Earlier this week, city councilmembers unanimously passed a "sanctuary city" ordinance that bars city resources from being used for immigration enforcement and city departments from sharing illegals' information with federal immigration authorities.
Los Angeles joins more than a dozen cities across the United States in enacting such a provision as President-elect Donald Trump has promised to undertake a major deportation operation of people who are in the country illegally, starting with those who have committed violent crimes.
In the case of Los Angeles, Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), says the city council is "ignoring the voters."
"A couple of weeks ago, they voted George Gascón out of office because he wasn't prosecuting criminals, because he was turning criminals loose and people were paying for it with their lives, with their property, with their safety," Mehlman notes. "The voters are making it very clear, even in deep blue states like California, that they've had enough, and yet the city council in Los Angeles is again ignoring the will of the people and just doing its thing."
Meanwhile, incoming Border Czar Tom Homan has made it clear that Immigration Customs Enforcement agents do not need anyone's cooperation to remove illegals from the country.
"He's going to do his job," Mehlman predicts. "In spite of the fact that LA is a sanctuary city, that California is a sanctuary state, the federal government still has the authority to carry out federal laws in those jurisdictions."
He says the sanctuary ordinance is simply "politically driven."
