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LA Tells Firefighters, Airport Police Not To Cooperate With ICE

Courtesy Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via REUTERS

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Will Racke Immigration and Foreign Policy Reporter
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California’s big cities continue to stand out for their refusal to cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

A day after San Francisco proposed cutting ties with any company that bids on Trump’s border wall, the Los Angeles City Council approved a resolution Tuesday barring city firefighters and airport police from cooperating with federal immigration agents, Fox News reported.

The move is the city’s latest repudiation of the administration’s efforts to step up deportations of illegal immigrants, which Mayor Eric Garcetti has called “inhumane.”

“In Los Angeles, we don’t demonize our hardworking neighbors just because they speak another language or come from another country,” Garcetti said. “That’s un-American.”

Many major cities throughout the U.S. have similar non-cooperation policies in place, including Chicago and New York, but Los Angeles is at the forefront of local jurisdictions defying White House immigration orders.

The new directive, signed by Garcetti Tuesday, extends to all city employees a decades-old policy of the Los Angeles Police Department that prohibits officers from inquiring about a suspect’s immigration status.

LAPD also refuses to honor requests from federal immigration officials to detain illegal immigrants arrested for nonviolent crimes, the Wall Street Journal reported. The department claims that it is more effective when policing is separated from immigration enforcement, allowing it to build trust between police and residents.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck this week said reports of sexual assault and domestic violence by Hispanic residents have declined this year by 25 and 10 percent, respectively, possibly due to fear that police contact could lead to deportation.

Not all law enforcement authorities in Los Angeles agree with non-cooperation policies. Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell opposes a “sanctuary state” bill in the California statehouse that attempts to prevent federal immigration agents from taking custody of people released from the state’s jails.

If the bill passes, McDonnell told the Los Angeles Times, immigration agents will have “no choice but to go into the communities and arrest not only the individual they are seeking but also people who are with that person, or other people in the area who are undocumented.”

“That is something none of us want,” he added.

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Will Racke