Committee approves steps to implement ban on use of city resources for immigration enforcement

The Civil and Human Rights, Equity, Immigration, Aging and Disability Committee voted to approve Chief Legislative Analyst recommendations to implement Ordinance No. 188441, which prohibits use of city resources for federal immigration enforcement, and asked for a 30‑day reportback on progress.

The CLA presentation outlined a package of steps intended to ensure uniform compliance across city departments, including an online training platform for employees, designation or confirmation of immigrant affairs liaisons in each department, a small immigrant affairs assessment team drawn from CLA, the Chief Administrative Office and the city attorney's office, and a standardized incident report format to capture date, time, location and whether an interaction occurred at a sensitive site.

CLA staff member Chris Espinosa told the committee, “The CLA was instructed to report on ensuring all city departments, including LAPD and Proprietaries, adopt, this ordinance or some similar, policies.” He said the CLA, CAO, personnel department and city attorney are coordinating on guidance and on creating training scenarios so employees can identify when to exercise discretion and how to report incidents.

Committee members and public commenters pressed officials about recent federal immigration activity and whether Los Angeles Police Department cooperation with federal partners undermines the ordinance’s intent. Commander Hurtado, identified as the LAPD immigration affairs liaison, described when LAPD will assist federal partners: “Sometimes our federal partners, do need or require assistance, regardless of if it's ICE, FBI, or whatever, joint task force that they do have ... if they have a a warrant, for certain crimes ... we would assist in that regardless if it's immigration related or not.” He added the department records arrests in the National Crime Information Center and said LAPD does not maintain a separate database of people for sharing.

Council members said perception and community trust matter. Committee Chair Hugo Sotto Martinez said the city must rebuild trust after widely publicized enforcement actions: “the most important thing ... is that we have to our communities have to have trust in the city.” Members asked the CLA to work with departments to refresh liaisons and training given staff turnover since the 2017 executive directive.

The committee also asked the CLA to follow up on whether quasi‑city agencies such as the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) were covered; CLA staff said HACLA was not accounted for in the report and pledged follow up. The CLA and city attorney noted the ordinance is an administrative code matter that governs internal city operations and said that external actions such as home arrests by federal agencies are outside the ordinance’s direct scope.

The motion as amended — approving CLA recommendations 1 through 5 and adding an instruction that all pertinent departments report back on progress within 30 days — was moved by Committee Chair Hugo Sotto Martinez and seconded by a colleague. The clerk announced the roll call with three ayes and two absences; the item was recorded as approved as amended.

Committee members directed staff to continue coordination among CLA, CAO, personnel and the city attorney and to return with status information so the council can monitor training completion, liaison designations and the new incident reporting system.

Ending: The committee’s action places internal steps in motion to implement the ordinance and monitor compliance; officials said further adjustments may follow as the city collects incident data and responds to community concerns.