CD 13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez joined 12 other Councilmembers in voting to make Los Angeles a sanctuary city.
Look, relax, no matter the verbiage, President Donald Trump is not planning on arresting the nannies, gardeners, housekeepers or even street-food vendors that so many Los Angeles residents have come to depend on for cheap labor/goods.
The Migration Policy Institute estimated that in 2019 Los Angeles County had 951,000 unauthorized immigrants. Can you imagine driving that many people on the 405 to get out of the country? Yesterday, it took me an hour to drive 12 miles and it wasn’t even rush hour.
But, the L.A. City Council got their panties in a wad and panicked. They passed a sanctuary ordinance, 13-0 vote (John Lee and Traci Park were absent). Before the vote, the council heard almost exclusively from immigration activists explaining that too many grandmas will be deported, if L.A. was not given sanctuary status.
The ordinance, which will have to be signed by Mayor Karen Bass, directs city personnel and resources to not cooperate with immigration enforcement except under very limited circumstances.
Okay, I think grandmas and law-abiding people should not be deported, but I don’t want the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang to remain. Supposedly they are now in Los Angeles and specialize in human and drug trafficking.
Tren de Aragua gang tattoos (above) were part of a Department of Homeland Security bulletin that was recently shared with federal agents.
In the U.S. we grow our own criminal street gangs, and they don’t need competition from Tren.
Someone has to stick up for Los Angeles gangs, supposedly we have more than 400 gangs in this fine city, with about 40,000 members. They are very fine gangs, doing all sorts of illegal things like shaking down the homeless on Skid Row. They even have distinctive tattoos. I implore Mayor Bass, “don’t make our gangs compete with Tren de Aragua.”
Gangs of “burglary tourists” from South America have exploited U.S. temporary visas that don’t require background checks to fly here and rob mansions, then flee back to their home countries of Chile, Ecuador, Columbia, and Peru.
Police caught a 17-year-old Chilean after a series of jewelry heists, but he was able to convince police his parents had left him with a relative and disappeared when he was turned over to LA County Children and Family Services.
Ingenuity should be rewarded and perhaps one of the City Councilmembers could make this fine young man a district director. He certainly is worldly and – he’s probably in L.A. someplace.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Los Angeles officers apprehended 45 unlawful noncitizens who had been convicted for any felony, or misdemeanor crimes related to the operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence for alcohol or drugs during a focused effort July 1 through July 12, 2024.
Why the uproar? That’s less than four arrests a day. Hey, anyone can have a bad driving day, especially when WAZE conks out and range anxiety sets in.
And our own homegrown criminals have committed even more noteworthy driving crimes, such as Rebecca Grossman when she hit and killed Mark and Jacob Iskaner. Our criminals are better than those imported, and usually better-looking. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
It was reported that in 2023, Enforcement and Removal Operations arrested 73,822 noncitizens with criminal histories; this group had 290,178 associated charges and convictions with an average of four per individual. These included 33,209 assaults; 4,390 sex and sexual assaults; 7,520 weapons offenses; 1,713 charges or convictions for homicide; and 1,655 kidnapping offenses.
But, yesterday L.A. Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez spelled it out. “We’re going to send a very clear message that the city of Los Angeles will not cooperate with ICE in any way/ We want people to feel protected and be able to have faith in their government and that women can report domestic violence, crimes.”
People are worried that noncitizens will not call police if ICE were here? Let me ask, how many citizens have called 911 and just given up because it took too long to answer?
Then, there is Ramon Santos-Rodriquez.
Ramon Santos-Rodriquez started the Palisades Fire in 2021.
He was the person arrested for starting the May 14, 2021, Highlands Fire, but because of an executive sanctuary order in 2017 by former mayor Eric Garcetti, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office was not allowed to place ICE holds on suspects, nor list an inmate’s immigration status in their online booking. One source confirmed that Santos-Rodriquez was in the country illegally. No one was allowed to say that, so they called Santos-Rodriquez homeless.
Is he out? Where is he? Who knows? Let’s hope he’s not keeping warm in the brush of the Santa Monica Mountains this winter.
While Trump representatives did not immediately comment on the prospect of Los Angeles passing a sanctuary ordinance, Roxanne Hoge, communications director for the L.A. County Republican Party, last week criticized the concept of sanctuary cities and states.
“A country without secure borders isn’t a country at all,” Hoge said in a statement. “The protections they offer aren’t for abuelas (grandmothers) getting ice cream, they’re for people who’ve entered the country illegally and committed additional crimes.
“Whether drunk driving, robbery, sexual violence, assault or murder, none of those should go unpunished,” she added. “Perpetrators should definitely not be protected by the largesse taken from hard-working taxpayers.”
Some L.A. residents point out that New York City is a sanctuary city.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams
Mayor Eric Adams in July 2024 said he supported a conservative-pushed rollback of sanctuary city policies that were passed during Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, including the City Administrative Code that precluded city agencies’ cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I think the previous administration made a big mistake. I think we need to correct that aspect of it,” Adams said. “New Yorkers have a right to be safe in their city. The same way anyone breaks the law or does something violent to New Yorkers, I’m going to voice my concern about that.”
After the election, Adams offered mixed messages in a November 12 story (“Adams Affirms Sanctuary City, While Saying NYC Can Be ‘Very Helpful’ as Trump Plans Mass Deportations”). “This is a sanctuary city,” he said, but reiterated his position that some of the city’s existing sanctuary city laws, which limit cooperation between local authorities and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, should be changed.
More than 200,000 migrants arrived in NYC the past two years, and more than 60,000 are still in shelters. Who pays for it?
Los Angeles is broke, but maybe residents we can add another half cent sales tax to match the recently passed homeless tax.
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, who introduced the initial motion last year, said his parents and many of his constituents are immigrants without legal status. They are “embedded in the larger community,” from cooking and cleaning houses to working as nannies, he said.
Here’s an idea, let’s make the grandmas legal and deport the criminals, terrorists and gangs.
And why stop exporting foreign gangs and criminals? Maybe we could also throw out a few of our homegrown criminals and a “made in America gang or two?”
Which county wants them?
The liberal supporters of sanctuary laws in the city of Los Angeles have only one thing in mind when supporting these laws — themselves.
They are afraid their illegal domestic help, to whom they pay slave wages (albeit while giving them drivers licenses so their kids can be driven around when parents are awol) will no longer be here and, god forbid, they have to pay them what they would pay to a legal resident. Or, even worse, tend to caring for their own children, cleaning their own homes, cooking their own meals or mowing their own lawns.