Assemblymember Mark González, D-Los Angeles, with State Sen. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles (left), and community organizers at a press conference announcing new legislation he has coauthored.
On February 6th, Assemblymember Mark González, D-Los Angeles, announced that he would be introducing a bill to disqualify certain U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents or other law enforcement personnel who actively engage in immigration enforcement activities from being hired as a local, county, or state public agency employee in California. At a press conference outside the Japanese American National Museum near downtown Los Angeles, community organizers and public officials stood with González as he made the announcement.
The acronym for the new bill draws from the sentiments and signs of protests, “I am introducing a bill today that draws a moral line here in California. We’re calling it as we see it, like we feel it, and respectfully, the GTFO ICE Bill — in other words, Get the Feds Out,” said Assemblymember Mark González.
The Southern California lawmaker co-authored the new legislation with Speaker Robert Rivas, which would disqualify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other law enforcement personnel who engage in immigration enforcement from being hired as employees of California local, county, or state public agencies. Agents hired between Jan. 20, 2025, and Jan. 20, 2029 — the duration of President Donald Trump‘s second term would specifically be impacted. They would be unable to work as a police officer, peace officer, public school teacher, or civil servant in California.
González did say that agents who engage in law enforcement activities as laid out under California’s sanctuary state law, known as Senate Bill 54, would be exempt from his proposed employment ban. (An exemption could be a law enforcement agent who arrested a violent, convicted offender.) And while the bill’s details are still under construction, the authors of the bill haven’t decided whether the restriction on future public work in California should be a lifetime ban.
State Sen. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, was on hand to show support for the new legislation and denounced this administration’s immigration enforcement, which she described as “a militarized authoritarian force that operates without warrants, without accountability, without any sense of humanity.”
Similar legislation has also been introduced up North. Last month, Assemblymember Anamarie Ávila Farías, a Democrat from the Bay Area put for a bill that would disqualify anyone from becoming a peace officer, working in school settings, or holding other administrative positions if they worked for ICE between Sept. 1, 2025, and Jan. 20, 2029, or for corrections departments in Alabama or Georgia between Jan. 1, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2026.