L.A.’s sanctuary city status at risk after Trump administration lawsuit

On Monday morning, the Trump administration sued the City of Los Angeles to force the city to drop its sanctuary city status. The city, which has over 1.35 million immigrants, representing over 34% of the city's population, was established as a sanctuary city last November. 

The ordinance is supposed to protect immigrants by prohibiting the use of local resources or personnel to help federal agencies working on the enforcement of immigration laws, although LAPD has been seen present at ICE raids. 

The lawsuit, which was filed in California’s Central District federal court by the Trump administration and the U.S. Department of Justice, lists the City of Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. City Council members as plaintiffs. 

The claim behind the lawsuit alleges that L.A.’s sanctuary city law is “illegal” at a time when the United States is “facing a crisis of illegal immigration.” According to the lawsuit, sanctuary cities like L.A. “hinder” the Trump administration's ability to address the crisis by not cooperating or sharing information, even when requested, with federal immigration authorities.

“Los Angeles’s new Sanctuary City law goes much further than other sanctuary laws in obstructing immigration operations and directly seeking to undermine the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts,” as stated in the lawsuit. 

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi blamed sanctuary policies for the recent violence surrounding federal immigration raids in the Southland. “Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,'' she said in a statement. “Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level – it ends under President Trump.” 

Bass and other city council members have not yet publicly commented on the lawsuit.