Falling Short of Sanctuary:
Understanding the Limitations of UC Protections for Immigrant and International Community Members
Frequently Asked Questions about Sanctuary and the Limits of UC Protections for Noncitizens
For additional details, please see our longer piece.
What is “sanctuary”?
A sanctuary policy commits an institution, where it has a legal choice, to decline to assist federal immigration enforcement efforts. This is simply refusing voluntary complicity. A sanctuary policy does not break the law, nor does it stop the federal government itself from surveilling, detaining, or deporting someone; it simply asserts that the institution will not help out on a volunteer basis.
Has the UC adopted a sanctuary stance?
No. The University of California has not publicly adopted a sanctuary stance. UC at times provides suggestive language regarding its “support” for noncitizens, it has not created clear, official policy across the range of relevant arenas. Given the UC’s apparent focus on appeasing the Trump Administration, this raises doubts and creates insecurity for community members at risk. The UCLA administration’s June 10, 2025 email reiterating its “support” contained no additional commitments beyond the ones discussed here.
But UC highlights policies providing some protections. What is the difference from real sanctuary?
UC adopted a limited sanctuary policy during the first Trump administration. This policy focuses especially on undocumented community members and on UC Police Department (UCPD) collaboration with ICE or related agencies. It prohibits UCPD from enforcing immigration law itself or from transferring someone from UCPD to ICE custody. But focusing narrowly on UCPD misses many other possible forms of UC cooperation with ICE, and the policy ignores the second Trump Administration’s efforts against noncitizens with legal status, particularly in higher education.
Why does this matter in practice?
While UC’s recently published FAQs helpfully notes that front line faculty and staff need not comply with a non-judicial warrant (the type most commonly used in ICE actions) seeking access to non-public areas of campus and should send the issue to upper management, the UC provides no assurance to community members that the administration itself will then deny access to the maximum extent allowed by law. Similarly, the current guidance offers no commitments on whether the administration will share information about community members with ICE in the absence of a judicial subpoena. This silence suggests that UC might preemptively comply, sacrificing community members in the UC’s efforts to appease the Trump Administration.
Would adopting a sanctuary policy as suggested here be lawful?
Yes. A recent report from California Attorney General Rob Bonta offers model policies that reflect the basic principle of declining voluntary cooperation, and notes that the legality of such policies has been consistently upheld.
What else might UC do?
Sanctuary has its limits, and the UC could go beyond this basic minimum. It could: (1) provide more robust legal support to students, staff, and faculty facing a variety of immigration-related threats from the current administration; (2) directly challenge the administration’s immigration policies as other colleges and universities have done; (3) endorse the Big Ten mutual academic defense compact; (4) reinforce protections of nonpublic areas through more robust signage; (5) disclose ICE enforcement efforts on campus; (6) limit academic and employment consequences for community members who cannot come to campus due to immigration enforcement; and others.