Los Angeles adopts sanctuary city ordinance as Trump mass deportation plan takes shape
The Los Angeles City Council adopted a "sanctuary city" ordinance Tuesday to prohibit the use of city resources and staff for federal immigration enforcement efforts, a day after President-elect Donald Trump signaled he would use military assets to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations.
Councilmembers voted 13-0 to approve a resolution establishing the city ordinance, the drafting of which was approved through a city council vote more than a year ago. Some immigrants rights advocates have criticized a prior resolution, which formally declared Los Angeles a sanctuary city in 2019, as more of a symbolic action than an actually enforceable safeguard for residents in the city.
Following the election of Trump, who has promised the largest deportation in U.S. history upon taking office, efforts to officially establish and enforce a new sanctuary city ordinance gained renewed momentum. Mayor Karen Bass met with immigrants' rights groups before City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto drafted the new policy, which bans the city's collection of information on an individual's immigration status and bars city employees from notifying federal authorities about the release or detention of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
On Monday, the incoming president confirmed a report that he is prepared to declare a national emergency and use military assets for federal enforcement efforts, making the confirmation through a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
A sanctuary school policy up for vote
While city leaders weighed the new ordinance Tuesday, the LA Unified School District's Board of Education was scheduled to vote on a "sanctuary" measure of its own — one that would prohibit LAUSD employees from voluntarily cooperating in any immigration enforcement actions.
The school board passed a prior such measure, in May 2017, but the new resolution going up for a vote Tuesday would clarify how the district would actually implement and enforce that policy.
It would require LAUSD Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho to develop and share a plan within 60 days for how it would be established "from the beginning of the next Presidential administration."
This includes a ban on the sharing of information about the immigration status of any student, or their families, with federal agents and agencies such as U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). Currently, local police and law enforcement are barred from sharing such data and information under California's "sanctuary state" law.
California becomes a sanctuary state
SB 54, also known as the California Values Act, was proposed by state lawmakers within the first year of Trump's presidency and signed into law by former Gov. Jerry Brown. It limits the use of state and local resources for federal immigration enforcement efforts, prohibiting local police agencies from making most immigration-related arrests such as carrying out or assisting deportation orders.
It went into effect on Jan. 1, 2018, leading to a bitter legal battle between the White House and the state.
The Trump Administration threatened to cut off federal funding and sued the state of California, naming then-Gov. Brown and former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra as defendants. As former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the lawsuit, he vowed to fight what he described as "unjust, unfair, and unconstitutional policies" including SB 54 and two other similar state laws, AB 450 and AB 103. Gov. Brown fired back, saying of the lawsuit, "It's not about protecting our state. It's about dividing America."
At the time, the acting director of ICE was Tom Homan, a veteran U.S. immigration who has been tapped by Trump to be "border czar" under his coming administration.
Trump's incoming "border czar" on arrests, deportations
Homan was also head of the deportation branch of ICE under the Obama administration — when the agency conducted a record number of formal deportations — and he was one of a handful of U.S. officials who signed off a memo leading to the separation of migrant families during Trump's last presidency.
In October, Homan told CBS News' "60 Minutes" how the White House would conduct wide-scale deportations, saying there would be no "mass sweep of neighborhoods." He dismissed supposed allegations of "concentration camps," calling them "ridiculous."
However, he indicated he would restart the practice of large-scale immigration arrests at workplaces, a policy the Biden administration stopped in 2021. "That's gonna be necessary," he said.
The proposed city ordinance being voted on Tuesday goes "a step further" than existing sanctuary policies, according to LA City Councilmember Nithya Raman.
"Basically, the ordinance would prevent federal immigration enforcement from being able to access city facilities or to use city resources in the pursuit of immigration enforcement," Raman said, adding that it also bans data and information-sharing on immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, which she said "has led to cases of real lack of safety for residents in the past."
LA has a decades-long history of limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents. In 1979, the Los Angeles Police Department adopted Special Order No. 40, which prohibits officers from questioning people for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status. It was intended to help immigrants living in the U.S. illegally feel safer reporting crimes.
"The Department is sensitive to the principle that effective law enforcement depends on a high degree of cooperation between the Department and the public it serves," the order reads. "In view of those principles, it is the policy of the Los Angeles Police Department that undocumented alien status in itself is not a matter for police action."
