GRASSROOTS AAPI POLICY AGENDA
Alongside our powerful network of grassroots Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations, we have identified the following legislative priorities that serve working-class AAPI immigrant and refugee communities.
Priority Bills
AB 2495 (Kalra): Defending Immigrant Workers
Co-Sponsors: AAPI FORCE, CHIRLA, CELA, ERA, LAAW
Anti-immigrant national rhetoric has emboldened bad-faith employers to increasingly coerce immigrant workers into not reporting violations of workplace rights by making veiled threats, chilling statements, or implicit warnings about immigration consequences.
AB 2495 will clarify existing immigration-related retaliation protections to deter bad faith employers engaging in immigration-related threats as a means to coerce workers into silence around workplace violations.
Have you or someone you know experienced immigration-related workplace coercion? Share your story with us.
SB 1164/SB 1360 (Cervantes): California Voting Rights Act
Co-Sponsors: AAPI FORCE, ACLU CA Action, BLC, CFT, Common Cause CA, HIP, MALDEF, NAACP LDF, and SEIU CA.
SB 1164 responds directly to the federal dismantling of the Voting Rights Act by ensuring state law prohibits all forms of voting discrimination, empowering the California Attorney General to stop discrimination before it happens, and ensuring that voters can challenge discriminatory voting practices in court.
SB 1360 is focused on ensuring limited-English voters can fully participate in California elections. The bill would guarantee federal language assistance requirements under state law and expand language coverage.
Learn more about CA Democracy Partnership Coalition.
Supporting Bills
SB 1105 (Perez): Protect California Rights Act
Co-Sponsors: PWC, CIPC
The federal administration has commandeered local and state police to implement its agenda, endangering the safety and rights of immigrants going about their everyday lives and Californians exercising their right to observe and protest. The Protect California Rights Act will:
Prohibit local and state law enforcement from assisting federal agents in operations that involve racial or identity profiling, criminalization of speech, or use of unauthorized military weapons against Californians.
Prohibit federal law enforcement from acting beyond their federal jurisdiction to stop and arrest Californians, except during times of emergency and with the Governor’s approval.
AB 1790 (Connolly): Closing the Water’s Edge Tax Loophole
Co-Sponsors: SEIU CA
The rules are rigged in favor of corporations and against everyday working people. Under current law, global profits can be shuffled on paper through the “Water’s Edge” tax loophole, through which California loses over $3 billion annually. This bill would close that loophole and ensure that corporations pay the taxes they owe.
AB 1542/AB 322 (Ward): California Sensitive Data Privacy Act & California Location Privacy Act
Co-Sponsors: AJSoCal, Consumer Reports, CITED
This pair of bills ban businesses (like Palantir) from selling and sharing our sensitive personal information, which includes our immigration status, health data, social security number, sexual orientation, genetic data and precise location. This sensitive data has been used by scammers to facilitate financial fraud, by retailers to generate predatory pricing schemes, and even by our own federal government to surveil individuals exercising their constitutional rights.
This legislation protects Californians from having their movements tracked and sold when visiting sensitive places such as protests, domestic violence shelters, legal service centers, and reproductive clinics. It also requires a judicial warrant for law enforcement to access this data.
AB 2465 (Ortega): No State Funds for ICE Collaborators
Co-Sponsors: CIPC, Superintendent Tony Thurmond
This bill would prohibit any entity that contracts with the federal government for immigration enforcement purposes from receiving any state-provided benefit, subsidy, grant, loan, or tax credit.
SB 1091 (Caballero): Community Anti-Displacement & Preservation Program
SB 1091 creates CAPP, a $500M investment to acquire “naturally occurring” (i.e. unsubsidized) affordable housing in California, taking those properties off the speculative market and providing stability for thousands of renters, who are predominantly low-income people of color. This program would be funded by the affordable housing bond on the November ballot.
AB 1537 (Bryan): No Side Jobs for ICE Act
Co-Sponsors: EMAC, CIPC, ICE Out of CA
This bill would prohibit local law enforcement officers from moonlighting as ICE agents.
Passed Bill(s) 📝
SB 73 (Cervantes): ICE out of Polling Places
Co-Sponsors: AAPI FORCE, CHIRLA
SB 73 builds up California’s defenses against federal interference in our democracy by preventing federal officials from inspecting voting machines and extending the existing prohibition against law enforcement officials – such as ICE and CBP agents – being posted at voting locations.
This bill ensures voters can exercise their rights without fear. Protections would take immediate effect, applying to the June Primary, the November General Election and beyond.
SB 417 (Cervantes): Housing Bond of 2026
Co-Sponsors: Housing CA, PICO
This bill would place a $10 billion housing bond on the November 3, 2026 statewide general election ballot to fund production of affordable housing and supportive housing, as well as preserve existing affordable housing.