By Vanguard Staff
In a letter sent to President Donald J. Trump on June 27, 2025, six California Republican lawmakers urged his administration to recalibrate federal immigration enforcement in the state. The group, led by State Senator Suzette Martinez Valladares (R-Santa Clarita), warned that recent ICE workplace raids are sweeping up non-criminal immigrants, stoking fear among workers, and exacerbating California’s labor shortage and affordability crisis.
Addressed directly to Trump at the White House, the two-page letter signals growing concern among conservative state legislators over the unintended consequences of broad immigration enforcement tactics. While reiterating support for deporting individuals convicted of serious and violent crimes, the lawmakers drew a sharp line between criminal and non-criminal immigrants, asking that ICE and DHS “focus their enforcement operations on criminal immigrants, and when possible to avoid the kinds of sweeping raids that instill fear and disrupt the workplace.”
“The fear is driving vital workers out of critical industries,” they wrote, referencing ICE raids on farms, construction sites, restaurants, and hotels. These industries, the letter notes, rely heavily on undocumented labor and are already struggling to hire and retain staff amid rising costs and a tight labor market.
The letter takes aim at California’s Democratic supermajority for limiting local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. According to the authors, prior legislation that would have allowed local governments to collaborate with federal agents to remove violent offenders was blocked, making it harder to separate dangerous individuals from otherwise law-abiding residents.
“We fully support efforts to identify, detain, and deport violent criminals,” the legislators wrote. “But California’s state law limits the state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration officials.” They claim this lack of coordination, paired with sweeping federal raids, has undermined public safety and fueled economic instability.
The lawmakers also addressed Trump’s broader approach to law enforcement and immigration. While endorsing his decision to deploy the National Guard to protect federal property amid recent protests, they urged the administration to avoid blunt enforcement tools that “instill fear” in the broader immigrant community. They emphasized the importance of a targeted and strategic approach that distinguishes between threats to public safety and individuals with longstanding ties to their communities.
Beyond enforcement, the letter makes a case for federal immigration reform, calling on Trump to modernize the system. The authors advocate for a pathway to legal status for non-criminal undocumented immigrants and reforms to the H-2A and H-2B visa programs that allow legal guest workers into the U.S. They argued that these temporary visa programs are essential to California’s economy and should be made more accessible to meet demand in food processing, construction, and other labor-intensive sectors.
“The last President to successfully tackle this issue was Ronald Reagan nearly 40 years ago, and it is long past time to modernize our immigration policies,” they wrote.
The lawmakers also made a pointed reference to the impact on Latino communities, asserting that these populations are disproportionately harmed by what they characterized as the “state’s far-left policies.” “Instead of serving them,” they wrote, “many of these policies only protect criminals and eliminate opportunity.”
The letter was signed by Senator Valladares and five other Republican legislators: Senator Brian Jones (Senate Minority Leader), Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, Assemblymember Heath Flora (9th District), Assemblymember Diane Dixon (72nd District), and Assemblymember Laurie Davies (74th District). All six represent districts with large agricultural or service industry sectors heavily dependent on immigrant labor.
In closing, the lawmakers asked Trump to “focus deportations on criminals, and to support legal immigration and visa policies that will build a strong economy, secure our borders, and protect our communities.”
