Oakland’s City of Refuge Ordinance: A New Milestone in a 40-Year Fight — Oh, So Close!

by James W.

Forty years ago, Oakland made a promise. In July 1986, the City Council declared Oakland a City of Refuge — a place of safety for people fleeing war and persecution. Today, that promise is being renewed, strengthened, and written into law in a way that can withstand the most aggressive federal immigration enforcement campaign in modern history. This is the story of how we got here — and why the next few weeks matter so much.

A Crisis That Made This Necessary

The current Trump administration has moved faster and further on immigration enforcement than any administration in recent memory. It has signed executive orders redefining birthright citizenship, enacted the Laken Riley Act mandating detention for undocumented individuals charged with even non-violent offenses, rescinded longstanding policies that kept ICE agents out of sensitive locations like schools, churches, and hospitals — and moved to end humanitarian parole programs that protected hundreds of thousands of people.

The human cost is devastating. More than one in ten Oakland residents is undocumented, and California is home to approximately 1.8 million undocumented individuals statewide. When families fear that seeking medical care, reporting a crime, or simply dropping their child at school could result in detention or deportation, entire communities are pushed into the shadows. Public health suffers. Crimes go unreported. Children lose parents. That is exactly what this ordinance is designed to prevent.

Forty Years of Sanctuary: Oakland’s History

Oakland’s commitment to its immigrant community was built over four decades, piece by piece, through community advocacy and hard-fought legislative wins:

• 1986 — Resolution 63950 is adopted by the City Council  declaring Oakland a City of Refuge for those fleeing political violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and South Africa
• 2007 — Resolution 80584 expands the protection to cover all undocumented immigrants — regardless of country of origin or reason for migration — and calls on the federal government to impose a moratorium on immigration raids
• 2016 — Resolution 86498 reaffirms sanctuary status and explicitly prohibits city employees and OPD from enforcing federal civil immigration law
• 2017 — Resolution 86860 rescinds Oakland’s task force agreement with ICE after OPD officers were found to have provided traffic support for an ICE raid in West Oakland
• 2018 — Resolution 87036 prohibits OPD from providing any law enforcement assistance to ICE — including traffic control — except in genuine public safety emergencies, with required written reporting to the Public Safety Committee
• 2019 — Ordinance 13515, the Oakland Sanctuary City Ordinance, codifies Resolution 87036 into binding municipal law, passed unanimously
• 2026 — “Protect the Town” Task Force” is created in January, after Mayor Barbara Lee signs the executive orders that prohibit the use of city property as federal staging areas, and affirming OPD’s complete operational independence from federal immigration forces.

The 2026 City of Refuge Ordinance: Faith in Action East Bay’s Role

When ICE began its most recent invasions into cities, after the start of Trump’s second term, the Oakland Community recognized that it needed additional legal protection. This led to the emergence of a new City of Refuge Ordinance. This did not derive from City Hall alone — it was driven by  a tradition of years of persistent community organizing by Faith in Action East Bay (FIAEB).

It began when Councilmember Wang asked Faith in Action East Bay to create a model sanctuary city ordinance as the foundation for new legislation. Their organizers and advocates took that charge seriously. They drafted a model ordinance based substantially on the City and County of San Francisco’s sanctuary city law — and for good reason. San Francisco’s ordinance was the one that went toe-to-toe with the Trump administration’s threats to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities, and won — prevailing in federal district court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and ultimately the United States Supreme Court. If it could withstand that legal gauntlet, it was the right foundation for Oakland.

With a strong draft in hand, Faith in Action East Bay spent months meeting one-on-one with most members of the Oakland City Council, engaging each councilmember on the substance of the ordinance, listening to their concerns, and advocating for the strongest possible protections. On March 30, 2026, FIAEB convened a major community action at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church — bringing together faith leaders, residents, and advocates to publicly demand that the City move forward.

When the moment came for the June 23 Public Safety Committee hearing to adopt the draft Ordinance, Faith in Action East Bay organized a powerful community turnout. Advocates, congregants, and community members packed the chamber and made their voices heard through what became a long night of testimony and deliberation. At the end of that night, the committee voted unanimously to pass the ordinance and send it to the full City Council.

A Broader Vision of Refuge: Councilmember Houston’s Amendments

As the ordinance moves toward its final votes before the City Council, District 7 Councilmember Ken Houston — who signs his submission simply as “Son of Oakland,” and who is a cosponsor of the draft along with Councilmembers Wang and Gallo — has proposed a set of additional “whereas” clauses that would weave a powerful new thread into the ordinance’s preamble.

Houston’s amendments ask the City of Oakland to formally acknowledge that the concept of “refuge” has deep roots in Oakland’s own Black community — a community that has itself faced generations of displacement, exclusion, and state-sanctioned harm. His proposed language would have the City recognize that Oakland’s identity, culture, and social justice legacy were built by Black residents, families, workers, artists, faith leaders, and activists — and that this truth belongs in the preamble of any ordinance that claims to protect the vulnerable.

The amendments name the harms directly: slavery, redlining, predatory lending, urban renewal displacement, the War on Drugs, and the mass incarceration policies that separated families, stripped away wealth, and blocked generations of Black Oaklanders from full participation in the city they built. They call for a commitment to restorative and reparative justice, equitable opportunity, and the active inclusion of Black residents in Oakland’s economic and civic future.

Perhaps most meaningfully, Houston’s language argues that true refuge — the kind Oakland aspires to be — requires honoring all communities that have faced systemic exclusion and discrimination, including those whose own struggles for freedom helped create the very protections the ordinance now extends to others. His amendments would also commit the city to celebrating Black Oakland heroes through the City’s Walk of Fame and other public recognition — because honoring those who stayed rooted through decades of hardship is not just an act of historical memory. It is an investment in the city’s future.

What the Ordinance Does

The City of Refuge Ordinance consolidates all prior sanctuary resolutions and ordinances into two new chapters of the Oakland Municipal Code — and takes important steps forward. The ordinance:

• Reaffirms Oakland’s City of Refuge status, superseding and replacing all prior sanctuary resolutions and ordinances with a single enforceable chapter.
• Prohibits City employees from conducting civil immigration enforcement.
• Prohibits use of city property for criminal activity or to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law, establishing that such use is explicitly “not a city purpose.”
• Prohibits OPD from providing law enforcement assistance — including traffic support — to ICE except in genuine public safety emergencies.
• Prohibits OPD from detaining individuals on civil immigration detainers or responding to ICE notification requests.
• Bars city employees from collecting immigration status information on applications or otherwise, except as authorized by the City Administrator or required by law.
• Bars city employees from providing ICE access to non-public areas without a judicial warrant.

The Critical Gap: “Conducting” vs. “Conducting or Assisting”

Despite all of the above, Faith in Action East Bay believes the current draft must go further — and is calling on the City Council to act. The current draft of Section 2.21.030(A) of the ordinance prohibits city employees from conducting federal civil immigration enforcement. But it does not yet fully prohibit them from assisting in that enforcement. That distinction is not a technicality. It is the difference between a symbolic policy and a real one. Under a “conducting only” prohibition, city employees could still lawfully:

• Provide traffic control, perimeter security, or logistical support for ICE raids and arrests, arguing they are merely “maintaining public safety” while ICE conducts the enforcement.
• Share personal information — addresses, release dates, workplace locations, family contacts — with ICE agents, because sharing data is not “conducting” enforcement.
• Allow ICE to use city facilities and coordinate with city staff, so long as ICE is formally running the operation.
• Assist in surveillance of immigrant community members at city-operated location.

Every one of these forms of cooperation has happened in Oakland and across California. They are exactly the loopholes that a comprehensive City of Refuge Ordinance must close. Without the “assisting” prohibition, Oakland risks being a sanctuary city in name while remaining a city where employees can serve as ICE’s eyes, ears, and logistical support in practice.

Faith in Action East Bay is calling on the City Council to amend 2.21.030(A) to prohibit city employees from both conducting or assisting in ICE civil immigration enforcement operations. This is not a new idea — it is the standard embodied in San Francisco’s battle-tested ordinance, and it is what Oakland’s immigrant community needs and deserves.

✊ Action Alert: Two Votes, Two Chances — Show Up!

The City of Refuge Ordinance needs to pass two full City Council readings before it becomes law — and we need the Council to strengthen the employee conduct provisions before it does.

📅 First Reading: Tuesday, July 7, 2026 @ 3:30 PM
📍 Oakland City Hall — 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Floor

⚠️ Critical: This item is on the consent calendar. If you want to provide public comment, you must sign up during the consent calendar portion of the meeting. Arrive early, find the City Clerk, and fill out a speaker card before the items are called.

📅 Second Reading & Final Vote: Monday, July 21, 2026
📍 Oakland City Hall — 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Floor

Both votes must pass. Show up. Sign up to speak. Tell the Council: make Oakland a true City of Refuge — prohibit city employees from both conducting and assisting in ICE operations. Bring a neighbor, a fellow congregant, a friend. 🧡

Share this widely, and contact your Faith in Action East Bay organizer with any questions.

[Faith in Action East Bay builds power for low- and moderate-income communities through 40 congregations and 15 schools representing over 40,000 East Bay families[^14]. To learn more or get involved: fiaeastbay.org | (510) 382-1687)]