Los Angeles Pushed Sanctuary City Ordinance Prior to Donald Trump’s Inauguration

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto continued to expedite their “sanctuary city” ordinance this week, hoping to get it in front of the City Council, passed, and formalized into law before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20th.

Currently in California, the entire state has sanctuary protections. Passed in 2017 and signed into law in 2018, Senate Bill 54 prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies in California from assisting federal immigration authorities. By not allowing state law enforcement money or manpower being used for immigration enforcement, it in effect created a sanctuary for illegal immigrants who were arrested. While they can still be punished under California law, SB 54 halted or delayed outright deportation.

Many states and cities subsequently followed California’s lead, including New York, New Jersey, Washington state, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Currently 13 states are considered sanctuary states, with California the only one bordering Mexico to be one, albeit with New Mexico having many counties and cities offering sanctuary protections as well. For the city of Los Angeles, they had been fine with the California law, albeit with a few tweaks. Former Mayor Eric Garcetti created a executive directive in 2019 that gave more protections for immigrants. And, in the wake of the George Floyd incident in 2020, the Los Angeles Police Department created a special order so that, during arrests, officers couldn’t ask about someone’s immigration status.

Despite this, tougher border policies and cities like New York City and Chicago being inundated with migrants flocking to their cities and putting a severe strain on resources, prompted Los Angeles to begin looking into a sanctuary ordinance last year. In addition to making the LAPD’s special order a part of city law, the ordinance aimed to “prohibit any city resources, property or personnel from being utilized for any federal immigration enforcement”. It also formally bars city government cooperation with federal immigration authorities such as ICE in “execution of their duties as it pertains to immigration enforcement.” Essentially it copies state protections and then goes a step further.

While it had not been rushed, Trump’s victory last week prompted Bass and Soto to fast track the ordinance so that it could be in place before inauguration day. Earlier this week, Bass announced that she was now expediting the ordinance and that they hoped to have it up soon.

A new ordinance

“Especially in the face of growing threats to the immigrant communities here in Los Angeles, I stand with the people of this city,” said Mayor Bass. “This moment demands urgency. Immigrant protections make our communities stronger and our city better. I want to thank City Attorney Feldstein Soto for her work and I look forward to working with Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Councilmember Nithya Raman, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez and other members of the Council to enact needed protections for the immigrant communities of Los Angeles. Solidarity is an action, not rhetoric. Los Angeles stands together.”

However, despite this, Tom Homan, recently selected by Trump as his incoming border czar, said that if states and cities had sanctuary laws in place, they would just increase the number of agents in those places.

“Nothing will stop us from deporting migrant criminals,” said Homan in a Fox News interview this week. “If we can’t get assistance from New York City, we may have to double the number of agents we send to New York City. Because we’re going to the job with you or without you.”

With more agents coming in, local law enforcement wouldn’t be able to help them with any immigration enforcement thanks to the California law, and if passed, the Los Angeles ordinance. But the increased number of agents could render the stoppage of assistance moot.

“Well, first off, if ICE is going after criminals like gang members or felons like murderers, then the sanctuary ordinances wouldn’t apply,” expressed lawyer James Haines to the Globe on Thursday. “No sanctuary city or state will ever hold up those kinds of criminals when ICE is also after them. So they can sill work with them to get certain migrants.

“Beyond that, they cannot assist ICE with detainers. So there will be even more agents for those parts. There could be a legal challenge, but since California’s sanctuary law was upheld by an Appeals Court and turned down by the Supreme Court in 2020, the state law is safe. They can absolutely challenge the L.A. one. And again, they’ll just respond with large numbers of federal agents coming in. Trump isn’t playing around with this as it was one of his cornerstones of his campaign. Whatever he can to legally do these things, he will.”

As of Thursday, a timeline for the passage of the city ordinance is still unknown.