The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to dismantle Los Angeles’ sanctuary policies, saying the city specifically rewrote its laws late last year to try to thwart President Trump’s mass deportation plans.
Administration officials specifically tied the violence that erupted several weeks ago against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s efforts in Los Angeles to the sanctuary policies.
The lawsuit says the city’s restrictions on sharing information with federal immigration officers “directly contradict” federal law and must be struck down.
City law not only restricts cooperation on turning over illegal immigrants for deportation, a civil affair, but also interferes with criminal enforcement, giving the city a veto over sending someone to the feds who is suspected of a felony in reentering the country after a previous deportation.
“Today’s lawsuit holds the City of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in bringing the lawsuit.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the anti-ICE clashes from three weeks ago were spurred by the city.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” she said. “Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump.”
The Washington Times has reached out to Mayor Karen Bass for this story.
She signed an ordinance late last year, after Mr. Trump’s election but before he was sworn in, that city council members said was intended to defy the incoming president’s deportation plans.
As the anti-ICE protests erupted in early June, one council member asked the city police chief to alert them to any impending ICE actions he learned about. Another council member complained of “warrantless abductions of the residents of this city.”
And Ms. Bass blamed the protests on ICE “chasing people” in the city.
Mr. Trump responded to the violence by federalizing and deploying the National Guard to the city, as well as sending a contingent of Marines. Gov. Gavin Newsom challenged that deployment but a federal appeals court has allowed the troops to remain.
The administration has made sanctuary jurisdictions a top legal target, with lawsuits already targeting New York and Illinois.
Los Angeles, though, makes a particularly compelling target, coming in a major city with such a large concentration of illegal immigrants, particularly from Mexico. Indeed, Mexican flags became the symbol of the anti-ICE protesters.
The Justice Department said the city formerly provided good cooperation with federal immigration officers, including a 1979 special police order telling detectives to keep an arrest log of illegal immigrants and to share that report with the feds.
A statewide sanctuary law adopted during Mr. Trump’s first term squelched that.
Now the city refuses to transfer people in custody to federal authorities for civil immigration enforcement. And the city goes further, saying a special liaison can even block transfers of illegal immigrants sought in felony cases in which they were deported but snuck back in.
