I urge you to vote NO on SB1635. While protecting public safety is crucial, this bill is poorly tailored and will produce serious constitutional, public‑safety, and civil‑liberty harms, especially where state prosecutions intersect with federal agencies such as DHS, CBP, and ICE.
SB1635’s vague definitions of “alert” and “imminent or ongoing effort to arrest,” and its broad reach over “communications” (including gestures or sounds), threaten ordinary speech and commonsense family or community interactions. The law risks criminalizing benign acts, like texting a family member that police are at the door, journalists signaling each other, or neighbors warning each other of a visible police presence. That vagueness invites selective enforcement and a chilling effect on protected expression, raising serious First Amendment concerns.
The bill also duplicates and expands criminal liability beyond existing obstruction and aiding‑escape statutes. Rather than targeting affirmative acts that materially assist someone’s evasion (providing transport, harboring, or directing escape routes), SB1635 criminalizes low‑level speech that does not facilitate flight. Prosecutors would be forced to infer intent from ambiguous circumstances, producing arbitrary and inconsistent outcomes.
Passage would have disproportionate consequences for immigrant communities. State misdemeanor convictions generated under SB1635 can cascade into adverse immigration outcomes, heightening risks of detention, denial of discretionary relief or removal, even when the underlying conduct was a harmless warning. Moreover, records from state prosecutions are readily accessed by federal agencies; convictions could be used by DHS components in enforcement decision‑making, magnifying the bill’s collateral harm.
SB1635 also endangers oversight and accountability. Journalists, legal observers, and community monitors who alert subjects to escalating federal or local enforcement actions would face criminal exposure, reducing transparency and increasing the risk of confrontations during rapid, covert operations. To avoid these harms, any law must be narrowly drafted to require specific intent and material assistance to evade arrest, and must include explicit exemptions for family communication, counsel, journalists, and legal observers.
For public safety that respects constitutional rights and community trust, reject SB1635. DO NOT criminalize 1st amendment protected speech! Vote NO.
Sign Petition
