L.A. Faces a Moral Test: How Will We Respond to Deportation Threats?
California reserves the right to humanitarianism to precisely the degree she chooses. We choose to be far more humane about immigration that the President. The only way to enforce that right is an act of will and working hard. Thwart the Federal agencies. Refuse cooperation. Help families win the process and stay together.
Los Angeles will be the primary battleground of the fight to resist the deportation of immigrants (all save those convicted of violent felonies). The state government weighed in as far back as last summer, when it raised to $30 million the amount it devotes annually to immigrant legal aid. It will double down on its commitment to keeping its immigrant residents here if SB 54 is enacted. The city’s pledge to its undocumented population goes back all the way to 1979, when the police department forbade its officers to apprehend anyone because of immigration status, or question such status.
It’s not as if Californians are clamoring for mass deportations. A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll from May 2016 showed that 65% of state voters believed that immigrants in the country illegally should be allowed to apply for citizenship, 14% percent thought they should gain legal status but not citizenship and only 16% favored deportation. But President Trump’s budget will greatly expand the number of ICE agents, and many of the new hires inevitably will come here.
More: L.A. faces a moral test: How will we respond to deportation threats?