Schiff, McGuire Warn Democracy Faces Election Threats, Blast Trump And U.S.-Israel Policy

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — A 77-year-old grandmother asked U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff when she could stop carrying her birth certificate everywhere she goes, turning a Sonoma County town hall Wednesday into an emotional discussion about immigration enforcement, democracy, and the November election.

The question came during a community town hall at Piner High School, where a crowd filled the gym, including two sets of bleachers, to hear Schiff and California Sen. Mike McGuire discuss immigration, housing, wildfire protection, insurance, Israel, agriculture, and the political direction of the country.

“Can you give me hope as a seventy-seven-year-old Latino widow that someday soon I can stop feeling like I need to carry my birth certificate with me everywhere I go, and that life can become more manageable for my young adult grandsons and granddaughters?” the woman asked in a question submitted ahead of the Wednesday evening meeting.

Schiff called it “such a heartbreaking question” and recalled meeting a largely Latino cleanup crew after the Los Angeles fires. When he asked how many workers felt they needed to carry passports, he said every hand went up.

Before being elected to the U.S. Senate, Schiff represented House districts in the Los Angeles area.

“I never thought I would see a day in this country where people were required to carry their identification with them, or they would be questioned based on how they looked or where they worked or their accent,” Schiff said. “This is the stuff of the 1930s.”

Schiff told the audience he believed the political climate would eventually change.

“This too shall pass,” Schiff said. “It will not always be this way.”

He also pointed to congressional proposals aimed at imposing restrictions on federal immigration enforcement, including requirements involving body cameras, warrants, investigations into uses of force, and consequences for violations.

McGuire attacked current federal immigration enforcement practices and said California had directed $250 million toward legal defense for people caught up in immigration enforcement. He also emphasized the role immigrant workers play in California’s economy, citing farmworkers and construction workers.

“We're a nation of immigrants, and we can't forget it,” McGuire said.

The sharp criticism of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans continued throughout the event, particularly when the discussion turned to the upcoming election.

Asked what officials were doing to prepare for possible White House interference in the midterm elections, Schiff said he had less confidence that Trump would allow the election to proceed freely and fairly because, Schiff argued, the president had repeatedly signaled an intention to interfere.

Schiff said lawmakers had established multiple task forces to anticipate possible election disruptions, drawing on preparations he helped organize before the 2020 presidential election.

“We have current litigation strategies. We have legislative strategies. We are preparing mobilization strategies,” Schiff said.

He said election watchers would be deployed on Election Day and urged people who could volunteer to participate. Schiff also described scenarios officials were considering, including attempts to disrupt polling places, seize ballot boxes, challenge results, or refuse to seat elected members of Congress.

“We are trying to do everything possible to anticipate, evade, and prepare that response for anything they might do on Election Day and anything they might do after Election Day,” Schiff said.

Schiff acknowledged that officials could not anticipate every possibility. He recalled helping prepare for potential disruptions before the 2020 election, only to encounter something their planning had not predicted: the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

He called election security an “absolute top priority” and said Democrats also bore responsibility for failing to enact stronger voting protections when they controlled Congress and the White House. “We cannot allow that to happen again,” Schiff said.

McGuire framed the November election in equally stark terms while criticizing Trump and Republican control of Congress.

“This literally is the most important election of our time,” McGuire said.

The two Democrats also confronted questions about U.S. policy toward Israel.

McGuire said the United States should take stronger action against the Israeli government if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government does not act as a partner for peace.

He said he supported the Block the Bombs Act, which he described as placing conditions on assistance to Israel.

McGuire went further when discussing violence in the West Bank. “The only way that we are going to stop the violence in the West Bank is by putting sanctions on the nation of Israel,” McGuire said.

Schiff said he supports a “safe and secure Israel next door to a safe and secure Palestinian state” and said he opposed providing certain equipment and weapons when he believed they could undermine that goal.

He said Israel has a right to defend itself but does not have the right to use indiscriminate force, and he criticized Netanyahu’s opposition to a two-state solution.

“I don't see any alternative,” Schiff said of a two-state solution.