Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass confirmed this week she wants to see her city officially become a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House next year.
Bass, a Democrat who has served as the mayor of Los Angeles since December 2022, would like to see the quick passage of an ordinance proposal that would make her hometown a sanctuary city before the year’s end, according to comments she made to local radio station KNX News. The statements position her as one of the latest Democratic politicians aiming to stymie Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.
The Democrat mayor said she was originally not aware that Los Angeles wasn’t a sanctuary city already, noting that it needs to become one before Trump takes back the White House in January.
“I was actually surprised about that because I thought we were a sanctuary city for years,” Bass told KNX. “So what the difference is is the policies that were put in place were not permanent policies. So I imagine that the council will be voting on sanctuary cities hopefully very, very soon.”
“We will stand with the immigrant community and whatever policy they put forward, we will make sure that people in Los Angeles are not hurt and families are not separated,” the mayor said.
Trump — who sailed to victory on Election Day in an electoral landslide — has made a number of hawkish immigration proposals while on the campaign trail, such as completing the southern border wall, reviving the Remain in Mexico program and hiring more Border Patrol agents. The president-elect also made other, more hardline campaign pledges, such as conducting the “largest deportation program in American history” and an end to birthright citizenship for those born on American soil by illegal migrant parents.
The White House transition team has so far tapped immigration hardliners to fill pivotal administration roles, with former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director Tom Homan to serve as border czar, Stephen Miller to serve as deputy chief of staff for policy and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem reportedly set to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
However, a growing number of prominent Democratic governors — who are also considered likely 2028 presidential contenders — have come forward to say they have no issue bucking the incoming administration’s immigration agenda.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said his state will remain a sanctuary for illegal migrants and vowed to take Trump to court if the White House tries to withhold federal funds over the issue. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said her state police would “absolutely not” assist in Trump’s mass deportation efforts and California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for a special session for the state legislature in order to “Trump-proof” their policies.
Several Los Angeles council members had put forward a proposal to give the city sanctuary status long before the presidential election, but that bill had languished in City Hall for over a year, according to the Los Angeles Times. The proposal — introduced by Council members Nithya Raman, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez — would prohibit city employees and resources from being used for federal immigration enforcement matters.
However, questions remain over how necessary a new sanctuary law is in Los Angeles, where much of the local law enforcement already refuses to work with federal immigration authorities while state laws already make California a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
Then-Mayor Eric Garcetti signed an executive order in March 2017 that pledged to keep local authorities from helping federal immigration officials. The Los Angeles Police Department has refused to honor ICE detainer requests since 2014, and the police already had a longstanding policy of not asking individuals about their immigration status, according to Garcetti’s directive.
California has been a sanctuary state since January 2014, according to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which tracks sanctuary city laws across the country. The group cites the passage of state legislation that permits the honoring of an ICE detainer only under confined circumstances.
“At its core, a sanctuary policy is a prohibition on information-sharing between local and federal law enforcement, for the benefit of criminals who have no authority to be in the United States,” Jon Feere, the director of investigations for CIS, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Last year, Los Angeles complained about a lack of notification from Texas when Gov. Abbott sent them buses of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, the entire State of California provides no notification to ICE when their officials release convicted illegal alien criminals back into our communities.”
“More communication is better if public safety is the goal,” Feere continued.
Los Angeles voters, in the meantime, have appeared to sour on soft-on-crime policies, with Los Angeles County residents resoundingly voting to oust District Attorney George Gascon from office. Gascon, a far-left prosecutor who ushered in a number of policies that favored criminals, lost his re-election bid to independent candidate Nathan Hochman.
Hochman, a former Republican who has previously worked as a prosecutor, has vowed to undo many of Gascon’s liberal policies and take a tougher stance on crime. The district attorney-elect did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation on whether he supported the sanctuary city proposal.
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