By Bill Pan
Contributing Writer
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has issued an executive directive reaffirming the city’s self-proclaimed sanctuary status in response to ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. She also promised to offer cash assistance to those affected by the federal enforcement actions targeting illegal immigrants.
“There is a need for me to have an executive directive to help our city understand how to protect itself from our federal government,” Bass said Friday at a press conference.
The directive requires all city departments to ensure compliance with Ordinance 188441, commonly known as the Sanctuary City Ordinance, which prohibits the use of city resources or personnel to support federal immigration enforcement.
Each department must submit plans within two weeks, outlining how they will prevent ICE activity on city property, and is expected to designate an “immigrant affairs liaison” to address that matter.
The directive further instructs the city to file a Freedom of Information Act request seeking detailed information from ICE, including when and where arrests were made in Los Angeles, who was arrested and for what reasons, where detainees are being held, and how much the operations are costing taxpayers.
The city hall will also establish a working group to review and potentially revise the Los Angeles Police Department’s policies on responding to immigration enforcement.
The LAPD already has a long-standing policy prohibiting officers from asking about immigration status when they interview crime victims, witnesses, or suspects, or from making arrests based solely on someone’s immigration status.
At Friday’s press conference, Bass also announced a forthcoming plan to distribute cash aid to people impacted by ICE activity, including those she said are too afraid to go to work for fear of being detained.
“You have people who don’t want to leave their homes, who are not going to work, and they are in need of cash,” she said.
According to Bass, cash cards containing a “couple hundred” dollars will be given out “in about a week,” in a way similar to how the city offered pre-filled debit cards to low-income residents during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
The mayor emphasized that the money will not come from city coffers, but from “philanthropic partners,” and that the cards will be distributed by immigrant advocacy groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
“It’s that type of emergency assistance, and we’re fortunate that there’s a lot of philanthropic partners who have contributed,” she said. “And many more, I hope, will join in and contribute.”
Details of the plan, including exact qualifications for receiving the cards, are still in the works.
The announcement comes days after Bass personally confronted federal agents operating in MacArthur Park, an area west of City Hall known for homelessness, drug-dealing, and gang violence.
On July 7, agents from ICE and Customs and Border Protection were seen entering the area in tactical gear, with some on horseback. Bass demanded that the agents leave the park, and they eventually departed without making any arrests.
The Trump administration, pursuing its goal to conduct mass deportations of illegal immigrants in some of the country’s largest cities, filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles in June, arguing that its Ordinance 188441 unlawfully discriminates against ICE by treating it differently from other agencies.
Bass signed the ordinance into law on Dec. 9, 2024, just weeks after President Donald Trump was reelected on a promise to end illegal immigration by speeding up and expanding deportation efforts.
The lawsuit, which names Bass as a defendant, follows Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to quell riots sparked by protests against ICE operations. By obstructing federal officers from doing their jobs, the lawsuit alleges, the city allowed lawlessness to spread unchecked.
“The practical upshot of Los Angeles’s refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities has, since June 6, 2025, been lawlessness, rioting, looting and vandalism,” the U.S. Department of Justice wrote in its complaint. “The situation became so dire that the federal government deployed the California National Guard and United States Marines to quell the chaos.”
Attorney General Pamela Bondi has similarly condemned the city’s sanctuary policies, accusing the city of prioritizing illegal immigrants at the expense of citizens.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” Bondi said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump,” Bondi added.
