Dear Community Residents:
San Pablo is a community of multi-ethnic pride and multi-cultural diversity.
The City of San Pablo, including the San Pablo Police Department, has worked very hard to develop and ensure a relationship of community trust and partnership with our large immigrant community. The very fabric of our city is interwoven with residents from diverse backgrounds, representing many races and ethnicities that come from a wide range of origins. In fact, San Pablo has 39.5% of its total population designated as foreign-born, with 58.4% of these foreign-born residents designated as an undocumented population under the 2022 US Census/ACS Survey.1
All San Pablo residents should understand that the policies and practices put in place since 2007 by the San Pablo City Council, and re-affirmed on March 6, 2017, clearly state how our San Pablo officers interact with all residents, and handle immigration enforcement issues in our community. See attached City Council Resolution #2017-045 adopted on March 6, 2017.
If any of our San Pablo residents believe that by reporting a crime, seeking assistance, or working with the San Pablo Police Department to make their neighborhoods safer will cause them to be detained for an extended time or deported, our community then becomes less safe and secure. This deteriorates the very community trust that our San Pablo police officers have worked so diligently to establish in San Pablo through our various community programs.
On March 6, 2017, the San Pablo City Council reaffirmed that the San Pablo Police Department will continue to work with our federal law enforcement partners in a manner consistent with federal and state laws protecting the civil rights, privileges and immunities of all persons. This means the San Pablo Police Department makes arrests when the individuals involved are a direct threat to public safety, are wanted for serious felonious crimes, or have federal arrest judicial warrants -- not for one’s immigration status.
The need for community trust and cooperation is an essential component of policing and public safety in San Pablo. Entangling local policing with additional federal immigration enforcement responsibilities would seriously compromise our ability to maintain the trust and support of our diverse community, and would result in the misuse of local taxpayer funds to handle these federal responsibilities.
The City of San Pablo will not compromise its commitment to community policing and public safety by taking on federal immigration enforcement responsibilities that appropriately rest with federal authorities.