Angelenos, immigrant-rights groups and council demand halt to federal raids as thousands protest; council hears legal, police briefings

Angelica Salas, leader of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA), told the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday that broad federal immigration enforcement over the previous week had resulted in mass arrests across the region and denied detainees access to counsel.

“This is warrantless arrest,” Salas said. “We estimate that well over 300 people have been detained in the past week.”

Nut graf: The council convened a special session and public comment period after a surge of federal immigration enforcement actions in the Los Angeles region. Witnesses, faith leaders and immigrant-rights organizations described multiple workplace raids, arrests at day-labor centers and large-scale detentions that they say included family members and children; CHIRLA and allied legal groups said attorneys and relatives were repeatedly denied access to detainees. The Los Angeles Police Department also briefed council members on crowd-control operations after large downtown demonstrations and incidents of property damage and looting that followed some protests.

What CHIRLA and witnesses reported

Salas told the council that CHIRLA’s rapid-response network confirmed at least seven enforcement operations in the Los Angeles region and that “approximately 35 workers” were taken at two related worksites at Ninth & Stratford and 15th & Santa Fe. She said day-labor centers were targeted — including a Union & Wilshire site adjacent to a school — and that witnesses and video documented immigration officers stopping people on sidewalks and at businesses.

“Attorneys were told to return at 8 a.m. on Saturday,” Salas said of attempted legal access to detainees. She and her legal partners said they repeatedly were denied entry to federal detention processing locations and saw detainees shuttled into vans. Salas said legal observers confirmed multiple detainee buses and that attorneys were in many cases allowed to see only one client after long waits.

Salas described trauma among family members and estimated that hundreds of calls came into CHIRLA’s hotline: “On Saturday, we received over 2,000 calls on our hotline and our front desk of sightings of immigration.” She told the council that family members and community volunteers were trying to track detainees but that many people were not listed in federal detainee locators.

Council discussion and requests

Several council members thanked CHIRLA and other…