The proposal considered Tuesday night was meant to be a big stand by a small city, an effort to protect from the Trump administration a vast swath of vulnerable people — the LGBTQ+ community, undocumented immigrants and women seeking reproductive healthcare.

Instead, it turned the Ventura City Council meeting into a packed, five-hour forum for some of the country’s biggest divides. More than 130 people signed up to give the council a piece of their minds.

Some choked up. Others shouted. There were dueling signs: “Trans Rights Are Human Rights.” Graphic photos of aborted fetuses.

“For those of you who haven’t had to live in fear, you’re lucky, but you’re also probably straight white men. The reality is many of us live in fear. This policy is needed to help reduce that fear,” Shawn Terris, a former U.S. Marine Corps captain, said during public comment.

An overflow crowd attends the meeting,

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

She added, to jeers and cheers: “I believe Jesus Christ would approve this policy.”

Nate Hargus, an antiabortion activist, told the City Council: “Y’all guys are not voting on healthcare. You are voting on whether or not to kill innocent children. … Y’all guys are willing to protect everyone but the ones that cannot protect themselves.”

In the end, the City Council delayed doing anything about what is being called the Ventura CARE Policy, which is, in essence, a broad-based “sanctuary city” ordinance.

Councilmember Liz Campos, who introduced the Community Autonomy, Rights and Equality Policy, pulled it from consideration. She plans to fine-tune its language and bring it back to the council next month.

When fellow council members suggested boiling the wide-ranging measure down to a statement reaffirming support for marginalized communities, people in the audience shouted: “We don’t want your statement, cowards!” and “We’ll defend ourselves! Shame on you!”

“In addition to filling potholes and making decisions about … smaller projects, I think that our residents expect us to protect them,” Campos told fellow council members.

She added: “I have some very strong feelings about keeping this as powerful as possible.”

Ventura City Councilmember Liz Campos, left, Deputy Mayor Doug Halter, and Mayor Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios listen to speakers during public comment.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

The CARE Policy calls for local officials and law enforcement to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and potential investigations into people giving or receiving gender-affirming or reproductive care.

It prompted concerns from some members of the public and the City Council that President Trump — who has vowed to cut off federal funds for sanctuary cities — would target the city of 110,000 people.

“I’m not convinced that we’re not going to be putting millions of dollars for this city at risk,” said Deputy Mayor Doug Halter, adding that he understood the need for people “who are being attacked” to feel protected.

Mayor Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios said she would “rather have people be mad at me because I voted this down than to be happy with me because I’m voting for something that’s still not going to do what they think it’s going to do.”

She did not, she said, want to give people “a false sense of protection, a false sense of hope.”

Campos told The Times before the meeting that the ordinance was intentionally sweeping in scope to protect “communities under attack by a president who thinks that he can use executive orders to change the Constitution.”

Much like sanctuary city policies adopted by municipalities nationwide — including Los Angeles and San Francisco — the Ventura CARE Policy would bar the use of city funds, resources and personnel to aid “federal immigration enforcement activities, including deportation raids, detentions, or investigations” initiated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal entities.

Lori Mills speaks against the CARE Policy.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

The ordinance would bar city employees, including law enforcement, from sharing individuals’ immigration status — or other data that could be used to determine it — with federal agencies “without a legal signed and authorized judicial warrant.”

The CARE Policy also would prohibit the use of city resources to investigate people seeking or providing gender-affirming or reproductive care — including abortion services and contraceptives — within Ventura city limits.

The city “will not recognize or enforce subpoenas, warrants, or requests from out-of-state entities seeking information or assistance regarding individuals who have traveled to Ventura for reproductive or gender-affirming healthcare,” the proposal says.

Much of the policy is already covered by state law.

Access to abortion and contraception is enshrined in the California Constitution. State law blocks out-of-state attempts to penalize families that come to California seeking medical treatment for transgender children and teens. And a sanctuary state law limits how law enforcement can work with federal immigration authorities.

The Ventura CARE Policy is being debated as Trump moves with dizzying speed — and a slew of executive orders — to crack down on illegal immigration and target the rights of transgender people.

Attendees hold signs at the meeting.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

Last week, he invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in an attempt to use wartime powers to deport undocumented immigrants with little to no due process. (A federal judge halted deportations under the order hours later.)

Trump in January signed an executive order — currently blocked nationwide — aiming to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. Another executive order declares that the federal government recognizes only “two sexes, male and female” that “are not changeable.”

An additional executive order reinforces the Hyde Amendment, which restricts federal funding — including via Medicaid coverage — for most abortions.

Dale Marinus, a Ventura resident who was the first public commenter, told the council that he disagreed with the policy and that he had sent copies of it to multiple federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice.

Jeff Wentling, a lifelong Ventura resident who said he was a father of four and grandfather of nine, said he was bothered by the portions of the CARE Policy that dealt with gender-affirming care.

“I believe that we need to let kids be kids and that we don’t need to be talking about things that are of sexual nature to young kids,” he said.

He added: “Now, we’re talking about people having sex changes when they’re teenagers. When I was a teenager, I was a break dancer, I was a skateboarder, I was all these different things. And thank God I didn’t do something to myself that I would live to regret later.”

Wentling was followed at the microphone by Amber Thompson, a transgender woman and mother of two who has lived in Ventura for 25 years.

“My gender is not sexual,” she said in response to his comments.

Thompson and Michelle Rosenblum, another transgender woman who lives in Ventura, told The Times that they worked together on the original draft of the CARE Policy, which they submitted to Campos, who collaborated with them.

Rosenblum said that, after Trump was reelected, she rushed to get her California birth certificate updated to show that she had transitioned.

Michelle Rosenblum, a transgender woman, attends the Ventura City Council meeting. Rosenblum advocated for the CARE Policy.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

She then applied to renew her passport, which she had not updated since she was a child. She applied as a female but received a letter from the U.S. Department of State saying her application had to be changed “to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.”

Rosenblum said that working on the CARE Policy made her feel like, at least, she could do something locally to try to make a difference.

“Like many of us, I was anxious,” she said. “We’ve been doomscrolling. It was like, what can I do? I can make posts on Bluesky or Instagram, but I wanted to take action.”

Thompson said the CARE Policy was written to cover the three communities — LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and women — “because there’s strength in numbers.”

An antiabortion protester shouts at members of the Ventura City Council.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

“When you look at just a trans policy alone, you’re talking about 1% of folks being transgender themselves plus our allies, and you’re going to have a loud, vocal opposition,” she said. “By being more inclusive, creating a bigger tent, there could be more support for a policy like this to pass. … All three of these segments need strong protections right now.”

In an Instagram video Wednesday morning, Thompson said she hopes that when the CARE Policy is brought back to the City Council next month, it will be “stronger, clearer and legally fortified against bad-faith attacks.”

“We will all show up when this policy returns, and we expect Ventura’s leadership to show up for us too with real protections, not just performative politics,” she said.

“We will not settle for less, and we don’t deserve any less. See you in six weeks.”