A City Council committee dedicated to immigrant affairs is set to meet Thursday to debate declaring Los Angeles a “city of sanctuary” for immigrants.
If adopted, Los Angeles would likely be the nation’s largest “sanctuary city,” just as the Trump Administration has been increasingly critical of such municipalities.
The resolution under consideration by the Immigrant Affairs, Civil Rights, & Equity Committee would not change any city laws but would represent “a declaratory statement of our values, of our vision, of our commitments,” City Councilman Gil Cedillo told City News Service in September when he introduced the resolution along with Council President Herb Wesson.
While there is no legal definition of a sanctuary city, it generally applies to municipalities that limit cooperation with federal authorities on immigration enforcement. Embracing the term has become a way for cities to openly defy President Donald Trump, who has tried to cut off some federal funding to sanctuary cities.
The Los Angeles Police Department has had a longstanding policy of not initiating contact with individuals based solely on their immigration status and does not give immigration agents access to its jails or inmates unless they have a federal warrant. Because of those policies, Los Angeles is often referred to as a sanctuary city, though it has never officially embraced the term as other cities have, including San Francisco and Santa Ana.
The resolution says it reaffirms the city’s position that enforcement of federal immigration law is a function solely delegated to the U.S Congress by the U.S. Constitution, and any local resources used to enforce federal immigration law would be unconstitutional. It also says that L.A. is a “city of sanctuary, protecting the human rights of all our residents.”
Peter Schey, a civil rights attorney and the city’s legal advisor on immigration issues, argued in a September report that Los Angeles has wide discretion in setting its own policies on immigration and that because none of its current laws are in violation of federal law, Trump’s “showboating about penalties against sanctuary cities has no basis in law and is primarily intended to dazzle his base and intimidate local officials.”
The committee is also set to discuss an ordinance that would require city contractors to disclose all bids, proposals and contracts relating to the Trump administration’s proposed border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
The ordinance, which was proposed by Cedillo, would impose strict penalties and fines on any company that fails to disclose the information. Although the ordinance would not ban the company from doing business with the city, Cedillo suggested the result could be a de facto ban and agreed when asked in May that it tells businesses to stay away from Trump’s wall if they want to do business with Los Angeles.
“We are creating transparency,” Cedillo said. “We want the city to know, the citizens of the city and the residents of the city to know where their resources are going. And we think that it’s imperative, it’s our duty, particularly given the folly of this proposal.”
—City News Service