Immigration raids set to begin on Sunday will target 140 individuals in Southern California, Los Angeles Chief of Police Michael Moore told the Los Angeles Times Friday.
The expected raids are part of a national operation by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents targeting 2,000 people nationwide and come days after President Trump’s announcement on Twitter that the government would start deporting “millions” of undocumented immigrants next week.
In an interview with the Times, Moore said that the Los Angeles Police Department is not cooperating with ICE and will not participate in the arrests, following the department’s longstanding policy. He said the department has gotten some information from ICE about the planned raids and that he has been reaching out to “community stakeholders” to assure them that the LAPD will not be part of the actions.
ICE lacks the resources it would need to remove the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
On Friday, CNN reported that ICE is set to arrest and deport as many as 2,000 individuals with court-ordered removals in 10 cities, although it is unclear what those cities might be. The news outlet said the government had begun tracking family cases filed by the Department of Homeland Security in 10 immigration courts – Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco. In February ICE sent around 2,000 letters to families who already received final orders orders of removal by judges; an unnamed senior immigration official told CNN that the upcoming operation would target about 2,000 people.
Advocates react
On Friday, elected officials and immigration advocates reacted to the news reports, encouraging undocumented immigrants to know their rights and get information about how to respond to any enforcement action.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti posted a Tweet with the message: “No Angeleno should ever have to fear being snatched from their home or separated from their loved ones — we are doing everything we can to provide immigrant families with info and support ahead of the announced ICE deportation sweeps.” The mayor’s Tweet offered a link to his office’s “Community Resource Guide for Immigrant Angelenos.”
Several groups said they began mobilizing this week, in anticipation of the raids. “Once again, Donald Trump is working to ignite his base by creating terror and fear for immigrant families,” said Shiu-Ming Cheer, senior staff attorney and field coordinator at the National Immigration Law Center. “These raids serve to terrorize our communities and bolster Trump’s broader agenda of dismantling our immigration system and demonizing immigrants.”
Some of the advocacy groups have published guides in multiple languages aimed at informing undocumented immigrants about their rights and how to exercise them when confronted by immigration authorities.
Among them:
- The Catholic Legal Immigration Network has published a comprehensive “Know Your Rights” guide in nine languages, including English, Spanish and Korean. It includes information on what to do when encountering immigration agents, an emergency planning kit and what to do if a loved one calls from a police station or detention center. Guides are available in “full” and “quick” versions.
- The National Day Laborer Organizing Network has compiled a number of its “Know Your Rights” resources, including several graphics and videos for organizations to share.
- The American Civil Liberties Union has an extensive Know Your Rights web page, with a section devoted to Immigrants Rights. Assets include a ready-to-print What to Do card.
- The Fair Immigration Reform Network has tweeted a quick “Know Your Rights” graphic in various languages:
