A vote by Sacramento County supervisors this week allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to rent local jail beds is being celebrated by immigration activists as a major win and a model for national action.

“This represents a pinnacle of triumph, and a beacon of hope for the rest of the tactics we are planning to implement,” said Pablo Reyes-Morales, a member of , a network of trained legal observers focused on immigration issues. “We’re definitely going to try to mimic it.”

Richard Morales, director of immigration policy for Faith in Action, a national faith-based social justice network, said his group works to frame the issue of detention contracts as an ethical failing. In Sacramento, its local affiliate, Sacramento Area Congregations Together, has lobbied, rallied and met with officials for more than a year to get its message across.

“It’s morally wrong to be profiting off the suffering of undocumented immigrants, and that is what is happening,” Morales said. “A lot of the work that we do is fighting these local contracts and local cooperation. … We believe that the one way we can slow down the massive deportation machine is by stopping the contracts and the local cooperation.”