California lawmakers voted this week to audit the operation of joint intelligence centers known as fusion centers, stepping into a dispute over whether local police are sharing too much information with federal immigration authorities.
The decision came Tuesday along party lines in the Joint Committee on Legislative Audit, a 14-member body made up of members of the California Senate and Assembly. Nine members voted in favor, one voted against, and four did not vote, with State Auditor Grant Parks set to conduct the audit.
Supporters of the audit and civil liberties advocates said the review is needed to rein in what they described as abuses at fusion centers. The advocates — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Oakland Privacy — urged lawmakers to demand the audit, citing incidents they described as involving federal immigration requests routed through fusion center infrastructure.
The allegations cited by advocates include a case in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly asked La Habra police to run searches on its behalf at an Orange County fusion center, and other cases in which San Francisco police, according to the report, circumvented a local ban on facial recognition by seeking help from a fusion center with access to the technology.
The audit will focus on three of California’s five fusion centers, according to the approved plan. Lawmakers said the review will seek details about violations of legal authority and policies over the past decade, disciplinary actions taken in response, the state and local personnel assigned to the centers, private sector entities working with the fusion centers, and the state or local officials overseeing the centers to ensure compliance with state and local law.
Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from Riverside, requested the audit, and she argued that fusion centers have undermined California’s limits on cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies for immigration purposes. She also cited privacy concerns that she said have grown as the federal government shifts toward what she described as authoritarian practices.
During the hearing, Cervantes said: “It’s been 13 years since the last federal audit,” and added that she was “not seeking to ban fusion centers.” She said she was “seeking transparency” and argued that “40 million Californians deserve to know whether fusion centers are serving their intended counterterrorism purpose or whether they have become unaccountable surveillance infrastructure operating in the shadow of our democracy.”
California has five fusion centers — in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Santa Ana and San Diego — and they were established nationwide after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks with federal funding and a mix of federal, state and local law enforcement resources. Lawmakers and activists in other states have sought to scale back or end fusion center activity, including in Maine, Massachusetts and Texas.
Republicans on the committee did not support the audit; none voted in favor, with one opposing it and three not voting. Carl DeMaio, a Republican from San Diego, called the effort “a political witch hunt” and said it places the needs of immigrants above American citizens at a time when, with the war in Iran, the centers need to detect terrorism threats.
At the hearing, former FBI agent Mike German argued that the opposite timing is what matters, telling the committee that a period of increased national security risk is exactly when lawmakers should verify whether the centers are operating effectively. German said in testimony: “It’s a waste of resources when they’re not operating in a manner that can stand up to public scrutiny,” and added that, “as federal law enforcement and immigration agencies are increasingly acting lawlessly, it’s essential to subject these state and local intelligence operations to democratic controls.”
The debate also drew on prior research and legal actions described in the reporting. A 2022 study coauthored by German for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University found that there is little evidence fusion centers have aided counterterrorism efforts, and said they have repeatedly portrayed racial justice, environmental and abortion activists as violent extremists or otherwise menacing. Separately, a 2012 congressional report said it found limited benefit to federal counterterrorism intelligence efforts from Department of Homeland Security support for fusion centers and said it endangered civil liberties and privacy.
In addition, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent letters since 2024 to more than a dozen local law enforcement agencies for potential violations of a state law that bans license plate sharing with ICE or the Border Patrol, and sued the City of El Cajon for allegedly violating the ban. No representatives from California’s five fusion centers spoke against the audit.