I am confident that if this ever happens CA will lose the resulting lawsuit.
They used to get away with charging a fee, I think it was $150, for bringing in an out of state vehicle.
Seems the Fed. put a stop to that.
CA does a lot of crap that eventually gets shut down.
I remember the days of their “Source tax” on folk who retired outside of CA with a CA pension.
Your ordeal seems similar, a class action suit would be appropriate.
My situation was right out of the CARB and DMV procedures and rules. It is to keep non-CA emmissions compliant cars out of CA. Has been going on for years.
One thing I found out was that if I tried to register a motorcycle with some kind of problem (non-compliance or ?, can’t remember), that VIN would be flagged, and that motorcycle could Never be registered in CA.