Southern California city wants no part of ‘sanctuary state’ laws
LOS ALAMITOS — With about 12,000 residents spread across a few miles of suburban Southern California, Los Alamitos is better known for its good schools and small-town charms than political activism.
But the city now finds itself at the center of a rebellion against California’s “sanctuary” policies, which aim to protect immigrants here illegally as President Donald Trump vows to ramp up deportations.
Some Los Alamitos leaders called for an ordinance to exempt their Orange County municipality from Senate Bill 54, a law that took effect Jan. 1 and restricts local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities. It marks a rare effort by a city to challenge the sanctuary movement, which has wide support among elected officials in left-leaning California.
Many cities have faced the ire of Trump and his administration for policies they say are too lenient toward those here illegally. The president slammed San Francisco over its sanctuary law, which he said had allowed a Mexican national who fatally shot a tourist to remain on the streets. And Oakland’s mayor is now the subject of a federal investigation after she sent out an alert warning residents of an immigration sweep.
Los Alamitos, by contrast, is moving in a different direction, with some residents and officials saying they want nothing to do with those policies.
About 160 people showed up to Monday’s regular City Council meeting, a monthly event that rarely draws enough people to fill the 40-seat chamber. Speakers lined up late into the evening to address elected officials.
The council eventually voted 4-1 to approve the ordinance.
Activists against illegal immigration cheered the vote, with some shouting “Patriots!” and “This is a win for America!”
Among those at the meeting was Moti Cohen, a Garden Grove resident whose wife grew up in Los Alamitos, and who supports the anti-sanctuary measure.
Cohen, an immigrant from Israel, said he came to the U.S. legally and that everyone else should too. He arrived 27 years ago with a tourist visa and became a legal resident after marrying his U.S. citizen wife.
“The law is the law and has to be enforced all over the country,” he said. “The country is a law-and-order country and you have to come here legally.”
Tara Farajian, a 43-year-old resident of neighboring Rossmoor, called the proposed measure heartbreaking.
She moved from San Francisco to Los Alamitos in 2001 before relocating to Rossmoor two years later and was bracing herself for a more conservative community.
She’s seen a bumper sticker saying “Show me your birth certificate” on a neighbor’s car and says some in her town are “extremely right-wing.” Still, she said the community is overall inviting and found the council’s move shocking. “It’s almost like they want to create a police city,” she said.
Critics in Los Alamitos take issue with SB 54, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed after the Legislature passed it last year. It prohibits state and local police agencies from notifying federal officials in many cases when immigrants potentially subject to deportation are about to be released from custody.
The initiative is in addition to sanctuary city laws passed by numerous communities and other state laws that protect those without legal residency, including one that makes it a crime for business owners to voluntarily help federal agents find and detain unauthorized workers and another that creates a state inspection program for federal immigration detention centers.