Editor’s note: After this story was posted, the City Council meeting was rescheduled from Wednesday to Friday.
The Long Beach City Council is scheduled to meet in closed session Friday at noon, where Mayor Rex Richardson says they will “explore additional legal measures we can take to safeguard our community” in response to ramped-up immigration enforcement across the region.
“For weeks, ICE has terrorized communities across the Southland with unchecked raids, operating without accountability and, in many cases, seemingly targeting individuals based solely on the color of their skin,” he said in a statement over the weekend, mirroring accusations in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups.
The agenda for the City Council meeting does not specify exactly what will be up for consideration, saying only it will be the possible “initiation of litigation.”
In a statement, a city spokesperson said Long Beach “is carefully monitoring executive, legislative and the hundreds of litigation matters nationwide as it relates to federal funding, immigration enforcement and other imperative issues. The City is committed to taking strategic action to benefit all those who live, work, and visit the city of Long Beach.”
Because the decision to file a lawsuit involves sensitive legal discussions, state law allows city councils to talk about the possibility behind closed doors as long as they allow public comment at some point and disclose any final decisions they made in private.
One item that may be up for discussion is joining the ACLU’s lawsuit. Several municipalities, including the city of Los Angeles, LA County, Pasadena, and Paramount, have already sought to become partners in the litigation.
Long Beach and Mayor Richardson have come under pressure to do the same. Long Beach state Sen. Lena Gonzalez on Friday criticized city officials for not more vocally opposing the Trump Administration’s deportation operations. She said there’s been an effort behind the scenes pushing Richardson to do more.
Despite not being part of the litigation, Long Beach has already been affected by it.
On Friday last week, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order instructing federal officials to stop detaining people unless there is “reasonable suspicion” the person has violated immigration law.
It specifically bars agents from making stops based solely on any of the following factors: “apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, presence at a particular location (e.g. bus stop, car wash, tow yard, day laborer pick up site, agricultural site, ect), the type of work one does.”
Because Long Beach is part of the Central District of California, where Frimpong is on the bench, her ruling applies here. The federal government has said it will appeal her ruling, with the White House calling it a “gross overstep of judicial authority.”
Richardson previously said he was in favor of joining the lawsuit “if it works.”
In a statement over the weekend, he said Long Beach, “will continue to pursue every available avenue to defend our residents.”