California Democrats are drafting bills that would prevent federal immigration officials from using commercial data to find illegal foreigners for deportation.
Records show that federal authorities have contracts with several data analytics companies, including LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters. Politicsand state Democrats are floating bills to enhance the way they do it, aiming to strengthen the information that such services can sell and advance the ice from using the information to the fullest extent.
Without giving direct evidence, state Democrats are worried that federal authorities are using personal location data to help track immigrants.
The concern was summarised by Shu Min Chia, deputy director of immigration and racial justice at California's Distant Immigration Policy Center.
Fear drives a new path for Trump resistance in the Blue State.
For example, extreme left-wing California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently argued that data needs to be protected from the Trump administration.
“This location data is very personal,” Bonta said in a statement. “Given federal attacks on immigrant communities and gender-affirming healthcare and abortion, businesses must take the responsibility to seriously protect their location data.”
Democrat state Sen. Josh Becker has cried out that Trump has “established a vast surveillance network,” and has introduced a bill that forces data brokers to publicly disclose whether they will collect and sell user data such as immigration status, sexual orientation, union members, and government ID numbers.
He argues that his bill is “particularly necessary now as we see the reality of massive deportation of immigrants and the reality of targeting the trans community.”
Democrat Chris Ward is also working on such bills. He told Politico “We've seen how location and digital data can be weaponized to target immigrant communities, protesters, and others whose identities and actions violate a particular political agenda,” Wad supports efforts to reduce its data use.
As a result, AssemblyMember Ward sponsors a bill that completely prohibits the sale of user data due to third-party concerns.
Finally, Democrat Rebecca Bauer Kahan is pushing for a bill that bans “geofencing,” a GPS-based technology that users can use to find places to go. Her intention is to ensure that technology doesn't identify when everyone enters or leaves the abortion clinic. But her bill aims more of the fears Democrats who are not trying to immigrate and are unable to support Democrats, who are trying to ban abortion in some way. Still, her bill also affects immigration enforcement if it becomes law.
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