By Elizabeth Chou/Los Angeles Public Press
This article was first published by the nonprofit newsroom LA Public Press on Oct. 29, and is republished here with permission.
When Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced former Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell as her nominee for Los Angeles Police Department chief, it stunned many immigrant advocates in the city who spent years battling bitterly with him over Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ access to the county’s jails.
Advocates remember McDonnell as someone who, as sheriff from 2014 to 2018, continued to allow ICE agents into county jails. When Donald Trump became president in 2017, McDonnell opposed a state “sanctuary” bill to prevent state and local police agencies from sharing when undocumented people are released from jail with federal immigration agents.
Local law enforcement agencies can play a key role in carrying out federal immigration policies by identifying and picking people up for deportation.
The sheriff’s entanglement with ICE was a key issue in the 2018 election, when McDonnell was challenged by Alex Villanueva. Villanueva, who promised to remove ICE agents from the jails, which the county runs, ended up unseating McDonnell.
Shiu-Ming Cheer, a deputy director at the California Immigrant Policy Center, was part of the ICE out of LA Coalition during McDonnell’s tenure as sheriff, leading an organization that operates the county’s jails. She says there are two important issues the public should know McDonnell’s views on: a police directive called Special Order 40 and a pending piece of local legislation known as the “sanctuary city” ordinance.
Here’s what Cheer says about those two policies:
- Special Order 40: Cheer says McDonnell’s views on a 1979 LAPD directive, Special Order 40, and whether he would want to weaken, remove, or even strengthen it, deserve attention. Special Order 40 was issued by then-LAPD Chief Daryl Gates and tells officers not to question people for the sole purpose of finding out their immigration status. It also says officers cannot arrest people for violating immigration law. Gates did this to ensure that crime victims and witnesses would still trust his officers as they investigated crimes.
- ‘Sanctuary City’ ordinance: Whether McDonnell supports a proposed policy now in City Council – the pending “sanctuary city” ordinance – would also be important to know, Cheer said. The proposed ordinance is meant to prevent the city from using its resources, including while delivering services to residents, to communicate or cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The City Council backed such an ordinance in June 2023, and more than a year later, there still hasn’t been any draft language submitted by the City Attorney. Cheer says an ordinance would solidify police policy into law in a way that would make it less likely for policy to shift from police chief to police chief.
Prior to the presidential election, Cheer, who has also been involved in an effort to increase legal representation for immigrants, says she and other immigrant advocates are concerned about the demonization of immigrants and the distinctions that law enforcement and lawmakers may make about who deserves to be here, and who does not.
“People will get wrongfully criminalized, and sometimes people will make mistakes, and if they do, they should have the chance to atone for those mistakes and be able to turn their lives around,” Cheer said. “Just saying some people have no right to be here, or don’t deserve to be here, fails to look at those complexities of how human beings really act and function, and how people should really just extend more grace towards our fellow human beings.”
Los Angeles County is home to more than 3.5 million immigrants – more than one-third of the county’s population – according to USC Equity Research Institute’s annual report on immigrants in Los Angeles County. Fully 8% of LA County’s overall population – approximately 800,000 people – is undocumented according to the report, and about ⅕ of the county’s population lives in a mixed-status household.
The L.A. City Council is set to vote Friday on McDonnell’s appointment. The City Council can play a powerful role in signing off or rejecting the mayor’s pick for police chief. The city charter says that if the council does not confirm McDonnell, the mayor could send a new pick – from the job candidates that are left – to the City Council. The City Charter does not include a deadline for when the chief must be confirmed by the council. The LAPD chief can be appointed to two five-year terms, and serve no more than 10 years.
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