September 9, 2026
Faith, Labor, and Community Leaders and Elected Officials Rally at the Capitol Urging Governor Newsom to Sign AB 2465 and AB 1633
Sacramento, Calif. (Sept. 8, 2026) — Faith leaders, labor leaders, elected officials, co-sponsors, and community members gathered at the California State Capitol today calling on Governor Newsom to sign AB 2465 (Ortega) and AB 1633 (Haney) — two landmark bills that would use California’s tax code to hold corporations accountable for profiting from immigration detentions and deportations. Following the press conference, faith leaders led a procession from the West Steps to the Governor’s Office to hand-deliver postcards from thousands of constituents across the state urging his signature.
AB 2465 would make corporations that profit from immigration detention and deportation ineligible for state tax credits, grants, and loans. AB 1633 would tax for-profit corporations that operate private detention facilities in California at a 25% rate. Both bills would reinvest the resulting funds into immigrant communities.
“They are doing all this for profit — keeping children in cages, locking innocent people up, denying them care — so that people who are already rich can get even richer,” said Assemblymember Liz Ortega, author of AB 2465.
“For years, ICE has fueled a system that profits from human suffering and family separation, outsourcing detention to private corporations who rake in profits while people endure dangerous, inhumane conditions,” said Assemblymember Matt Haney, author of AB 1633. “What we’re seeing across the country shows the real-world consequences of ICE’s unchecked power, putting communities and lives at risk for profit with zero accountability. Corporations running these facilities are being paid hundreds of millions to detain people in cruelty right here in California, and it has to end.”
“When I was a teenager, ICE detained my father in a private detention facility, and my family lost everything — our home, our stability, our sense of safety,” said Bruno Huizar, Supervising Policy Manager at the California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC). “AB 2465 and AB 1633 are landmark bills that send a clear message: health and safety should always come before corporate profit. We urge Governor Newsom to sign them and stand with immigrant communities — not the corporations profiting from their detention.”
“California children belong in classrooms, not detention centers — and no child should go to school wondering if their parent will be there when they get home,” said State Superintendent Tony Thurmond. “We have seen a six-year-old Deaf student deported without the assistive devices he relies on, and students devastated when their parents are detained or deported. California must stand with immigrant families, not corporations that profit from separating them. I urge Governor Newsom to sign AB 1633 and AB 2465.”
“We are living in fear, enduring traumatic family separations, and worrying in silence. In Trump’s first year back in office, ICE arrests of AAPIs in California jumped ten times from prior years. And of course my community is not alone, overall ICE arrests in California increased by 386% — that’s 27,000 people separated from their families. In addition to all of us here today, we carry the voices of the thousands of California residents who have joined We Are CA, and who signed postcards letting Governor Gavin Newsom know we want our families and communities to be free from ICE terror, and we should refuse to subsidize corporations that profit from detention and deportation,” said Timmy Lu, Executive Director of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Civic Empowerment and We Are California leadership.
As immigration enforcement and detention have intensified across California and the country, private corporations have seen massive profits from family separation while contributing little in state taxes — leaving immigrant families and their communities to absorb the harm. Four people have died at the GEO Group-operated Adelanto ICE Processing Center between September 2025 and March 2026, and ICE failed to follow a federal judge’s July order to provide clean drinking water, adequate medical care, and mold remediation, among other basic conditions.
AB 2465 and AB 1633 would be landmark laws that use a state’s tax system to hold corporations like GEO Group accountable and reinvest in the communities they’ve harmed — building on California’s responsibility to protect families and the common good.
Livestream recording is available here or here.
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