Are badges and guns enough to protect someone from potential deportation under President Trump’s immigrant crackdown?
It faces the Los Angeles Police Department and a few other law enforcement agencies employing police officers protected by the Obama-era program, DACA, which stands for postponed action for childhood arrivals. This is a problem.
DACA has over 500,000 people illegally brought to the US to the US, providing job approval and other benefits. Since 2022, California has been one of only a handful of states that DACA recipients have been allowed to work as police officers. LAPD says there are 13 officers hired under the program, and seven more have passed through the Police Academy.
Speaking with ribbon cutting in the Harbor area last week, LAPD chief Jim McDonnell expressed his support for the executive, saying he was no different from his other colleagues.
McDonnell said the department is monitoring “the current political situation” and will do “everything to protect everything in the law.”
He did not elaborate on the extra protections the department could offer if the Trump administration withdraws DACA.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department says there are 15 DACA deputies and eight more recruits are still in training.
Trump’s first attempt to dismantle the program was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, the president has issued conflicting messages about his position at DACA.
A recent federal court ruling has opened the door to the Supreme Court.
Caleb Mason, a criminal defense lawyer representing police officers, has expressed an eagerness to rewrite immigration policies, including the Trump administration revokes the recent temporary protected status granted to immigrants from Venezuela. He pointed out that
Previously, Mason couldn’t imagine a scenario where “there would be a homeland security attack that would have been rounded up by officers who entered the LAPD station and held DACA positions.” Now he isn’t that sure, he says.
“I think if the federal government wants to expel people regardless of their occupation (which is possible),” Mason, who has represented his client in the deportation appeal proceedings before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, added: “I think it’s possible if the federal government wants to expel people regardless of their occupation.” Ta.
Mason knows he doesn’t know any special protections for officers and other government officials hired under the DACA, but says he could be excluded from crackdowns through “enforcement discretion” from the White House. Ta.
Officials from LA and other cities with large immigrant communities have already been pushed back to the White House, but Victor Naro, project director at the UCLA Labor Center, said they can only do what they can.
“There is no solution to the questions about what will happen if DACA is eliminated,” he said. “What are you going to do with hundreds of thousands of DACA employees who are so integrated into our economy?”
The new LAPD Chief’s records on immigration have been under scrutiny since being sworn in last fall.
While serving as LA County Sheriff during Trump’s first term, McDonnell was often criticized for allowing federal immigration officials to target imprisoned people for deportation.
McDonnell defended his decision as a sheriff in numerous hearings and interviews, claiming to follow a long-standing LAPD policy that prohibits officers from working closely with federal immigration authorities.
Since 1979, LAPD has ordered officers not to begin contacting anyone just to determine whether they are legally in the country.
Currently, the Latino majority division has barred officers from asking about their birthplace when interviewing victims, witnesses or people who are temporarily detained. It also halted its previous practice of recording suspect birthplaces while fingerprinting into an FBI database accessible to immigration authorities.
The department is planning forums and listening sessions in the city’s immigrant communities, just as it did during the first Trump presidency.
Federal agents plan to take “large” immigration enforcement actions in the Los Angeles area by the end of the month, according to leaked documents reported by the Times last week.
During Charlie Beck’s term as chief from 2009 to 2018, the department stopped handing over people arrested for low-level crimes to federal agents for deportation. Authorities also refused to jail migrants at the request of federal officials.
But advocates for the immigrant community say police encounters will remain full of risk to the city’s undocumented population, and will be even more so under the new administration.
While LAPD may not work directly with federal agencies, advocates say they are concerned that data sharing agreements could use technology like city-located license plate readers to enforce immigrants. Masu.
Trump has vowed to carry out the largest deportation effort in the country’s history, declared a national emergency and deployed troops on the borders of Mexico and the southern part of the country.
The administration threatened to withhold federal funds in Los Angeles and other cities that would not cooperate in cracking down on immigrants. According to a news report earlier this week, LAPD and city officials are assessing the potential impact of funds being frozen.
Times staff writers Keribreaker and the Associated Press contributed to the report.
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