Los Angeles — In Los Angeles, post-election fears of deportation are operating excessive among the many estimated 1.3 million documented and undocumented immigrants residing within the metropolis.
A workshop run by the L.A.-based immigrant advocacy group the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, is educating purchasers about their rights in the event that they’re confronted by federal officers.
“I count on Donald Trump, as president in his second time period…they’ll double down on cruelty,” the group’s govt director, Angelica Salas, advised CBS Information.
President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to deport tens of millions of undocumented migrants was one of many key factors of his presidential marketing campaign, with Trump usually boasting that it will be the biggest such effort in U.S. historical past.
Since clinching a second time period, he has tapped Tom Homan as a so-called “border czar” to go up the method. Homan served as performing director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump’s first time period. Trump has even indicated he might try to deploy the navy to assist perform deportations.
The Los Angeles Metropolis Council earlier this month voted 13-0 to approve an ordinance declaring itself a sanctuary metropolis in defiance of Trump’s plan.
L.A. Metropolis Council member Eunisses Hernandez sponsored the measure.
“We will not use any metropolis assets…to implement federal immigration legislation,” Hernandez mentioned. “We can not use any of our workers to implement federal immigration legislation, or their time. So which means we’re not going to be doing the bidding or the work of federal immigration departments and businesses to separate households.”
ETIENNE LAURENT/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
L.A.’s motion echoes that of California, which has been a sanctuary state since 2018. Nationwide, there are greater than 600 sanctuary jurisdictions, based on the Middle for Immigration Research.
Nevertheless, the incoming administration appears undeterred.
“I am sending a message for the individuals who say they’ll get in our manner,” Homan mentioned this week. “They will cease us from doing what we’re doing — an inside enforcement operation. I’ve mentioned 100 instances within the final week: do not cross that line…do not check us.”
Hernandez says L.A. officers are taking Trump’s declarations critically.
“We’d be silly to underestimate him, to not consider his rhetoric,” Hernandez mentioned. “And that is why we try to arrange as an alternative of being caught off guard.”
The Washington Put up reported this week that Trump is contemplating punishing sanctuary cities by withholding federal funding from states and municipalities that do not cooperate with the deportation plan.
“We additionally usually assume it is simply focusing on the undocumented, however in most households, it is a blended standing household,” Hernandez mentioned. “So the harm isn’t just on the undocumented particular person, however on their total household.”
