Los Angeles, a city of immigrants, braces for Trump’s vow of mass deportations

Los Angeles — In Los Angeles, post-election fears of deportation are operating excessive among the many estimated 1.3 million documented and undocumented immigrants dwelling within the metropolis.

A workshop run by the L.A.-based immigrant advocacy group the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, is educating shoppers about their rights in the event that they’re confronted by federal officers.

“I count on Donald Trump, as president in his second time period…they’ll double down on cruelty,” the group’s government director, Angelica Salas, advised CBS News.

President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants was one of many key factors of his presidential marketing campaign, with Trump usually boasting that it might be the biggest such effort in U.S. historical past.

Since clinching a second time period, he has tapped Tom Homan as a so-called “border czar” to move up the method. Homan served as performing director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump’s first time period. Trump has even indicated he might try to deploy the navy to assist perform deportations.

The Los Angeles Metropolis Council earlier this month voted 13-0 to approve an ordinance declaring itself a sanctuary metropolis in defiance of Trump’s plan.

L.A. Metropolis Council member Eunisses Hernandez sponsored the measure.

“We won’t use any metropolis assets…to implement federal immigration regulation,” Hernandez stated. “We can’t use any of our employees to implement federal immigration regulation, or their time. So meaning we’re not going to be doing the bidding or the work of federal immigration departments and companies to separate households.”

L.A.’s motion echoes that of California, which has been a sanctuary state since 2018. Nationwide, there are greater than 600 sanctuary jurisdictions, according to the Heart for Immigration Research.

Nonetheless, the incoming administration appears undeterred.

“I am sending a message for the individuals who say they’ll get in our method,” Homan stated this week. “They will cease us from doing what we’re doing — an inside enforcement operation. I’ve stated 100 instances within the final week: do not cross that line…do not take a look at us.”

Hernandez says L.A. officers are taking Trump’s declarations critically.

“We’d be silly to underestimate him, to not consider his rhetoric,” Hernandez stated. “And that is why we are attempting to organize as an alternative of being caught off guard.”

The Washington Submit reported this week that Trump is contemplating punishing sanctuary cities by withholding federal funding from states and municipalities that do not cooperate with the deportation plan.

“We additionally usually suppose it is simply focusing on the undocumented, however in most households, it is a combined standing household,” Hernandez stated. “So the damage isn’t just on the undocumented particular person, however on their total household.”

Andres Gutierrez

Andres Gutierrez is a CBS News reporter based mostly in Las Vegas. Most just lately a reporter with CBS News Detroit, Andres brings greater than a decade of award-winning breaking information reporting and fill-in anchor expertise throughout a number of markets together with Kansas Metropolis, Missouri and Dallas, Texas. Whereas overlaying Detroit, he reported on main nationwide tales, together with the mass capturing at Michigan State College, and the historic six-week strike by the United Auto Staff. Gutierrez additionally performed a serious position in CBS News and Stations’ in-depth protection throughout platforms of the trials of James and Jennifer Crumbley – the primary dad and mom within the U.S. to be held criminally answerable for a college capturing dedicated by their little one. Gutierrez graduated from New York College and is a member of the Nationwide Affiliation of Hispanic Journalists.