Photo by Terry Miller/Beacon Media News
National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) and other social justice groups will participate in a march to City Hall Feb. 27.
The LA Times reported last week that Trump’s initial executive order on immigration enforcement prioritized 8 million of the 11 million plus undocumented immigrants in the U.S. for enforcement action.
To resist President Donald Trump’s mass deportations organizers say:
“Pasadenans need to assure our local immigrant community that we stand with them in opposition to ICE mass deportation through a vigorous march to City Hall.
We need to support strong local policing that is not compromised by the perception that it is in bed with ICE.”
“We need to support Pasadena’s City Manager who has declined to sign the ICE-PPD MOU that would have given ICE a contractual path to use Pasadena police officers to enforce federal immigration law and would have shifted much of the cost of federal immigration enforcement onto the City.”
The group proposes to ask the City Council to enact the proposed (below) Pasadena Police Department Immigration Status and Bias-Free Policing Policy.
The March begins at 4 p.m. at Pasadena Job Center Monday Feb. 27 at 4 p.m. to march to City Hall and then proceed to the City Council meeting afterwards to urge councilmembers to act.
Here is the proposal:
“(Proposed) Pasadena Police Department
Immigration Status and Bias-Free Policing Policy
Purposes
The City of Pasadena (“the City”) is home to people from all walks of
life, of different races, religions, sexual orientations, and national and
ethnic origins. The Department values and celebrates this diversity, which
makes our community strong and vibrant.
A relationship of trust between the Pasadena Police Department
(“the Department”) and the City’s residents, regardless of race, religion,
sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, or immigration status, is
essential for accomplishing core Department functions, including
protecting the safety and civil and human rights of all residents.
The enforcement of federal immigration law falls exclusively within
the authority of the federal government. The Department will not engage in
law enforcement activities based solely on someone’s immigration status.
The Department does not work together with federal immigration
authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration
enforcement agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) on
deportation efforts. That is not the job of the Pasadena Police Department.
The Department’s commitment to equal enforcement of the law and
equal service to the public regardless of immigration status increases the
Department’s effectiveness in protecting and serving the entire Pasadena
community. All individuals, regardless of immigration status, should feel
secure that contacting law enforcement will not make them vulnerable to
harassment, arrest, or deportation.
Voluntary assistance in the enforcement of federal civil immigration
law would drain already-limited Department resources; detract from the
Department’s core mission to create safe communities; and make it difficult
to maintain trust between the Department and the City’s residents, thereby
threatening the safety and well-being of City residents.
Assistance in the enforcement of immigration law could also lead to
profiling based on race, ethnicity, and national origin in violation of the
United States and California Constitutions and state and federal antidiscrimination
laws.
The City of Pasadena recognizes the United States Supreme Court’s
pronouncement in Arizona v. United States v. Arizona, 132 S. Ct. 2492
(2012), that removal is a civil matter and that state officers generally may
not arrest immigrants based solely on possible removability. Moreover,
there is a growing public policy in the State of California to disentangle ICE
deportation programs from local law enforcement agencies and to increase
the transparency and accountability of immigration enforcement in the
state.
Policy
1. The Department is committed to equal enforcement of the law and
equal service to the public regardless of race, nationality, ethnicity, or
immigration status.
2. The Department is committed to bias-free policing.
3. The immigration status of individuals is not a matter for police action.
4. The Department shall investigate criminal activity without regard to an
individual’s actual or perceived immigration status.
5. The enforcement of civil and criminal federal immigration laws falls
exclusively within the authority of the federal government.
6. The Department shall not initiate police action with the objective of
discovering an individual’s immigration status.
7. The Department shall not attempt to determine the immigration status
of crime victims, witnesses, suspects, or arrestees unless necessary to
perform Department duties or required by law.
8. The Department shall not conduct or participate in efforts to enforce
federal immigration law. The Department shall not undertake joint
efforts or investigations with federal, state or local law enforcement
agencies, to investigate, detain or arrest individuals for violations of
federal immigration law. The Department shall terminate as soon as
possible any contracts or memoranda of understanding with federal
immigration authorities, including ICE, and shall not enter into any new
such contracts or memoranda of understanding. To the maximum
extent permitted by law, the Department shall not have contact with
federal immigration authorities. The Department shall work with other
federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to attempt to obtain
agreements, memoranda of understandings, or other arrangements that
minimize residents exposure to federal immigration enforcement.
9. The Department shall not investigate, detain, arrest, or book an
individual for violations of federal criminal immigration law, including
Title 8, Sections 1304, 1325 or 1326 of the United States Immigration
Code.
10. The Department shall not permit any collateral arrests for immigration
enforcement purposes in connection with Department operations.
Procedure
1. Protection of Sensitive Information.
A. No Department officer, employee or agent shall request
citizenship or immigration status information about any
individual unless necessary to perform Department duties or
required by law.
B. Where citizenship or immigration status information is collected,
Department officers, employees or agents may use and
disseminate the information only to the extent necessary to
accomplish the Department duties for which the information was
requested or maintained, or where required by law.
C. This section shall not prevent the Department from responding to
a request for assistance from residents to obtain a benefit under
federal immigration law, such as 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U), 8
U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(T)
2. Immigration Enforcement.
A. In connection with the Department’s commitment to bias-free
policing, no Department monies, facilities, property, equipment
or personnel shall be used for immigration enforcement,
including but not limited to:
i. Identifying, investigating, arresting, detaining or assisting
in the identification, investigation, arrest or detention of
any person on the basis of a suspected violation of
immigration law;
ii. Responding to any civil immigration warrant or request,
for immigration purposes, to detain or notify federal
authorities about the release of any individual;
iii. Making individuals in Department custody available to
federal immigration authorities for interviews for
immigration purposes; and
iv. Providing federal authorities with non-publicly available
information about any individual for immigration
purposes, including by providing access to Department
databases, except where required by state or federal law.
B. Nothing in this section shall prevent the City from responding to
a lawfully-issued judicial criminal warrant, or court order issued
by a federal or state judge.
3. Training and Oversight
A. The Department shall develop training protocols to implement
this policy.
B. The Department shall document in writing all contacts with
federal immigration authorities. This includes all phone calls,
all emails, all requests to use money, facilities, property,
equipment, personnel, or databases, or to receive non-publicly
available information about any individual. The documenting
shall include the time and date of contact, the identities of the
Department officer and immigration officials, and the specific
purpose and outcome of the contact. This written record shall be
considered a public record pursuant to the California Public
Records Act (“CPRA”) that is exempt from any exception to the
CPRA to the maximum extent permitted by law.
C. The City’s Internal Auditor shall conduct regular and periodic
audits of all contacts with federal immigration authorities and
report his/her findings in writing to the City Manager and the
City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
D. The Department shall create a new bias category of
“immigration bias.” The Department shall investigate and
resolve complaints of immigration bias consistent with its
biased policing protocols. The Department shall include its
findings of “immigration bias” complaints in its reports to the
City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
Construction
This policy is to be construed in accordance with 8 U.S.C. § 1373(a) which
provides “Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local
law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not
prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from
sending to, or receiving from, [ICE] information regarding the citizenship
or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.”
