Activists warn Police Commission about ICE access to LAPD data on immigrants
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Activists rallied outside LAPD headquarters on Tuesday to denounce department policies that allow information sharing with federal agencies, a concern amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
In a letter to the LAPD’s civilian Police Commission, several watchdog groups said public assurances by city officials that L.A. won’t cooperate in deportations ring hollow.
Federal authorities, the letter said, already have access to the vast trove of information gathered by the LAPD’s license plate readers, body-worn cameras and other surveillance methods.
Some police officials are pushing back after a wealthy community gifted the department scores of controversial, high-tech cameras that scan license plates.
The Police Department’s frequent collaborations with federal law enforcement on investigations “means that any data that is obtained by LAPD will become accessible to federal immigration authorities,” the activist group Stop LAPD Spying and others wrote in the letter.
Since President Trump returned to office, city officials have considered different proposals to protect the city’s immigrant communities, even in the face of White House threats to withhold federal funds.
In December, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass announced a sanctuary law barring city employees and city property from being used to “investigate, cite, arrest, hold, transfer or detain any person” for the purpose of immigration enforcement.
The activists said they obtained department reports through public records requests that shed light on how interconnected police departments are with one another.
As as example, they said, details about a motorist who has been pulled over by the LAPD — such as their name, date of birth, social media handles and other biographic details — could be turned over to intelligence-gathering offices called fusion centers, which local police and federal authorities use to share information on potential threats or terrorist attacks.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has removed the head of the department’s constitutional policing office, a lawyer who had drawn the wrath of the police union for her role in releasing thousands of mugshot-style photos of officers.
In recent years, fusion centers like the one in Norwalk have focused more on routine street crime.
The ability of federal authorities to access the LAPD’s information from the centers undermines the city’s promises to protect immigrants, said Stop LAPD Spying organizer Hamid Khan at a rally before the commission’s regular meeting on Tuesday.
“And it’s not [like] LAPD has to pick up the phone: It’s baked in. It’s on autopilot,” Khan said. “The only way this will be a sanctuary city is if the source of information is stopped.”
The LAPD has long vowed to shield sensitive information about people whom officers encounter. A department policy called Special Order 40 prohibits initiating contact with anyone for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status. Police also are not allowed to make arrests solely for immigration reasons.
The aim, officials have said, is to ensure crime victims, witnesses and others are willing to come forward without fear of being detained and removed from the country.
An exception to the restrictions on cooperation with immigration officials has been carved out for law enforcement investigating serious offenses, such as violent crimes.
Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio, said he was present at a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in which agents swarmed an apartment building in the 400 block of East 41st Street. Also present at the scene, he said, were a number of LAPD officers.
Gochez, whose group seeks to defend immigrant rights, alleged that some of those officers dragged him away when he tried to question the ICE agents, who officials later said were searching for a suspected human trafficker.
The department has said its officers were there to help direct traffic, not to engage in the enforcement action — a claim Gochez disputed.
“The Los Angeles Police Department did the dirty work,” Gochez said.
A complaint reviewed by The Times accuses officers of voicing open discrimination against potential recruits and colleagues based on race, sex and sexual orientation.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell’s record on immigration has faced renewed scrutiny since he took over the department last fall.
During his tenure as Los Angeles County sheriff, which coincided with Trump’s first term, McDonnell allowed federal immigration authorities to operate freely in the nation’s largest jail system, targeting people who’d been arrested for deportation.
McDonnell and some of his supporters have said his administration handed over only the most dangerous criminals to federal authorities, in keeping with the laws.
Public support for immigrants remains strong in California, which has more immigrants than any other state. According to the USC Equity Research Institute, more than 60% of L.A. County’s 10 million residents either are foreign-born or have at least one immigrant parent, including about 800,000 people without legal status.
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