The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday voted to adopt an ordinance that would formally declare L.A. a sanctuary city and prohibit the use of city resources to help with federal enforcement of immigration laws.
The unanimous vote comes a week after the proposed ordinance was released by Mayor Karen Bass and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, and more than a year since such legislation was proposed by the City Council in June of 2023.
Under the ordinance, personnel in the city cannot:
- Inquire into or gather information on a person’s citizenship or immigration status
- Investigate, cite, arrest or detain a person to enforce federal immigration law
- Provide immigration agents access to non-public areas without a valid warrant
- Participate in immigration enforcement operations involving federal immigration agents
- Provide access to any information that can be used to trace a person’s citizenship or immigration status to federal immigration agents
The measure will return to the council for a second vote before it heads to Bass for a signature. Bass can veto the ordinance but is expected to sign it into law.
The proposed legislation comes as President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant stances have given rise to fear in immigrant communities and advocates nationwide. Trump has promised waves of deportations and utilization of the military and local police forces to cooperate with immigration officers to carry out deportations.
There are an estimated 950,000 undocumented immigrants in L.A. County, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
During Trump’s first term, former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive directive in 2019 called “keeping immigrant Angelenos safe” that offered protections to immigrants. According to Councilmember Nithya Raman, Garcetti’s directive was not enough.
“Our existing ordinance goes one step further than even the executive directive in that it prohibits certain kinds of data sharing that have also proven to be damaging and… has led to cases of real lack of safety for residents in the past,” said Raman while speaking with CBS.
Jim McDonnell, recently appointed by Bass as the new Los Angeles Police Department Chief, said during his confirmation hearing earlier this month that the department will not engage in immigration enforcement. “We’re not in that business. We will not be doing any of the things that people are worried about.”
Carla Aguayo, director of legal services at CHIRLA, a statewide immigrant rights coalition, listed off the significant economic contributions immigrants offer statewide and stressed the risks immigrant communities may face when Trump takes office.
“Immigrant Angelenos are facing their gravest attacks from the upcoming administration with a clear threat of mass arrests and deportations from President-elect Trump. The city cannot be seen as being in support of family separations, mass arrests or mass deportations of the citizens of Los Angeles. The city of Los Angeles must no longer contribute to the separation of thousands of Angelino families and must stand for united immigrant families,” she said during public comment.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School Board, too, reaffirmed a 2017 resolution that the second-largest school district in the country will work to protect school communities from immigration enforcement agents. The new resolution will move to design within 60 days a training plan for school staff and administrators on how to respond to federal agencies and immigration personnel.
Board President Jackie Goldberg promised to aggressively oppose any effort and any federal practice or law that orders school districts to cooperate with federal immigration actions.
“We know what’s coming. They said what’s coming,” Goldberg said, referring to the former president’s immigration promises. “We want to tell our students, their families, and all of our personnel that you’re welcome here and we’ll do everything in our power to protect your right to go to school or work in this district.”
L.A. Unified Supt. Alberto Carvalho had a more authoritative tone when he spoke in support of the resolution. Carvalho, an immigrant from Portugal, argued that his experience is reflected in the thousands of immigrants and their families district-wide.
“I was undocumented in this country… This is personal. We are professionally and morally committed to doing the right thing. And right now is the moment to do the right thing for many in our community. We will not allow politics of fear to subjugate our children, our workforce or the families of our children and our colleagues,” Carvalho said.
