LOS ANGELES– The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a so-called “sanctuary city” ordinance that prohibits city resources from being used for immigration enforcement and city departments from sharing information about persons without legal status with federal immigration authorities, in anticipation of potential mass deportations under President-elect Donald Trump.

Council members voted unanimously on the measure, joining more than a dozen cities across the United States with similar provisions. Sanctuary cities or states are not legal terms but have come to symbolize a commitment to protecting and supporting immigrant communities and refusing to voluntarily provide information to immigration enforcement officials. Advocates say they provide safe havens that allow immigrants to feel safe and able to report a crime without fear of deportation.

The measure will return to council for a second vote as a formality. Mayor Karen Bass, who has veto power, said she supports the ordinance.

With Trump’s promises of a vast immigration crackdown upon his return to the White House in January, immigration advocates urged Los Angeles council members to act quickly.

“We are going to send a very clear message that the city of Los Angeles will not cooperate in any way with ICE,” said Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. . “We want people to feel protected and can trust their government and for women to be able to report domestic violence and crime. »

Soto-Martinez, one of the council members who introduced the initial motion last year, said his parents and many of his constituents are immigrants without legal status. They are “integrated into the broader community,” from cooking and cleaning to nanny work, he said.

But it’s unclear how much this order will change since the city already isn’t cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

The Los Angeles Police Department has a policy that officers do not inquire about a person’s immigration status or make arrests based on their legal status. It’s new Police Chief Jim McDonnell also pledged not to cooperate with mass deportation authorities or federal agencies on immigration enforcement issues.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive directive in 2019 providing protections for immigrants, but Tuesday’s order would codify those protections into city law.

The state of California has similar protections. Former California Governor Jerry Brown signed sanctuary state legislation in 2017 to prohibit police from questioning people about their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement activities.

Then-President Trump responded try to hold on funding for sanctuary cities and favoring cities that commit to cooperating with immigration authorities to obtain federal grants.

Cities from New York to San Francisco have long had policies supportive of immigrants, but criticism of those measures has grown with the influx of migrants. Some of the backlash came after Republican governors in Texas and Florida began to bus transport of migrants to Democratic-led “sanctuary cities” last year in what critics called political stunts.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has since called for expanded cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities, attacking current city policies limiting such communications as detrimental to public safety.

Migrants were also bused to Los Angeles, but in smaller numbers.

More than 100 people gathered on the steps of City Hall Tuesday morning before the vote to urge the City Council to enact the ordinance.

Martha Arévalo, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles, called the law “long overdue.”

“This is Trump 2.0, where he ran on a platform of hatred and division, family separation and mass deportations,” Arevalo said. “It’s traumatic for the immigrant community. There’s a lot of trauma, there’s a lot of fear.

Supporters of the sanctuary city ordinance, many of whom are themselves people without legal status, spoke about their personal experiences facing the threat of eviction.

“I grew up in the shadows, constantly fearing being separated from loved ones and being sent back to a place we had fought so hard to escape from,” said Jesus Carreon, a current student at the Law School of Harvard and a graduate of the University of Southern California. asking the council to vote in favor of the sanctuary policy.

Some have raised concerns that it could encourage more migrants without legal status to come to the city and take resources away from fighting homelessness.

“I’m sure there are millions of people who want to come to Los Angeles and we can’t be a sanctuary city for everyone,” Charles Brister told the City Council before the vote. “We have people in this city who don’t have a bed, American citizens who are homeless.”

Mayor Bass said recently that “this moment demands urgency. Protecting immigrants makes our communities stronger and our city better.