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Newsom slaps 25% tax on private detention centers in sweeping pushback against key Trump policy

Newsom slaps 25% tax on private detention centers in sweeping pushback against key Trump policy

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill earlier this week that would impose a 25% tax on private detention centers, a policy that would apply to all the facilities that partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Golden State. “If we can’t kick out private facilities, we’ll go after their profits,” Newsom said in a press release. The move, which Newsom hailed as a way to push back against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and what he sees as the practice of privatizing federal enforcement, is raising concerns among immigration experts who believe the increased tax could force the government to explore alternative facilities less suited to housing detainees. It also poses questions about what would happen if all eight of ICE’s detention facilities chose to suspend their operations in California. CITIZENS BANK CUTS TIES WITH ICE PRISON CONTRACTORS AFTER MONTHS OF ACTIVIST PRESSURE That’s the view of Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow and an immigration expert with Advancing American Freedom, a conservative-leaning think tank. “It’s very clear that there’s only one purpose to this California gigantic tax increase, and that is to make sure that the federal government cannot find any private property owners, any private contractors in California that are willing to lease space to the federal government,” Spakovsky said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “The alternative for the federal government is to look at all the different federal properties that the government actually owns out there, over which neither Newsom or anybody else in California can impose any kind of tax, and see if any of those federal facilities can be converted to being a detention facility.” Spakovsky explained that could mean repurposing warehouses or office space. The newly minted law, AB 1633, is among 20 other bills that Newsom signed on Tuesday. In its current form, the 25% tax applies to the gross income of any private detention facility and applies to federal, state and local contract recipients. Revenue from the bill will go to a “Due Process for All Fund,” designated for immigration-related services, according to the bill’s language. Now that AB 1633 has been signed into law, it will go into effect on July 1, 2028. Alongside the bill, Newsom signed a handful of other restrictions. ICE EYES $20M PURCHASE OF ELECTRIC SHOCK GLOVES AS HOCHUL WARNS OF LEGAL CONSEQUENCES “We’re also banning the Orwellian practice of using shock gloves in enforcement activity as well as further protecting access to our court system,” Newsom said. “We may not be able to dictate federal immigration policy, but we can make clear that activities taking place in California will be subject to California law.” Despite Newsom’s framing, Spakovsky believes the governor will affect federal immigration law enforcement by limiting the overall space it has to operate. He pointed to reporting from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that details its detention needs. He explained that the government relies on private contractors, at least partially, to avoid the costs of building their own facilities. “If you look at that report, currently ICE has about enough detention space for about sixty-six thousand aliens. Okay, that’s the full size of the federal government’s detention capacity,” Spakovsky said. If an entire state’s private detention contractors decided the tax is too high, ICE’s overall capacity could shrink. California is home to eight ICE detention facilities, according to reporting from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). All of them are privately operated. The GEO Group, a corrections company, owns five facilities. Imperial Valley Gateway Center LLC, a local detention company, owns one more. Two more were purchased by DHS in July but are run by CoreCivic, a prison company, and have contracts through 2027 and 2029. Although the bill won’t go into effect until 2028, in Trump’s last year of his second term, Spakovsky believes that the government might begin evaluating where else it can find partnerships to meet its detention needs sooner rather than later. ICE MAKES NATIONWIDE ARRESTS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, MURDERERS, PEDOPHILES IN HOLIDAY BLITZ “Look, if I was the federal government and I couldn’t find enough federal properties in California to do this, I would then go into neighboring friendlier states that I could quickly transport aliens I’ve detained and I would lease and rent facilities there.” “I’d go to Arizona. I’d potentially go to Nevada. I’d go to other states where they might be eager for federal government money and the increased employment from private contractors hiring people to work on these facilities.” The office of Gavin Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

DHS exposes dilemma behind SCOTUS deportation fight: ‘We have two choices’

DHS exposes dilemma behind SCOTUS deportation fight: ‘We have two choices’

The Supreme Court temporarily cleared the Trump administration to continue its third-country deportation policy this week, as DHS’ top lawyer mounts a public defense of an immigration authority the administration says previous presidents largely left dormant. DHS has increasingly used so-called “third-country” removals when a removable alien cannot be returned to their home country or that country refuses to take them back — part of what agency General Counsel James Percival describes as a broader Trump strategy of reviving immigration authorities already on the books. “Imagine going to a country and saying, hey, we’ve got a guy, he’s not your guy, and he’s a rapist, but can he please live there?” Percival told Fox News Digital. “That’s not an easy ask. It requires significant diplomatic energy… Norway is not taking a rapist from Cuba.” TRUMP’S SPECIAL STRATEGY TO DEPORT ILLEGALS GIVES HIM ANOTHER TOOL FOR ENFORCEMENT The justices on Tuesday stayed a lower-court judgment restricting DHS’s policy, allowing the administration’s guidance to remain in effect while the Court considers the case on the merits. Arguments are set for December over whether agency procedures comply with federal immigration law, due process and safeguards against torture. The case does not squarely challenge DHS’s underlying authority to conduct third-country removals, but rather the procedures it must follow beforehand. “It’s in the statute expressly that we can do this,” he said. “If you go back and read most of the immigration laws, there’s a lot of really good tools in there that people just haven’t used.” The third-country provision was included in a major immigration reform package passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996: the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). “A lot of people in government sort of treat their authority like fine china,” Percival remarked. “They’re afraid if they ever actually use it, someone will take it away. And if you’ve ever owned fine china, it’s like you can find yourself at the end of your life and you were so afraid you would break it you never used it.” TRUMP’S FIGHT OVER RARELY USED 18TH-CENTURY DEPORTATION LAW LIVES ON IN LATEST COURT CLASH But Percival’s strategy has not come without blowback from human rights advocates, who pointed most recently to allegations that deportees were beaten by authorities in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny nation on Africa’s Atlantic coast that has been under the control of President Teodoro Obiang since 1979. Obiang’s government received $7.5 million from Washington as part of an agreement with Malabo to accept third-country deportations. “I’d rather live in the United States than Equatorial Guinea too, but I’m an American citizen and I haven’t killed anybody,” Percival said. The detention issue traces in part to the Supreme Court’s 2001 decision in a case involving a stateless legal resident whom the government ordered deported due to his criminal record. Kestutis Zadvydas was born to Lithuanian parents in a German displaced- persons camp, but neither Lithuania nor Germany would accept him. The court held that six months of post-removal detention is presumptively reasonable, after which continued detention can be challenged if removal is not reasonably foreseeable. Percival is making that case publicly through his “Daily Deportee” series on X, highlighting criminal deportees whose home countries will not accept them. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER “If the person is a child rapist and serves 20 years, we have two choices: Find a third country — or let the child rapist go live in an American community,” he said, adding that the effort is intended to shape public understanding of the issue and highlight its stakes. Percival cited Burmese national Kyaw Mya, whose home country won’t take him back. Percival said another case he plans to feature involves a migrant who committed a violent crime, was not removed by the Bush administration after serving time and then allegedly reoffended after his release: “[He] tried to kill somebody, the gun misfired, so he pistol-whipped them instead. He served time for that. He got out,” Percival explained. As DHS continues seeking to use underutilized tools in the IIRIRA and other laws, Percival pointed illegal immigrants and criminal resident aliens to another oft-repeated option that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin continues to keep on the table: “It’s not too late to get $3,000 and a flight home.”