by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

The Claremont Police Department will not cooperate with federal immigration agents, according to Police Chief Mike Ciszek.

“We don’t cooperate with them in any way, shape, or form in the sense that we’re not holding people for them to come pick them up,” Ciszek said. “We don’t ask people their immigration status or anything like that. We’re just doing our jobs.”

Ciszek added CPD will not provide staging areas for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection agents.

“Our job is to basically stay neutral,” Ciszek said. “We have had ICE that came early on in the City of Claremont. It’s a federal agency doing their thing. We don’t cooperate with ICE per SB54 which is the California Values Act. So we adhere to that law.”

Senate Bill 54, which went into effect in 2018, mandates police cannot ask about immigration status, arrest people for having deportation orders or for most other immigration violations, use ICE or CBP agents as interpreters, or share personal information with ICE or CBP unless it’s publicly available.

Claremont police will however respond to a call from federal immigration agents in certain instances.

“The unfortunate thing is as you see when ICE goes out to do their jobs and they get surrounded and then they call us they’re like just anybody else in the city: if something is going on, we’re there to protect life and property,” Ciszek said. He compared it to, “If you were walking up on Thompson Creek Trail and a bunch of kids came up and were trying to beat up on you or causing issues and you called 911, we’re gonna come. We’ll make sure everybody stays safe and we’re out.”

The many anti-Trump and anti-ICE protests that have taken place in Claremont over the last year have been peaceful. Ciszek was asked if federal immigration agents were to one day come to Claremont and people were standing on the streets filming them, blowing whistles and honking their horns, as they have been in Minneapolis, he would consider that protected First Amendment speech.

“That’s correct. I think the Claremont residents and people who come and protest on Fridays at Indian Hill and Foothill are doing a fantastic job,” he said. “They’re bringing awareness to the issues. And as long as they’re doing so peaceably, then knock yourself out. More power to them for doing that. And we appreciate the fact that they do that.

“Thus far the protesters are not blocking traffic, they’re staying out of the roadway, they cross the intersections on the green lights. They’ve got their signs and obviously they’re drawing attention to their cause, which is great. We’re supportive of that.”

Ciszek was asked to comment on what he had seen transpire in Minneapolis over the past few weeks.

“It’s a sad state of what occurred out there,” he said. “I don’t know all the facts, but the federal government’s gonna do what the federal government’s gonna do, and the best way to stay safe is … you have a voice to vote, but getting involved in trying to prevent them from doing their job only complicates their job, as well as puts anybody who decides to cross that line into harm’s way. Now, are they going to be a martyr or not? I don’t know. I guess that’s for the public to decide.”