California City Cancels ‘Divisive’ ICE Contract Amid Los Angeles Protests
By Julia Conley | Common Dreams on Comments Off on California City Cancels ‘Divisive’ ICE Contract Amid Los Angeles Protests
“With a population that is more than 50% immigrant, the city of Glendale should be a beacon for immigrants’ rights,” said one rights defender.
Citing a need to protect “community trust,” the city of Glendale, California announced Sunday it was terminating its contract with immigration officials and would no longer detain immigrants in a local jail.
The decision was announced as Los Angeles, which borders Glendale, erupted in protests over raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which said Saturday that it had arrested 118 immigrants.
The weekend protests captured the nation’s attention as the Trump administration deployed the National Guard and the Los Angeles Police Department authorized the use of “less lethal munitions,” including tear gas and rubber bullets.
Protesters have carried signs reading, “ICE: Out of Our Communities,” “ICE = Terrorism,” and “History Will Remember.”
Glendale officials insisted in their statement released on Sunday that “the decision to terminate [the ICE] contract is not politically driven,” but several observers noted that the announcement was made as the unrest escalated and solidarity pro-immigration protests across the country were organized.
“The city recognizes that public perception of the ICE contract—no matter how limited or carefully managed, no matter the good—has become divisive,” said Glendale officials, adding that the decision to end the contract “is rooted in what this city stands for—public safety, local accountability, and trust.”
Authorities added that Glendale police do not enforce immigration law and are “fully compliant” with Senate Bill 54, also known as the California Values Act, the 2017 law that made California the nation’s first sanctuary state.
The law prohibits local and state law enforcement from allowing federal immigration authorities to utilize space in their facilities, but 82 immigrants have been housed in the Glendale City Jail since January after being detained by ICE.
A city spokesperson told local news station NBC4 that the immigrants have spent between six and 12 hours in the jail, and city officials said Sunday that the police have ensured “access to clean accommodations, on-call medical care, family visitation, and legal counsel.”
But Sarah Houston, an immigration lawyer with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, told city councilors at the meeting last week that her client had been held without food for nine hours.
“After the horrific raids and violations this weekend, it is all the more important that our local communities stand together to protect our immigrant brothers and sisters as intended in the California Values Act,” said Houston.
Other California cities ended their contracts with immigration authorities after the law was passed, but Glendale’s police chief at the time, Robert Castro, opposed the measure and maintained the ICE agreement, which had been in place since 2007.
The Los Angeles Times reported that “the city manager warned against nixing the contract in a bid to maintain a good relationship with federal authorities.”
Andrés Kwon, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, told the Times that it was “shocking” that Glendale has had the contract.
“Ultimately and effectively, this Glendale contract with ICE is helping the Trump administration carry out its mass deportation agenda that is racist and has abused countless peoples, constitutional, civil, and human rights,” said Kwon.
“With a population that is more than 50% immigrant, the city of Glendale should be a beacon for immigrants’ rights,” Kwon added. “As we’ve witnessed masked ICE and federal agents abducting Angelenos, locking up entire families in basements, and separating families—how could the city of Glendale ensure that the Angelenos it held for ICE weren’t unconstitutionally detained?”
Citing a need to protect “community trust,” the city of Glendale, California announced Sunday it was terminating its contract with immigration officials and would no longer detain immigrants in a local jail.
