El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells escalated the city's ongoing dispute with California over immigration policy this week, sending a letter to state Attorney General Rob Bonta on March 17 arguing that the state's sanctuary laws are preventing local police from conducting welfare checks on unaccompanied migrant minors.
At the center of the dispute is a specific incident described by City Councilmember Steve Goble. Shortly after the Trump administration took office, Goble said federal ICE and DHS officials told him they had a list of 52 unaccompanied minors who might be living in El Cajon ZIP codes and asked for local assistance checking on their safety. When Goble reached out to the state Attorney General's office, he said he was told local police could not participate โ because visiting those addresses would effectively confirm locations of undocumented minors to federal databases, a violation of California's Senate Bill 54.
"When the Department of Justice in California wrote a letter back and said you can't do wellness checks, it was like, 'You're so sold out for illegal immigrants that you're not going to let children be rescued from sexual slavery," Wells said. The mayor characterized the refusal as a moral failure by state leadership.
SB 54, signed into law in 2017, prohibits local agencies from sharing home addresses or workplace locations with ICE, holding detainees beyond their release for federal pickup without a judicial warrant, or using local funds for immigration enforcement. Wells' letter argues this creates an impossible choice for El Cajon officers: cooperating with federal agents risks violating state law, while following state law could mean ignoring potential child welfare situations.
The El Cajon City Council is divided on the issue. Councilmembers Gary Kendrick and Michelle Metschel opposed both the underlying 2025 resolution in support of federal immigration cooperation and the new letter to Bonta. "We do not have an immigration problem in El Cajon," Metschel said, calling the earlier resolution political theater. Wells declined to comment on whether any litigation was being considered.