Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti defies Donald Trump's illegal immigrant deportation policy

The mayor refuses to use local employees or funds in service of Trump's immigration policies

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti attends the Human Rights Campaign's 2017 Gala (Getty/JB Lacroix )

One day after the Trump administration pushed so-called “sanctuary cities” to comply with federal immigration programs, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti doubled down on protections for immigrants.

Mr Garcetti on Tuesday released Los Angeles Executive Directive 20, which prohibits city employees and funding from being used in service of federal immigration enforcement, except when required by law. Los Angeles law enforcement officials — from police officers to firefighters — cannot ask residents about their immigration status, or make arrests based on it.

Officers are also prohibited from keeping people in custody solely because of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers.

“LAPD has never participated in programs that deputise local law enforcement to act as immigration agents, and on my watch they never will,” Mr Garcetti said on Tuesday, which activists had declared a national day of immigration action.

Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Charlie Beck said he hoped the order would increase immigrant’s trust in the police. He revealed that sexual assault reporting among Hispanics in the city is down 25 percent compared to this time last year, and domestic violence reporting is down 10 percent. Other cities, such as Denver, have reported immigrant women dropping domestic abuse cases for fear of being detained at the courthouse.

“[Police-community relationships] are not sustained when a police department knocks on the front door to get witness information and to talk to a victim, and people run out the back door,” Mr Beck said. “And that is what we fear the most is happening in our city.”

Mr Garcetti’s order cements Los Angeles’s place on the list of 118 sanctuary cities released by the DHS on Monday. Trump ordered the department to release the names of all localities that refuse to comply with federal immigration enforcement in a January 25 executive order. He has previously threatened to withhold federal funding from such cities.

"When law-enforcement agencies fail to honour immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders, it undermines ICE's ability to protect the public safety and carry out its mission," ICE's acting director, Thomas Homan, said upon releasing the list Monday.

Mr Garcetti, however, seemed unconcerned about retaliation from the president.

“We feel very secure that it is a violation of the constitution to put a financial gun to the head of any state or city,” he said Tuesday.