The Los Angeles City Council passed a sanctuary city ordinance on Nov. 19 that enshrines sanctuary policies into city law. Formally adopted on Wednesday, the ordinance is a preemptive move before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
The ordinance bans city resources from being used for immigration enforcement, and city departments from sharing information about L.A. residents with federal immigration authorities.
Pedro Trujillo, director of organizing with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles, said the ordinance is important because it strengthens and clarifies existing city policies.
“That’s really what we’ve been asking for a few years now,” Trujillo said. “So that way no president actually oversteps their boundaries and attempts to do harm in our city of Los Angeles.”
Sanctuary policies aren’t new in Los Angeles. Over the years, L.A. officials and Angelenos have embraced immigrant-friendly policies and programs.
In 1979, the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners passed Special Order No. 40, a mandate that prevented Los Angeles police officers from inquiring about the immigration status of their arrestees.
In the 1980s, as civil war in Central America drove undocumented migrants north, what is known as the Sanctuary Movement was born. Local churches offered shelter and protection to Salvadorans and Guatemalans who’d been forced to leave their countries.
Sanctuary policies took on new urgency at the city level in the last decade after Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016, promising an anti-immigrant agenda.
That year, former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti created the L.A. Justice Fund in a direct response to Trump’s threats to increase deportation. The city, county and philanthropies put money together to provide immigrants with legal counsel.
In March 2017, Garcetti expanded Special Order No. 40 to apply to the L.A. Fire Department, Airport Police and Port Police.
“In Los Angeles we don’t separate children from their families because it’s inhumane,” Garcetti said in a press conference at the time. “In Los Angeles we don’t demonize our hard-working neighbors just because they speak a different language or come from a different country.”
Then in 2019, Garcetti issued an executive directive that offered protections to immigrants, preventing city employees from asking people about their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement.
These protections are now a part of the new city ordinance.
“What this order is saying is that it’s right to stand with the immigrant community,” said CHIRLA’s Pedro Trujillo. “It’s right to give people due process and not go after people based off their immigration status.”
Once the sanctuary ordinance is signed by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, it will take effect in 10 days.