. Thanks to their often heroic acts, they are one of the nation’s most respected public institutions. In a YouGov survey, 77 percent of Americans viewed the Coast Guard favorably.
But there is another part of its mission that González, Rivas and Newsom have now made consequential for those servicemembers after they take off the uniform: immigration enforcement.
As the nation’s lead federal maritime law-enforcement agency, the USCG enforces U.S. immigration laws at sea. That means the same Coast Guardsman who saves someone from drowning, can also be required to stopping someone attempting to enter the United States illegally.
A case from last month provides a textbook example.
On August 28, a 30-foot boat allegedly carrying 37 suspected migrants was stranded 88 miles off the California coast after drifting for two days without fuel, food or water. Their captain called for assistance and the Coast Guard crews rescued all 37.
After being rescued, the migrants were transported to Coast Guard Base Los Angeles-Long Beach and later to the U.S. Border Patrol. The Coast Guard’s own headline defines their dual responsibility perfectly: “Coast Guard rescues, interdicts 37 aliens.”
The bill’s language is strikingly broad. Beginning January 1, 2028, former sworn law-enforcement officers or individual contractors who personally engaged in immigration enforcement will be “disqualified from public employment” under California law. Immigration enforcement is broadly defined to include efforts to enforce federal civil immigration law and federal criminal immigration laws involving a person’s presence, entry or reentry into the United States.
However, there is an important exception. A person can escape that disqualification if approved to enter a California POST basic course after undergoing a background investigation and a case-by-case suitability review. That review specifically considers whether the applicant personally engaged in immigration enforcement and “to what degree.”
But look at what triggers the initial disqualification. The law does not require a criminal conviction, excessive force, a civil-rights violation or a sustained misconduct finding. The triggering conduct is immigration enforcement, not “misconduct.”
And “immigration enforcement” is broadly defined to include efforts to investigate or enforce federal civil immigration law and federal criminal immigration laws concerning a person’s presence, entry, reentry or employment in the United States, subject to specified exemptions.
In other words, misconduct and immigration enforcement are not synonymous under the new statute.
Someone need not first be found guilty of misconduct for AB 1896’s disqualification and review process to apply.
Consequently, Newsom describes the bill incorrectly. Does he really not know?
Coast Guardsmen also cannot simply choose to disregard lawful orders as they are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Article 92 makes failure to obey lawful orders and dereliction of duty punishable under military law.
Think about what California has now set in motion. A Coast Guardsman is ordered to participate in a rescue or migrant-interdiction operation. Military law requires him to perform his duty. He rescues people in danger, takes part in their interdiction and turns them over to immigration authorities. After leaving service, that same conduct could trigger AB 1896’s public employment disqualification unless he clears the law’s POST suitability process.
The conduct that California would scrutinize in his future employment application could therefore be conduct that federal military service required him to perform.
This did not happen accidentally.
González authored AB 1896 and promoted his “GTFO Act” as a “first in the nation” response to federal immigration enforcement. Rivas put the authority of the Assembly speakership behind the legislation. Yet the final bill contains no express exemption for military servicemembers carrying out their duties. Instead, qualifying former service members would be subject to the same statutory disqualification and POST suitability process as covered applicants.
Newsom had the final say.
He could have vetoed AB 1896. The Legislature could have also written the law differently, including an exemption for members of the United States Armed Forces performing their assigned duties.
It did neither. Newsom signed it.
This matters because California’s political disagreement is with federal immigration policy, not with the Coast Guardsman ordered to execute it.
The young petty officer boarding a migrant vessel off California did not write federal immigration law, set White House policy or decide where his cutter would patrol that night. He followed orders, performed his mission and served his country.
And the timing could hardly have made the contradiction clearer. One day, he tells them, “California has their backs.”
The next day, he signs a law disqualifying Coast Guard veterans from California public employment for carrying out their service.
So much for having their backs, Governor.
Steve Smith is a senior fellow in urban studies at the Pacific Research Institute, focusing on California’s ongoing crime challenges.