Week 8: Interview with John Laird (Pt 1)

Hi! Welcome back to my blog. If you were here last week, you’ll remember that I was going through my interview with Jimmy Panetta, where we discussed a bit about the fear that builds up in these communities, and how exactly the government has added to these fears rather than reducing them. Well, following this, I got the opportunity to talk to Senator John Laird, who represents the 17th Congressional District. Senator Laird has been an activist for pro-immigration movements, highlighting the rights of all immigrants regardless of status. But I’ll also let him introduce himself and a bit about his work, as he did in our interview.

JL: “ I represent the 17th Senate district, and the 17th Senate district is all of Santa Cruz and Monterey, and most of San Luis Obispo County, and there is a very high agricultural presence in this district, and so I try to be attuned to what the issues are there, and recently, we’ve had most of the challenges there coming from the federal government, and the federal administration.”

Now that he’s been mostly introduced, here are a few of the immigration policies and reforms he has worked on in the last few years. 

– Stop ICE Probation Ruse: The ICE Probation Ruse is a tactic where ICE agents represent themselves as probation officers and claim they are conducting a probation check, or reference a person’s probation status, to get someone to open their door or come outside. This petition voted to prohibit ICE agents from relying on and exploiting probation statuses to gain access to homes. John Laird voted for this policy, which passed with bipartisan support.

– Know Your Rights Program: I mentioned this in Week 5 about social movements, but as a reminder, the Know Your Rights program is a program that helps immigrants of all statuses learn their rights as humans in the country, providing materials and holding workshops to help promote safety and protection across areas such as Monterey County with heavy immigration populations. Not only is Senator Laird an advocate of this program, but he also maintains a dedicated “Know Your Rights” page on his website through which immigrants can get access to resources, including legal aid, through organizations like the UFW Foundation. 

Alright then, now that we’ve been introduced to Senator Laird, from both me and him, let’s hear what he has to say. Like the last interview, I’ll input parts of the transcript, and then pause for explanations. 

JL: “The state doesn’t have the total power to administer immigration programs, but we are left holding the results of what happens with the law and central programs. So while we don’t control immigration, we can control certain laws and budget allocations that respond to what’s going on at the federal. The one specific thing I would mention is that after the new administration took office, we appropriated money for different groups, to legal challenges, and to protect their interests. And that is one of the ways we’ve really tried to have a state response to what’s going on on a federal level, because we know that if you affect the immigration status of agricultural workers, we could have crops rotting in the field, and that is not something anybody wants, regardless of what their political perspective is.”

Senator Laird actually discusses one of the issues that brought me to this topic in the first place. When I was first introduced to this project idea, hearing about how thousands of dollars of income for farmers were going to waste due to a lack of workforce was a piece of shocking news. Furthermore, with the significant role agriculture plays in the livelihood and prosperity of our country, being so important that it was considered an essential critical infrastructure during COVID-19, the impacts of thousands of dollars in food shortages would have been high for the average American. Considering President Trump’s persistence on the use of American-grown produce, whether it be the promotion of “Product of U.S.A” packaging or the expansion of trade markets for American produce, it becomes paradoxical to create a policy that so negatively influences the agricultural industry. In addition to this, Senator Laird points out that, while the State can not control or override federal immigration policy, it can create policies and take action in response, with policies such as the Stop ICE Probation Ruse, or a variety of actions, like promoting the now Your Rights foundation on their websites. These actions stand out as support towards immigrants, and provide them the security and trust that, while the federal government may not be supporting, the state government does what it can to assist.

Question: Especially in California, which is a pretty Democratic state, we’ve taken a lot of aggressive stances on limiting our cooperation to see how we can make sure to limit how much we engage with them. So, how do you think that plays out specifically in the workforce shortage or the vulnerability of the farmworkers in Salinas and Monterey County?

JL: “The real difficult situation is that if people feel at risk, they are at risk, they’re going to change their habits. There’s nothing wrong, and it can be seen in the latest school district, where the attendance has been down at certain points because people don’t feel safe bringing their kids to school or going to school. We see it in people who might be available to do agricultural work; there are impacts in the healthcare system, because people are worried, and in certain services, might not be paid for if you’re on an undocumented status. And so, we’re finding that, and there have been times when ICE or federal immigration has taken actions. And each of these crises tries to catch people who they think are not in legal status, and it affects the delivery of every single one of those services.” 

What Senator Laird is talking about here is one of the crucial arguments of the anti-ICE and anti-immigration movement. When immigration enforcement negatively contributes to the livelihood of communities and the economic stability and sustainability of an entire industry, it actually negates the original intended effect. The primary motivators for supporting strict immigration policies were to leave work and space for American citizens to find jobs. However, when immigrants stop showing up, and instead of finding people to fit into those positions, the industry just finds itself shutting down with a gaping lack of eager workforce. This just proves that these workers aren’t “stealing jobs” or taking away space from citizens’ employment, but simply filling a role unwilling to be done by the American public. 

JL: “That leads to a state response of different laws that say ICE can’t stay in certain places, that ICE can’t intervene in certain situations, that there might be healthcare or schools or other things, and it’s one of those things where our power is limited because it is the federal power that’s instilling this. But at the state level, it’s our state’s services and local services, businesses, and economy that are impacted by this. And it is our obligation and our right to push back in a way that people can feel safe, that doesn’t disrupt the house, and that doesn’t disrupt their education, food deliveries, or ecosystem. And this is a challenge we are trying to battle at the state level.”

Here, Senator Laird points out some different ways in which the state can actually make a difference, mainly focusing on how the state can create legislation that can help push back these negative effects and increase the sense of safety and security that these communities feel. Following this, I ask him about these policies. 

Question: So, kind of going back to what you said, there is a way you’re trying to mitigate it on the state level. Are there any bills that are at work that, obviously, if you can talk about them, that are moving through Sacramento that maybe you are working on or supporting that are helping address the agricultural labor shortage?

JL: “There are bills that have been enacted and signed, and there are some that have been voted through. I mentioned the legal services, there’s a children immigration project that the Budget Act allocated money for to make sure that social and legal services are given to unaccompanied minors who are sometimes created unaccompanied by the immigration enforcement actions. There are bills requiring the attorney general to model the policies, and there are bills showing that immigration officers can not enter into the non-public areas of the school site without a valid judicial warrant. There’s a bill that the state shall provide legal counsel to every immigrant youth as defined. Sometimes the bill will go towards funding. There’s a bill about governing boards and school districts, county offices of education, and chartered schools, to notify parents and school staff when immigration enforcement is confirmed at a school site. And there are actually about 10 or 15 more, some of which have been enacted.”

Alright, let’s go through all these bills. 

– AB 1261: The policy Senator Laird refers to as the Budget Act, is actually a portion called AB 1261. California AB 1261, signed into law in October 2025, requires the state to provide free legal counsel to unaccompanied undocumented minors in California, including children who became separated from their parents due to immigration enforcement actions like ICE detentions or deportations. 

– California Values Act: The act Senator Laird refers to following AB 1261 is the California Values Act, an act that prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from using their resources to investigate, detain, or arrest people solely based on their immigration status or to help federal immigration enforcement operations, preventing local and state law enforcement from assisting with the detainment of immigrants. 

– California Safe Haven School Act: This act establishes schools as protected spaces where immigration enforcement actions are restricted, ensuring students and families can access education without fear. The law makes clear that immigration officers cannot enter non-public areas of a school campus, such as classrooms, hallways, and administrative offices, without a valid judicial warrant, distinguishing between the type of warrant signed by a judge versus an administrative warrant that ICE agents can issue themselves. 

– Senate Bill 98: Also known as the SAFE Act, this bill requires governing boards of school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools to have clear protocols in place for responding to immigration enforcement activity near or at school sites. Specifically, it mandates that schools notify parents and staff when immigration enforcement has been confirmed at a school site, ensuring families have timely information to make decisions about their children’s safety and attendance. 

While Senator Laird also mentions a variety of other bills that are enacted, these, I believe, showcase the importance the state of California is putting on using state policy to help communities feel safe and seen, as he mentioned above. Through this, they continue to support the community instead of federal organizations and create a safer environment that can help facilitate an increase in workforce and restoration of economic sustainability in the agricultural field. 

With that, I’ll leave you, yet again, in suspense until next week. We’ll continue to the second half of this interview and learn more about what the community and government can do to support the agricultural industry. 

That’s all for this week, see you next time!