Los Angeles — In Los Angeles, post-election fears of deportation are running high among the estimated 1.3 million documented and undocumented immigrants living in the city.
A workshop run by the L.A.-based immigrant advocacy group the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, is teaching clients about their rights if they’re confronted by federal officials.
“I expect Donald Trump, as president in his second term…they’re going to double down on cruelty,” the group’s executive director, Angelica Salas, told CBS News.
President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants was one of the key points of his presidential campaign, with Trump often boasting that it would be the largest such effort in U.S. history.
Since clinching a second term, he has tapped Tom Homan as a so-called “border czar” to head up the process. Homan served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump’s first term. Trump has even indicated he could attempt to deploy the military to help carry out deportations.
The Los Angeles City Council earlier this month voted 13-0 to approve an ordinance declaring itself a sanctuary city in defiance of Trump’s plan.
L.A. City Council member Eunisses Hernandez sponsored the measure.
“We can’t use any city resources…to enforce federal immigration law,” Hernandez said. “We cannot use any of our staff to enforce federal immigration law, or their time. So that means we are not going to be doing the bidding or the work of federal immigration departments and agencies to separate families.”
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L.A.’s action echoes that of California, which has been a sanctuary state since 2018. Nationwide, there are more than 600 sanctuary jurisdictions, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
However, the incoming administration seems undeterred.
“I’m sending a message for the people who say they are going to get in our way,” Homan said this week. “They’re going to stop us from doing what we’re doing — an interior enforcement operation. I’ve said 100 times in the last week: don’t cross that line…don’t test us.”
Hernandez says L.A. officials are taking Trump’s declarations seriously.
“We would be foolish to underestimate him, to not believe his rhetoric,” Hernandez said. “And that’s why we are trying to prepare instead of being caught off guard.”
The Washington Post reported this week that Trump is considering punishing sanctuary cities by withholding federal funding from states and municipalities that don’t cooperate with the deportation plan.
“We also often think it’s just targeting the undocumented, but in most families, it’s a mixed status family,” Hernandez said. “So the hurt is not just on the undocumented individual, but on their entire family.”
