LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a so-called “sanctuary city” ordinance that would prohibit city resources from being used for immigration enforcement and city agencies from sharing information about people without legal status with federal immigration authorities, pending possible mass deportations under newly-elected President Donald Trump.
Council members voted unanimously on the measure, joining more than a dozen cities across the United States with similar provisions. Sanctuary cities or states are not legal terms, but have become symbolic of a commitment to protect and support immigrant communities and refuse to voluntarily provide information to immigration enforcement. Advocates say they are havens where immigrants can feel safe and report crime without fear of deportation.
As a formality, the measure will return to the council for a second vote. Mayor Karen Bass, who has veto power, has said she supports the ordinance.
With Trump’s promises of a huge suppression of immigration Upon his return to the White House in January, immigration advocates urged Los Angeles council members to take swift action.
“We are going to send a very clear message that the city of Los Angeles will not cooperate with ICE in any way,” said Council Member Hugo Soto-Martinez, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. “We want people to feel protected and have confidence in their government and for women to be able to report domestic violence and crimes.”
Soto-Martinez, one of the council members who introduced the first motion last year, said his parents and many of his constituents are immigrants without legal status. They are “embedded in the larger community,” from cooking and cleaning homes to working as nannies, he said.
But it’s unclear how much will change under the ordinance, as the city is not yet cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
The Los Angeles Police Department has a policy that requires officers not to inquire about someone’s immigration status and not to make arrests based on legal status. It’s new Police Chief Jim McDonnell has also pledged not to cooperate with mass deportations or federal immigration enforcement agencies.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive directive in 2019 that provided protections for immigrants, but Tuesday’s ordinance would codify those protections into city law.
The state of California has similar protections. Former California Governor Jerry Brown signed sanctuary state legislation in 2017 to ban police from asking people about their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement activities.
Then-President Trump responded with try to hold back funding sanctuary cities and favoring cities that pledge to cooperate with immigration enforcement for federal grants.
Cities from New York to San Francisco have long-standing policies supporting immigrants, but criticism of these measures has grown with the influx of migrants. Some of the backlash occurred after Republican governors in Texas and Florida started transporting migrants to Democratic-led “sanctuary cities” last year, in what critics have called political stunts.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has since called for expanded cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities, attacking current city policies that restrict such communications as harmful to public safety.
Migrants were also taken to Los Angeles by bus, although in smaller numbers.
More than a hundred people gathered on the steps of City Hall Tuesday morning ahead of the vote to urge the City Council to enact the ordinance.
Martha Arévalo, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in LA, called the law “long overdue.”
“This is Trump 2.0, where he ran on a platform of hate and division, family separation and mass deportations,” Arevalo said. “It’s traumatic for the immigrant community. There is a lot of trauma, there is a lot of fear.”
Supporters of the sanctuary city ordinance, many of whom are themselves people without legal status, spoke of their personal experiences with the threat of deportation.
“I grew up in the shadows, constantly afraid of being separated from my loved ones and sent back to a place we had fought so hard to escape,” says Jesus Carreon, a current Harvard Law School student and graduate at the University of Southern California. asks the council to vote in favor of the reception policy.
Some raised concerns that this could encourage more migrants without legal status to come to the city and take resources away from tackling homelessness.
“I’m sure there are millions of people who want to come to LA and we can’t be a haven for everyone,” Charles Brister told the City Council before the vote. “We have people in this city who have no beds, American citizens who are homeless.”
Mayor Bass recently said, “This moment requires urgency. Immigrant protections make our communities stronger and our cities better.”