Hundreds of people marched through the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday to mark International Migrants Day, sharing messages of hope, solidarity and resistance to the incoming presidential administration’s promises of mass deportations.
As the demonstration moved through downtown, people held signs reading “Nobody is Illegal” and “Education, Not Deportation” as they marched to the steps of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office along North Los Angeles Street. There, CHIRLA, or the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, led advocacy groups, labor unions and other protesters in a rally calling on the Biden administration and Congress to provide safeguards for immigrant families before Donald Trump takes office.
It is part of a national week of action led by the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a coalition of 20 immigrant rights groups in 26 states. Groups like CHIRLA this week lobbied lawmakers in Washington DC to vote against what the advocacy group describes as “anti-immigrant provisions” in future government budgets.
“We want to take the immigrant story to the next level,” CHIRLA member Pedro Trujillo said during the march. He said CHIRLA and other organizations aimed to “promote immigration and migration and just the hope and the beauty that all of this brings and the culture that all of this brings – so that people feel like they have someone who supports them .”
KCAL News
In Los Angeles, more than 950,000 of the city’s residents are undocumented immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Earlier this month, LA instituted a city ordinance banning city personnel and resources from being used to support federal immigration enforcement efforts. The new policy only allows this such assistance in cases involving persons convicted of serious crimes and previously deported.
“Especially in light of the increasing threats to immigrant communities here in Los Angeles, I stand with the people of this city,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement before the ordinance was approved by the City Council. “This moment requires urgency.”
City officials said the election of Donald Trump prompted them to take action, as the president-elect has done promised the largest deportation in American history. Tom Homan, the veteran immigration official whom Trump has labeled a “border czar” under his incoming administration, has said he would bring back the mass immigration-related arrests at workplaces that ended under Biden.
Homan, who served as acting director of ICE during Trump’s last presidency, was one of a handful of federal officials who signed the memo authorizing the separation of migrant families at the border. He has warned sanctuary cities and states against cooperating with federal authorities, addressing them directly when he spoke during a visit to the border in Texas last month.
“When people say they’re going to get in our way… I’ve said a hundred times in the last week, don’t cross that line,” Homan said. “Do not test us.”
On Tuesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued two consumer alerts to the state’s immigrant community, reminding them of the state’s policy that prohibits state and local authorities from assisting federal agencies like ICE with deportations and other enforcement mechanisms.
SB 54, the so-called sanctuary state law, also known as the California Values Act, went into effect in 2018 and limits local government agencies’ cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
In a statement, Bonta’s office said the warnings are intended to “help immigrants in California better understand their rights and protections under the law and prevent immigration scams by those seeking to profit from the fear and uncertainty resulting from the inhumane threats of the elected president with mass incarceration. , arrests and deportation.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom has stated that he wants to make California’s laws ‘Trump-proof’ and has convened a special session to that end, which will include legislation on immigration, climate change and abortion.
