Sonoma County supervisors on Tuesday, Oct. 27, approved a two-year program to help immigrant residents facing enforcement, Patch reported. The program, called “Sonoma County Immigration Support: A Blueprint for Belonging,” combines immigration legal services, deportation defense, mental health care, family case management, referrals and community outreach.
How it will work
The program runs from Nov. 1, 2026, through Oct. 31, 2028. Services will be offered through community hubs at La Luz, La Familia Sana, Corazón Healdsburg, Petaluma Family Resource Center, Positive Images and Hanna Center.
Why now
The vote follows an Oct. 13 ICE arrest in west Sonoma County that rattled residents; see our report on that arrest. “We have worried that the ICE surge would find its way to the Bay Area,” Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said, according to Patch. Monica Julian of Vital Immigrant Defense Advocacy and Services said her group has seen more enforcement in Solano County, with many detentions in Fairfield, and that Sonoma has seen fewer, “but it feels like a bit of an escalation.”
Patch noted that the Sheriff’s Office keeps its authority to notify ICE about jail releases of people convicted of serious or violent felonies, and that supervisors have avoided the “sanctuary” label.
The economic stakes
A Bay Area Council Economic Institute report, covered by The Press Democrat, found about 79,000 immigrants live in Sonoma County, about 17% of the population. More than 21,000 are undocumented, about 26% of immigrants. They generate an estimated $2.3 billion in economic activity and hold nearly 30% of agricultural jobs. Immigrant adults pay nearly $1 billion in federal, state and local taxes, the report found.
When a main earner is removed from a mixed-status household, median household income can fall about 73%, from $96,000 to $26,300, according to the report. “It does not take a deportation alone to disrupt the economy — fear alone can do so much damage,” said Abby Raisz, the institute’s vice president of research. Ethan Brown of the Sonoma County Economic Development Collaborative called the economic contribution “striking” in scale.