Northern California county reaches settlement on Asian American discrimination claims

After years of legal battles over allegations of systematic racial bias, a northern California county has committed to overhauling its policing practices and submitting to independent oversight.

Catch up: Siskiyou County’s Board of Supervisors and Sheriff’s Office finalized a partial settlement in late December resolving portions of Mathis v. County of Siskiyou, the 2022 civil rights class action brought by the ACLU of Northern California, Asian Law Caucus and Covington & Burling LLP. The agreement mandates a comprehensive traffic stop policy barring race-based stops and forbidding deputies from using stops to intimidate residents or coerce search consent.

Under the new requirements, deputies must possess reasonable suspicion or probable cause before requesting any search, inform individuals they can refuse, turn on body cameras, state why the stop occurred, and provide interpreters for non-English speakers. The policy also prohibits stops based exclusively on a driver’s location in a high-crime area or possession of out-of-state license plates. Beyond traffic enforcement, the settlement also lifts property liens imposed to recover unpaid cannabis fines, though the fight over water access continues after a judge last November refused the county’s dismissal attempt.

Why this matters: The settlement addresses extreme racial disparities in traffic enforcement. According to 2021 data, more than 28% of Sheriff’s Office stops involved Asian drivers, even though Asian and Pacific Islanders represent merely 2.4% of residents old enough to vote — a rate almost 12 times what their share of the driving-age population would predict. “This settlement reaffirms that no one should be singled out by police because of their race,” said Megan Vees, litigation staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus.

Beyond the numbers, individual cases reveal the human toll. One woman reportedly endured a roughly 30-minute detention during which officers removed her from her vehicle, subjected her to aggressive questioning about why she was in the county and pressured her to consent to a search. She was then stopped repeatedly afterward, even while the lawsuit was pending. For Asian American families going about daily life, such encounters created a climate of fear and scrutiny.

Broader implications: The legal victory builds on persistent community organizing. In August 2023, residents successfully pushed the county to repeal water restrictions that created what advocacy groups described as a humanitarian emergency, leaving families without adequate water for basic hygiene, animals or fire protection.

These recent struggles reflect a longer history of exclusion. The original lawsuit traces the targeting to anti-Asian hostility in Siskiyou dating back to the 1800s, arguing officials weaponized modern regulations to drive out an unwanted minority. Many of today’s Asian American residents descend from Hmong refugees who fought alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. Tensions also reached a breaking point in June 2021 when four officers fatally shot Soobleej Kaub Hawj, a 35-year-old Hmong farmer, as he evacuated from a wildfire. The district attorney deemed the shooting justified, but the victim’s family attorney disputed that conclusion.

Independent oversight through a paid auditor and twice-yearly community forums will test whether the reforms prove genuine.