Tom Steyer, the billionaire Democrat running for governor of California, called for federal immigration agents to be locked up and proposed using state resources to fly deported illegal immigrants back into the country, a platform that treats law enforcement as the criminal class and lawbreakers as victims. Steyer laid out his proposals in a post on X, where he accused ICE of acting "like a criminal organization" and outlined five actions he said he would take if elected.
The centerpiece of Steyer's plan: empower the California Attorney General to prosecute ICE agents and their leadership for what he called "their crimes." He also pledged to create a special investigative unit to build cases against federal officers, expand taxpayer-funded legal defense for illegal immigrants, and launch a statewide "Know Your Rights" campaign, all aimed at obstructing federal immigration enforcement within California's borders.
Set against the backdrop of a fractured Democratic primary, Steyer's proposals represent the most aggressive anti-enforcement posture yet from a major candidate in the race. The question for California voters is whether a governor should spend state dollars shielding people from lawful federal action, or whether the state has more pressing problems to solve.
Steyer framed his agenda as a direct confrontation with the Trump administration. In his post on X, he wrote:
"ICE is acting like a criminal organization, carrying out indiscriminate racial profiling and using violence, intimidation, terrorism, and the murder of Americans to extend Trump's rule by fear."
That language, accusing a federal law enforcement agency of "terrorism" and "murder", is not a policy disagreement. It is an incitement designed to delegitimize border enforcement itself. Steyer offered no specific incidents to support those charges. He did not name a single case. He simply asserted the claims and moved on to his five proposals.
First, Steyer said he would pass legislation building on existing California laws to prevent ICE agents from profiling people based on race, ethnicity, or their jobs. Second, he would give the California Attorney General authority to hold ICE agents "accountable for any violence that occurs." Third, he would "appoint and fund a special investigative unit" to gather evidence so the Attorney General could prosecute "offenders and their leadership."
The fourth plank is the most telling. Steyer said he would bring deported individuals "back home", meaning he would use state resources to fly people who had been lawfully removed by the federal government back into the United States. Fifth, he pledged to fund "a much larger and stronger immigration legal defense" and to "launch a massive statewide 'Know Your Rights' public education and public awareness campaign."
Taken together, the plan amounts to a state government declaring itself an adversary of federal law enforcement. Steyer said he would go "after both their agents on the streets" and the leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, promising to put them "in jail for their crimes."
Steyer's proposals arrive as California already faces scrutiny over its immigration spending. A recent City Journal report found that Governor Gavin Newsom "covertly spent $1 billion importing 400,000 migrants from poor countries" into the state. The report traced the money and found that Newsom had "granted approximately $1 billion to an army of nonprofits that has encouraged unchecked numbers of migrants to enter the country, fought deportation orders in the courts, and led street protests against ICE."
That billion dollars did not go to fixing roads, hiring teachers, or reducing homelessness. It went to organizations whose explicit purpose was to undermine immigration enforcement. Steyer's platform would double down on exactly that model, adding a prosecutorial apparatus aimed at the federal agents doing their jobs.
As previously reported on Steyer's campaign agenda, the candidate has made confrontation with ICE the organizing principle of his candidacy. He described President Trump as attacking and robbing "the most vulnerable in our society, while protecting and enriching the most powerful," and characterized the current federal posture as an "authoritarian takeover."
Steyer is not running in a vacuum. The California governor's race has been marked by turmoil among Democrats, with candidates jockeying for position in a crowded and increasingly chaotic field.
The recent exit of Betty Yee from the race exposed deep fractures in the Democratic coalition, and the primary has been further destabilized by disputes over debate formats and candidate diversity.
Steyer's hard-left immigration stance appears calibrated for a Democratic electorate that rewards confrontation with the Trump administration above all else. Whether it plays with the broader California electorate is another matter entirely.
A scrapped USC debate earlier in the cycle illustrated how Democratic infighting has consumed the race, leaving policy substance, and the voters who care about it, as an afterthought.
Meanwhile, polling has shown Republicans gaining ground as the Democratic field splinters. Steyer's gambit to outflank rivals on immigration may excite progressive activists, but it risks alienating the moderate voters who will decide a general election.
The core logic of Steyer's platform deserves plain examination. He proposes to treat ICE agents, federal officers executing lawful removal orders issued by immigration judges, as criminals. He wants a state-funded investigative unit to build cases against them. He wants the California Attorney General to prosecute them.
This is not a disagreement about policy priorities. It is a proposal to use the machinery of state government to criminalize federal law enforcement. If a governor can jail ICE agents for carrying out deportation orders, the principle extends to any federal officer enforcing any law a state governor dislikes.
Steyer said he wanted to give California the power and authority to "take on ICE and win." But what does "winning" look like? It looks like illegal immigrants shielded from removal. It looks like deported individuals flown back at taxpayer expense. It looks like federal agents afraid to do their jobs because a state prosecutor is building a file on them.
And it looks like a state that has already spent a billion dollars on nonprofits dedicated to fighting deportation orders now proposing to spend even more, on lawyers, investigators, public awareness campaigns, and international flights for people who were lawfully removed from the country.
The people who bear the cost of these policies are never the billionaire candidates who propose them. They are the California taxpayers footing the bill. They are the legal immigrants who followed the rules and watched the line get cut. They are the communities dealing with the downstream consequences of a state government that treats immigration law as optional.
Steyer described his agenda as standing up for "the most vulnerable in our society." But the most vulnerable Californians, the ones struggling with housing costs, crime, and overcrowded public services, are not well served by a governor who wants to spend their money flying deported illegal immigrants back into the state.
The scrutiny facing Democratic gubernatorial candidates across the country suggests voters are paying closer attention to what these candidates actually propose, not just the rhetoric they wrap it in.
Steyer's platform is not a policy agenda. It is a declaration that California should function as a sanctuary not just from deportation, but from the very concept of immigration enforcement. He said he would confront ICE "head-on." He left out the part where California taxpayers pick up the tab.
When a candidate for governor promises to jail federal officers and fly deported immigrants home on the state's dime, he is not protecting the vulnerable. He is auditioning for a job he plans to use against the law itself.
