CA begins audit of fusion centers after immigration complaints

from Harry JohnsonCalMatters

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Citing fears of authoritarianism and invasive surveillance, California lawmakers voted this week to audit the work of the Joint Intelligence Centers, where federal, state and local agencies share information.

The decision was made Tuesday along party lines by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, a 14-member body made up of members of the California Senate and Assembly. Nine members voted for, one against, and four did not vote. The audit will be conducted by State Auditor Grant Parks.

Advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Oakland Privacy urged lawmakers to require the audit to rein in what they described as abuses at the facilities, known as fusion centers. They cited an incident in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement La Habra police reportedly asked for conducting searches on his behalf at an Orange County fusion center and several others in which San Francisco police bypassed local ban on facial recognition by requesting assistance from a fusion center with access to the technology.

CalMatters Investigations last year and last month found cases where local law enforcement shared license plate information with ICE or the Border Patrol in violation of state law. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has sent letters to more than a dozen local law enforcement agencies since 2024 about potential violations of the state law banning it, and is suing the city of El Cajon for allegedly violating the ban.

The audit will seek details of three California fusion centers, including:

• Information on violations of statutory powers and policies over the past decade and disciplinary actions taken in response.
• What state and local law enforcement personnel are assigned to fusion centers.
• Which private sector entities work with fusion centers.
• Which state or local officials oversee the operation of the fusion center to ensure compliance with state and local laws.

Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, requested the audit. She believes the fusion centers have been undermined state law which prohibits cooperation with federal law enforcement for immigration purposes. And 2024 Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Report cited in her audit petition, alleged that a fusion center in California routinely shared information with ICE. She also said the centers put the privacy of Californians at risk more broadly, especially given what she described as the federal government’s slide toward authoritarianism.

“It’s been 13 years since the last federal audit,” Cervantes said during the hearing. “I am not seeking to ban fusion centers. I am seeking transparency, and 40 million Californians deserve to know whether fusion centers are serving their intended purpose of fighting terrorism or have become an irresponsible surveillance infrastructure operating in the shadow of our democracy.”

California has five fusion centerslocated in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Santa Ana and San Diego. Fusion centers were established across the country after the September 11, 2001 attacks with funding from the federal government and a combination of federal, state, and local law enforcement resources.

Lawmakers and activists have since sought to scale back or shut down fusion power plants in Maine, Massachusetts and Texas.

No Republicans on the committee voted in favor of the audit, with one opposed and three abstaining. Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, called it a “political witch hunt” that puts the needs of immigrants above American citizens and, with the war in Iran, comes at a time when we need centers to detect terrorist threats.

“This is not the time to politicize when homeland security is being stretched,” he said during the hearing.

In response to DeMaio’s remarks, former FBI agent Mike German said the moment of national security risk is exactly when you want to know if the centers are functioning effectively to identify real risks.

“It’s a waste of resources when they don’t operate in a way that can stand up to public scrutiny,” he told the committee. “As federal law enforcement and immigration agencies increasingly operate lawlessly, it is essential that these state and local intelligence operations be subject to democratic scrutiny.”

A 2022 survey of fusion centers, co-authored by German for New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, found that there is little evidence to suggest that fusion centers have helped counterterrorism efforts. It says they have repeatedly portrayed racial justice, environmental and abortion activists as violent extremists or otherwise threatening. A 2012 Congressional Report which took two years to complete, found that the Department of Homeland Security’s support for fusion centers did little good for federal intelligence efforts to fight terrorism and threatened Americans’ civil liberties and privacy.

Not a single representative from the five fusion centers in California opposed the audit.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.