Letter from Chief Stephens to the Community
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Eureka Residents, Community Members, and Local Businesses,
As your Police Chief, I have always believed that this role is not one of political motivation, nor is there room for political grandstanding. My responsibility, and the reason I sought and accepted this position, is to provide the highest level of service to everyone who calls Eureka home, as well as those who visit to enjoy all that our city has to offer.
My role is to protect both our community and the members of the Eureka Police Department. EPD responds to all calls for service and requests for assistance. When we arrive, we assess each situation carefully and act in accordance with the law. This work includes keeping the peace, investigating crimes, preparing reports, and submitting those reports to the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office for review and potential prosecution.
With respect to immigration enforcement, it is important for our community to understand EPD’s role. The Eureka Police Department does not enforce civil immigration laws. We do not ask about a person’s immigration status during contacts or enforcement actions, do not participate in immigration detainers or holds, and do not transfer individuals in our custody to immigration authorities unless required by a judicial warrant or judicial probable cause determination. EPD does not collaborate with or share immigration-related information with federal immigration authorities unless required by state or federal law, nor do we assist federal agencies with immigration enforcement activities. Our actions are guided by California law, including SB 54-the California Values Act, EPD Policy 428 (Immigration Violations), and the City of Eureka’s Sanctuary City resolution. In March of 2024, all EPD personnel received training on these laws and policies and formally acknowledged their understanding and responsibility to follow them. This is ongoing training that will occur annually.
As a veteran of the United States Army, having served to protect our country and the rights we all enjoy, I strongly believe in the First Amendment. I fully support community members who choose to express themselves through peaceful protests and gatherings. For more than a year, EPD has been present at nearly all such events, monitoring, engaging, and ensuring a safe environment for everyone involved. We do not take sides on the issues being expressed. Our role is to ensure that all individuals have equal and safe opportunities to peacefully exercise their rights.
That said, EPD does not support violence, vandalism, rioting, or any criminal or reckless behavior that places community members or officers at risk. We are grateful for the positive engagement we have experienced at recent events and for the overwhelmingly peaceful manner in which community voices have been shared. These gatherings demonstrate that it is possible to stand together, speak out, and be heard without resorting to actions that cause harm or division.
I encourage our community to continue setting this example, showing that you can have a voice, stand in solidarity, and advocate for change while keeping one another safe.
Transparency and accountability are essential to maintaining public trust. The Eureka Police Department operates within clearly defined legal boundaries, and our authority is guided by state law, department policy, and the Constitution. We will continue to follow California law as written, including those laws that define and limit our role in immigration enforcement, regardless of external pressure or public debate.
Our primary responsibility, always, is public safety. That means protecting life, preserving peace, and responding to calls for service without bias, favoritism, or consideration of political viewpoints. We do not choose sides, and we do not make decisions based on ideology. We act based on the law, the facts before us, and our duty to this community.
It is also important to be clear about the limits of our authority. The Eureka Police Department cannot and will not act outside the scope of our legal responsibilities. When matters fall beyond our jurisdiction or authority, we defer to the appropriate legal processes and agencies, as required by law.
EPD remains committed to serving all members of our community with professionalism, respect, and fairness. Our focus will remain on lawful policing, community safety, and maintaining the trust placed in us by those we serve. We will continue to listen, engage, and act with transparency, guided not by politics, but by the law and our obligation to the people of Eureka.
Godspeed, Brian Stephens
Language Access: To ensure broad access, this letter is available in Spanish and Hmong on the City of Eureka website.
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Thank you, Chief Stephens!
And there is the problem- “EPD does not collaborate with or share immigration-related information with federal immigration authorities unless required by state or federal law, nor do we assist federal agencies with immigration enforcement activities.” It’s true that immigration is a federal power so the lesser divisions of government do not have the power to declare immigration laws at all. Which seems to have escaped the notice of the state, country and local jurisdictions who blithely have declared themselves a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
It’s why they disingenously couched it in terms of funding rather than law principle. But it also means that they can’t deny Federal agents the same level of protection services that they give everyone else. Which demands to treat agents differently than they would treat protesters in keeping them from harm from other protestors puts the lie to their disingenuous declarations. Civil police must protect Federal agents from aggressive protesters the same way they protect protesters from other protesters. Even if it is protesters harassing agents who are doing their work.
It would be a much bigger problem if local police did share information about immigration status with Federal authorities. People need to feel safe to call upon their local police for help.
Many people would not feel safe doing so if they were concerned that it might result in ICE actions.
And, at no point did Chief Stephens ever even suggest that EPD would not act to protect Federal agents should they find themselves at risk of harm.
I appreciate EPD’s commitment to neutrality, and I commend the way they have conducted themselves at recent demonstrations.
It would solve a lot of problems if EPD and HCSO shared info to ICE. That is why most cities have no problems with field pickups, like in Minnesota.
But here is how EPD dose have an out. Every ICE has this. Get to work EPD.
”unless required by a judicial warrant or judicial probable cause”
That is a nonsensical idea. First it was not the Chief who wants the police not to protect agents from rioting. It is the leftist protesters and politicians who insist on it. The news is full of demands for the police not to be there.
Then can you imagine if the police were selectively barred from reporting thieves because then the thieves would be afraid to report theft? Or the illegal pot grower should not have their gorilla grows reported because they would be afraid to report crimes against their illegal gains? Or benefit fraudsters should not be prosecuted because then other fraudsters would be afraid to report crimes? It’s the illegality that creates the problem. Not reporting it.
Face it. This is a very selective political agenda being used to protect illegal immigrants. There is a reason for immigration laws. The flip side of the coin is that the politicalization of selected law enforcement creates the place for the employers of illegal labor to flourish. It’s cover for the international gangs to create organized crime networks. For drug distribution, government fraud, human trafficking, etc. All hide in the midst of illegal communities that are isolated in the general population, whether by illegal status, language, cultural ties, advocacy organizations, etc. Having the police make it official is destructive. And it deprives the same general public from know how the things that cause the much harm came to be. A deliberate obfuscation by advocacy groups.
Did you even read his letter, or are you just ranting?
Do you read the national news?
Seems like the “leftists” are a helluva lot more peaceful demonstrators that the RWNJ’s on Jan 6.
But not when the BLM riots were going on. In fact to compare on any metric from deaths to property damage, there would have to be 20 or so more 1/6 riots.
And since I’m on moderation which has the desired result of letting leftist bill go unchecked, while not every BLM rioters was a leftist nut job, not every 1/6 protester was a right wing one either.
Which seems to have escaped the notice of the state, country and local jurisdictions who blithely have declared themselves a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
That misstates the intent of the laws which simply prohibit using state or local resources in enforcement of federal immigration laws. Nothing in those laws says they will impede federal agents from doing their legal duties with regard to immigration law. The basic meaning is that “You do your job, we’ll do ours but we aren’t going to do your job for you.”
Exactly.
Yup, that’s the legalese that is clung to. But the reality is that federal agents are duty bound to enforce immigration law, their duty supersedes local interference and what was normal interagency cooperation on crime has been selectively cut off with the intent of preventing agents from acting. It is just a technique to grab power.
This is trying by local politicians, egged on by the protesters, to leverage finances to take a power they do not have. Look at how far these agenda ridden bullies are willing to try to take it- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/anti-ice-bills-for-new-taxes-and-bans-on-agents-introduced-in-california/ar-AA1VbEhJ
You continue to assert that NOT enforcing federal immigration law is taking a power they do not have when the opposite is true — enforcement of immigration law is strictly a federal authority. State and local law enforcement have no jurisdiction over immigration and the federal government cannot require them to do so.
No I don’t. I assert declaring a sanctuary for illegal immigrants then refusing to protect immigration enforcers from harrassing mobs of protestors is creating immigration law.
“Civil police must protect Federal agents from aggressive protesters”
Seriously? How about they protect citizens and others from the violent acts of the federal agents.
I have yet to see a federal agent arrested for any violent acts.
It’s almost like they could kill someone in broad daylight with people watching and get away with it.
How about both?! How about they provide a buffer between extreme agitators posing as peaceful demonstrators and the federal agents conducting their federal job? Unlike the self-righteous and short-sighted mayor of Minneapolis who kept their local police away and thus endangering their own ill-behaved citizens how’s about our local police show up and keep everybody safe? Everybody has a right to peaceful protest. Nobody has the right to impede or harass federal officers…
How about that instead of sending a secret army to enforce immigration laws they just send a few unarmed agents to effect arrests and ask local police to be there.
That would definitely calm things down. It’s the agent’s own actions causing a lot of this unrest
People are also upset they are targeting friends, neighbors, children. Arresting people who are not dangerous criminals but are hardworking people. People working on their status, people being arrested at immigration hearing, people who have lived and worked here for decades,
People are upset that US citizens are being yanked out of their cars or homes and being arrested.
People are upset about federal agents killing people.
They are not targeting children. Stop with that lie. (The 5 year olds dad abandoned him, and his mother rejected him when ICE took him to her home.) If your friend is picked up by ICE, you should thank ICE, unless you support criminals. If it is your neighbor, its non of your business.
That pregnant mother did not go outside because she feared they would arrest her. She had a 13 year old at school and had to make a terrible choice. Neighbors offered to watch the child ICE refused.
There is roughly 6,000 children in ICE custody.
Hello? No official is free to make unofficial custody decisions. They, gasp, have to abide by regulations.
You would hope they would have chosen the right moral decision over regulations.
And you must be joking if you think they follow regulations.
Lol that is the point. No one knows that random people volunteering to take a child would be the right moral decision. It would just be the easiest.
And I say you have zero knowledge and no interest in finding out what the regulations are. You apparently are fine with making them up forbyourself.
So she too is illegally here, waiting for her anchor to drop, and refused to take custody of her 5 year old in below freezing weather.
She should have been arrested for child endangerment for one. If she was a legal citizen she would have been.
They most certainly are targeting children
No they target adults. Children, as usual, are just pawns.
The school officials and other witnesses deny that the father abandoned him, and the mother refused to open the door because ICE has a history of forcing entry once the door is open. Between the school officials, who also say that they and other parents offered to take the child home, but ICE refused. The child’s value to ICE as a hostage took precedent.
Hostage my ass…
That’s bullshit, and it’s even not the first time you have said it…
What was/is the supposed “ransom” that you are alleging that ICE was holding the child hostage for…???
Please be specific…
They used the child as bait to attempt to lure the mother out for her arrest and detention.
I cannot imagine a more heart wrenching thing for a person to have to go through.
Only if the protesters are like cats who attack anything that jiggles in front of them. If the government did that, they would be accused of conducting guerrilla warfare to order to avoid accountability. Frankly it has become a knee-jerk reaction to condemn without examination of reality. A policy of disruption makes sure there is always a crowd available to create it.
Although it is never clear whether protesters are just willing to turn a blind eye to evil they support when attacking or whether they truly believe that they are attacking evil itself, it is clear that there is a core of hate that is being used to manipulate the left into supporting someone’s pretty ugly agenda.
How about everyone who is here illegally simply self-deport?
I hope they don’t.
Certainly would drop house prices, lower rents in California. So maybe that’s a bit of self interest there?
They would get a free ticket home, 2600k in cash, time to get their affairs in order, and a right to apply for immigration legally.
They should take that deal. It is generous.
https://youtube.com/shorts/tq0gOWFM_2s?si=D9Y7qtzKbmQEFcK6
They don’t need locals to give them data, they have all the data.
Fusion Centers.
I really don’t want to go down the YouTube rabbit hole. What are fusion centers?
Independently operated data clearing houses where actionable reports are made from intercepted data. This allows law enforcement to gather data from sources you will never get to access in discovery, and use that data to target individuals for any number of reasons you will never know.
The video is a short. But look in to it yourself the emerging use of AI tech to process the data and generate the reports in real time with no human interaction. The end product is a robotic lethal police force with no human choice involved.
Personally I think that is part of the current protest cycle. All the protest over police violence, when palantir rolls out the robot police the public will cry out for them now as they will remove the humans and all their political views from the question of what happened. It will be just algorithms.
First of all, state governments are not “lesser governments.” The 10th Amendment makes that clear. Secondly, Sanctuary laws are not immigration laws – that has already been ruled upon. You are right that police have to protect federal agents as they must protect everyone else. But they are not bound by law to assist ICE or the Border Patrol in enforcing immigration law – which, as you note, isn’t their jurisdiction. And in fact they are prohibited from doing so under the state and local Sanctuary laws, which despite court action from four administrations (Democrats included), remain in effect as they are supported by the 10th Amendment (it’s ironic that whether right or left supports states rights depends on the issue).
Oh well, by the time moderators get over holding my comments, my rebuttal will never will never be seen anyway. But it’s the politicians pandering to protesters that are keeping the local police from their dutiee.
“The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States (Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under the authority of the United States, constitute the “supreme Law of the Land”, and thus take priority over any conflicting state laws. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause
https://www.foxnews.com/us/national-police-union-calls-chicagos-refusal-help-ice-agents-shocking-violation-duty
Thank you sir
Sounds like they aren’t going to allow ICE to be mobbed if they are here picking up cartel gangsters.
I don’t expect EPD to enforce immigration laws. I expect them to respond to a 911 call from ICE. I expect they will do crowd control if an angry mob forms because there is a risk outside agitators will show up in town as well as the usual crowd.
Oh those poor heavily armed ICE and Border Agents would be in soooooo much danger if a crowd formed.
The outside agitators? That’s ICE and the Border Patrol.
Let’s see. Without going back to check, there have been several hit by cars, another with a finger bitten off, and a few hit by thrown objects. But why waste time with research that you are just going to dismiss anyway?
https://factually.co/fact-checks/justice/confirmed-injuries-to-ice-agents-2025-2026-reported-by-dis-ice-931f6f