targetdailynews.com — Tom Steyer is not just promising to “stand up to Washington” — he is vowing to treat federal immigration officers like potential criminal defendants on California soil.
Story Snapshot
- Tom Steyer’s governor campaign openly brands Immigration and Customs Enforcement a “criminal organization” and promises to abolish it.
- His plan calls for California to arrest and prosecute federal immigration agents and their leaders for alleged abuses.[2][3]
- The proposal leans on state anti-profiling laws and a new investigative unit, but offers no detailed legal roadmap for beating federal supremacy.[2][3]
- The fight is less about one billionaire’s rhetoric and more about who really runs law enforcement in the states.
Steyer’s promise: turn federal enforcers into criminal suspects
Tom Steyer’s own campaign materials do not tiptoe around the issue: he pledges that, as governor, “If Trump’s ICE agents break the law, we’ll prosecute them. Just like anyone else,” and adds that if their leaders order illegal acts, “we’ll prosecute them too.”[2] His press release says his immigration plan “calls to arrest and prosecute ICE agents and their leadership,” presenting this not as protest theater but as a governing agenda.[2]
The same release describes a new ad, “Kidnapping,” that accuses immigration agents of “illegal attacks on Californians” and promises to end what he calls their “reign of terror.”[2] The language frames federal immigration enforcement in California as an organized pattern of criminal behavior, not just a policy dispute over border priorities. For voters, that is a line most politicians carefully avoid crossing; Steyer marches straight over it and tells them to watch him do it.[2]
Calling ICE a criminal organization, not a troubled agency
On his campaign issue page, Steyer does not suggest reform or retraining; he flatly declares, “you can’t reform a criminal organization” and places Immigration and Customs Enforcement squarely in that category.[3] He accuses agents of brutalizing Californians, referencing Trump-era masked officers and specific deaths, and claims the agency “terrorizes” the state’s residents.[3] That is a deliberate escalation from “abusive” or “rogue” to “criminal,” which carries obvious implications: criminals, by definition, should be prosecuted.[3]
The page goes further by asserting that “ICE is broken. So abolish it.”[2][3] This pairs a federal objective — eliminating the agency altogether — with a state-level enforcement posture that treats federal officers as potential lawbreakers whenever they operate inside California. For conservatives who believe a country without borders is not a country at all, branding the main immigration enforcement arm “criminal” flips the usual script: it treats citizens’ protectors as the threat.
The state-level machinery Steyer wants to build
Steyer’s plan is not just slogans; it sketches out a state enforcement framework aimed at federal agents. He promises “aggressive legislation to outlaw racial profiling in law enforcement,” and wants those laws squarely applied to Immigration and Customs Enforcement conduct.[2][3] He proposes granting the California Attorney General explicit authority to hold agents and their leadership “accountable for violent, illegal conduct on the job, including criminal liability.”[3] That would hardwire confrontation with federal officers into state criminal statutes.
To make that real, the campaign proposes a “special investigative unit” tasked with monitoring and investigating immigration activities in California, “including conditions at detention facilities.”[3] Steyer says this unit would collect evidence for the Attorney General to prosecute agents and leaders.[3] In parallel, he calls for more funding for immigration legal defense and a statewide “Know Your Rights” campaign so residents know how to push back when federal officers appear at their doors.[2][3] The message is clear: California will lawyer up and gear up to challenge Washington on the street and in court.
The thin legal ice under a loud political promise
For all the sharp rhetoric, the public campaign record leaves serious gaps that matter to anyone who cares about law, not just slogans. The materials do not name specific agents, incidents, locations, or charges that would support immediate prosecutions.[2][3] They lean heavily on generalized claims of “illegal attacks,” “kidnapping,” and “brutal” behavior, without supplying the case files, affidavits, or verdicts that prosecutors normally need to walk into a criminal courtroom.[2][3]
'Watch Me:' Tom Steyer Vows to Arrest ICE Agents in California https://t.co/4854GoHOY5 “Read This”(dummy) Under the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the US Constitution, and under longstanding Supreme Court precedent, states may not criminally prosecute federal officers for…
— pat (@patgill69033215) May 26, 2026
Steyer cites a July 2025 federal court finding that immigration agents engaged in racial and ethnic profiling in California, using that as a credibility anchor for his broader enforcement push.[3] That matters because it shows a judge agreed some conduct crossed a legal line. But a civil finding of profiling is not the same as a criminal conviction, and the campaign does not offer a constitutional roadmap for how a state can haul on-duty federal officers into its own criminal courts and survive Supremacy Clause challenges.[2][3]
Why this fight matters far beyond one campaign
This clash is not just about whether you like or hate Tom Steyer, or whether you support strict immigration enforcement. It goes to a deeper question conservatives have been asking for years: who is willing to enforce the law even when the targets are powerful institutions? If a state can criminally charge federal agents for doing their jobs, federal authority starts to look optional, state by state. If it cannot, voters need to know when politicians are selling performative outrage as policy.
Sources:
[2] YouTube – ICE Is ‘Criminal’ – California Governor Candidate Tom Steyer
[3] Web – Stop ICE from terrorizing Californians | Tom Steyer for Governor
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