Mayor Karen Bass seeks to make LA a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants before Trump’s inauguration

"We will stand with the immigrant community and whatever policy they put forward, we will make sure that people in Los Angeles are not hurt and families are not separated," Bass told KNX radio on Monday.

The mayor said she was initially unaware that Los Angeles does not have a current sanctuary city designation. She emphasized that city lawmakers need to reclassify it as one before Trump returns to the White House in January 2025.

"I was actually surprised about that because I thought we were a sanctuary city for years," Bass said. "So, what the difference is, is the policies that were put in place, were not permanent policies. So, I imagine that the council will be voting on sanctuary cities hopefully very, very soon."

Trump made illegal immigration a top priority on the campaign trail, vowing to carry out mass deportations and restart construction of his famed border wall along the US southern border. He has since appointed Tom Homan, former Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) director, to lead the effort. Homan stated this week that the administration would carry out deportations with or without assistance from local communities and states.

While Los Angeles may not have an official sanctuary city designation, California has been a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants since 2014, and a major percentage of the LA police force already refuses to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

In March 2017, ex-Mayor Eric Garcetti signed an executive order prohibiting local law enforcement from providing information to federal immigration officials. The Los Angeles Police Department has declined to comply with ICE detainer requests since 2014 and has maintained a policy of not asking individuals about their immigration status.

Jon Feere, the director of investigations for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), told the Daily Caller that sanctuary policies are "a prohibition on information-sharing between local and federal law enforcement, for the benefit of criminals who have no authority to be in the United States."

"Last year, Los Angeles complained about a lack of notifications from Texas when Gov. Abbott sent them buses of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, the entire state of California provides no notification to ICE when their officials release convicted illegal alien criminals back into our communities," he continued. "More communication is better if public safety is the goal."