By Daniel Rivera, Reporter
On Jan. 7, Long Beach City Council voted unanimously to strengthen its existing Values Act before President-elect Donald Trump takes office again. During the campaign, he promised to push for mass deportation and cut grant funding to states that don’t cooperate with the new administration.
The Long Beach Values Act originally began as Senate Bill 54, which prohibited state law enforcement agencies from providing the immigration status of its detainees to federal law enforcement.
It would go on to become the Value Act, in which all departments that work under the state and local city are prohibited from handing over any immigration data to relevant law enforcement. The act also provided funds for a legal defense against deportation.
During public comment, several community members expressed concerns about how information gathered by public service agencies would be used against immigrant communities. They urge the city to move quickly due to the Trump administration being only about two weeks out which has promised to start the biggest deportation campaign in history.
“So what the policy did today was ensuring that all this applies to all departments within the city, including the police department, and it also ensures that there’s going to be an addendum on external contracts,” Gabby Hernandez, Executive Director of Organizing Rooted In Abolition, Liberation, and Empowerment or ORALE.
When the Values Act was originally passed in 2018, the legislation was criticized for its “carve-outs” of detainees’ criminal records that could still be accessed by federal law enforcement. Advocates argue that it’s double jeopardy when detainees are deported after serving full prison terms.
They also argue that people convicted of white-collar crimes like money laundering, a violation excluded from SB 54, are prosecuted unequally, with defendants of color receiving harsher sentences.
Recently, the new Border Czar, Tom Honan, during an interview on Face the Nation suggested that the Trump administration will use this information to target immigrants with old criminal records.
“They know exactly who they’re going to arrest. They know exactly where they’re probably likely to find them, and they have a lot of information on that arrest,” Honan said during the interview. “The concentration…I want to be clear on some public safety threats.”
“People already paid their dues, so if they commit their crime or they pay their dues, why would they be punished 2 or 3 times already,” Hernandez said.
“We continue to support the justice fund every single year since then. And today we find ourselves preparing for an administration that is outwardly challenging some of our values and beliefs,” Mayor Rex Richardson said during the meeting. “No matter who’s in the power of Washington, I believe that we have the responsibility to stand firm on our principles.”
The city of Long Beach is battling the incoming administration, which has signaled that it will cut several grants to the City and possibly choke off several of its infrastructure projects if they do not cooperate with federal enforcement.