There’s a long American tradition of invoking “states’ rights” for reactionary ends—from slaveholders to segregationists. But in this moment, with federal troops marching through Los Angeles streets and ICE vans prowling like predators, we should take that language and turn it inside out. If Governor Gavin Newsom wants to matter. To history, to the people he governs. He should declare California a sanctuary state now. Not as a gesture, not as branding, but as rebellion. Let this be the line: no more raids, no more roundups, no more collaboration.
Because the truth is this: the United States is not united. It hasn’t been for a long time. And the latest wave of immigration raids. Violent, performative, and coordinated with military deployment. Proves that Trump’s second presidency isn’t just revanchist. It’s fascist and imperial. And California, as the fifth-largest economy in the world and home to nearly 11 million immigrants, is its prize.
The State Against the State
There are two governments in this country now. One that governs from Washington, weaponising federal agencies as ideological enforcers. And one that still exists. In fragments, in resistance, in states like California, New York, and Illinois. The deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to LA, under Title 10, effectively removed them from Newsom’s command. Biden never did this. Reagan didn’t either. You’d have to go back to Lyndon Johnson federalising the Alabama Guard during Selma to find precedent. But that was to protect protestors. This is to suppress them.
When SEIU California president David Huerta was detained during what should have been a routine ICE check-in, the message was clear: there is no safe status, no safe person, no safe space. Union leaders, visa holders, mixed-status families—none are exempt. This isn’t enforcement. It’s political theatre.
No Peace With Predators
It’s tempting to call this a “crisis of immigration,” but that would be too kind. This is a crisis of governance. The federal state has chosen to turn to a war footing and its enforcement mechanisms into a secret police force. This requires an enemy. For the Trump administration, that enemy is the undocumented, the irregular, the poor, the brown, the foreign-sounding. But in truth, the enemy is also the organised, the local, the defiant. That’s why Newsom’s authority was overridden. That’s why the Guard was federalised. That’s why the raids happened in LA, not Texas. Because California still acts like it might refuse.
So refuse.
Oh, and now the Marines. Camp Pendleton on “high alert,” according to Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who talks like a Fox News pundit because he was one. But let’s be honest, this isn’t security, it’s spectacle. There is no insurgency in LA, no armed uprising, no threat that justifies active-duty military intervention. This is a political pageant: uniforms, press conferences, and performative warnings designed to recast lawful protest as domestic terrorism. The Marines are not needed. Their inclusion in the script is meant to intimidate, to dramatise, to imply that resistance to ICE is a threat to the state itself.
A Constitutional Insurgency
Newsom doesn’t need to wait for Congress or the courts. He already governs a state that passed SB 54—the California Values Act—which limits cooperation between state and federal immigration authorities. But laws aren’t enough when the feds send troops. He must now escalate. Issue an executive order declaring full sanctuary status. Bar ICE from state buildings, all places of work and schools. De-fund local police departments that coordinate with federal agents. Mobilise the National Guard under state authority to defend communities, not terrorise them.
And say it plainly: California will not cooperate with a regime that disappears people into vans, that militarises cities against their residents, that uses immigration law to punish political resistance.
This isn’t nullification. This is emancipation.
Let the Courts Come
They’ll say it’s illegal. That federal law preempts state action. That the Supremacy Clause demands obedience. But let them make that case in open court, under the lights. Let them explain why a sovereign state cannot protect its own residents from the overreach of a government that treats cities like colonies. California is not a client state. It has the resources, the population, and the legal infrastructure to resist. The only question is whether it has the will.
The 10th Amendment cuts both ways. If Texas can ban books and criminalise abortion by citing “state sovereignty,” then California can damn well defend immigrants from federally sanctioned violence.
Final Warning
This is not about symbolism. The raids have begun. The troops are here. The vans are waiting.
Governor Newsom: declare California a sanctuary state. Not just in policy, but in posture. Stand up and say it: we do not work for them. We do not enforce for them. We do not disappear people into a system designed to crush them.
History doesn’t wait. Neither should you.
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