The city of Glendale announced it had ended its agreement with the federal government to house detainees captured by immigrants and customs enforcement Sunday night amid growing tensions over immigration attacks in the Los Angeles area.
“After careful consideration, the city of Glendale has decided to terminate its agreement with U.S. Homeland Security/ICE to accommodate federal immigrant detainees,” the city said in a statement posted online. “The decisions in the region reflect the core values of public safety, transparency and community trust.”
The decision comes after Glendale agreed to continue his 2007 ICE contract, detainees in California prisons and to house detainees in city prisons despite passing SB 54, known as the California Value Act. The groundbreaking laws have made California the country’s first sanctuary.
Other municipalities ended their contracts after the GOV at the time. Jerry Brown signed SB 54. But then Glendale’s political chief, Robert Castro, did not oppose the law. At the time, the mayor warned that he would curb contracts to maintain good relations with federal authorities.
In a statement Sunday, the city argued that the agreement was governed by state law.
“Nevertheless, despite the transparency and protections that the city has supported, the city recognizes that its public’s perception of the ice contract – no matter how limited or carefully controlled, regardless of goodness – has become divisive,” the city said.
The city said termination of the contract would make it difficult for some families to visit people detained on the ice.
Sarah Houston, an immigration lawyer for the Immigration Defence Corps Legal Center, raised the issue at a city council meeting after learning that a client in Glendale would be without food for nine hours and was scheduled to be moved to multiple facilities. She wondered if Glendale was complying with a decades-old agreement that violated SB 54, but council officials defended the decision.
“After the horrific attacks and violations this weekend, it’s even more important that our local community stand together to protect our immigrant brothers and sisters, as intended by California’s Values Act,” she said after the city’s announcement.
Glendale has held at least 82 individuals for ICE since January, according to Andrés Kwon, a senior policy advisor to the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California.
“With the population of immigrants is more than 50%, the city of Glendale should be a beacon of immigration rights,” Kwon said. “When we witnessed masked ice and federal agents lure Angelenos, locking up the whole family in the basement and separating the family, how did the city of Glendale ensure that Angelenos, which he had for the ice, was unconstitutional and not in detention?”
Amigos Unidos for Immigrant Justice, a Glendale immigration rights advocacy group, said in a statement that termination of the contract was the city’s “right step towards rebuilding the trust.”
“As we move forward, Glendale is our home, our community and our responsibility. We have a deep faith in protecting what makes Glendale stronger: a commitment to fairness, compassion and civic integrity,” the group said.
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