LA asks the port police to monitor and protect the community against ICE

The City of Los Angeles is asking the Los Angeles Port Police force, the specialized law enforcement agency operating 24 hours a day, established to protect the L.A. port, to actively join in protecting and monitoring the community against U.S. federal immigration enforcement, or ICE. 

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a motion that would mandate the Port Police to document and collect data on federal immigration enforcement activity in the Harbor Area and, through that, ensure accountability and protect the rights of residents and workers, regardless of their immigration status. 

The documentation of ICE would ultimately be used with the goal of being submitted in court as proof of the raids and the violation of people's rights, if ever necessary. 

The approved motion was introduced by councilman Tim McOsker, who represents L.A.’s 15th District, which includes the Harbor Area and South Los Angeles. 

Earlier in August, McOsker referenced an incident that happened at the Coast Guard base on Terminal Island, where a member of the Harbor Area Peace Patrol, a community-based safety initiative protecting residents from ICE raids, had been assaulted and arrested by what appeared to be federal immigration agents while they were monitoring vehicle activity in and out of the base. 

McOsker also publicly accused ICE and Homeland Security of using Terminal Island as a staging area for their operations. “This base has been used to stage raids, which, as of this moment, continue to violate the Temporary Restraining Order upheld by the 9th Circuit,” he stated in August. 

“The Harbor Area Peace Patrol, a community-based safety initiative, has been very effective in keeping peace and protecting residents, which is most likely why they were targeted. I have reported this apparently illegal and unconstitutional arrest to the Port Police, as it occurred on Terminal Island, which falls under their jurisdiction,” he said.

McOsker amended the motion to request Port Police to “participate with my office and with community members who witness [immigration enforcement] to submit evidence to the district, to [the] Los Angeles Police Department and to the U.S. Attorney's Office to show proof and bring charges of criminal threat.”

The Port of Los Angeles will also be one of two venues to host the 2028 Olympic sailing events, the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2028 (LA28) announced in late June. 

On Monday, August 25, a social media video circulated online where, as L.A. Taco initially reported, ICE agents outside of Terminal Island are heard to mock the raids and arrests. 

“Good morning, ladies, a-kidnapping we will go,” an agent inside one of the vans said to the observer outside the terminal in the early hours of the morning. 

“What you saw in that video is agents or somebody on behalf of the president of the United States at best mocking community members and at worst making a criminal threat,” McOsker said. “Today in council, I called for an investigation into this incident. I am instructing the Port Police to work with my office and community witnesses to submit the video to LAPD, the L.A. County District Attorney, and the U.S. Attorney's Office,” he said in a city council meeting last week.