City Awaits, With Concern, Trump Administration Actions on Immigration

As President-elect Donald Trump inches closer to moving into the White House, the immigrant population and municipal officials nationally and locally are growing increasingly concerned about Trump’s possible mass deportation plans.

In 2013, the Pasadena City Council adopted a resolution welcoming immigrants and praising their contributions, urging federal authorities to adopt compassionate immigration laws, and going on record as opposing any mandate to the City to enforce federal immigration laws.

Pasadena City Manager Steve Mermell reaffirmed the City’s status as a welcoming place for immigrants at a December City Council meeting by reading aloud the official resolution in its entirety.

Following that reaffirmation, both Councilmembers Victor Gordo and Steve Madison said they have asked Mayor Terry Tornek to consider agendizing a complete discussion how the City of Pasadena should respond if the Trump administration clamps down on local governments to enforce federal immigration laws.

“There is significant concern among people in Pasadena regarding the potential impact to families now that Donald Trump has been elected President,” said District 5 Councilmember Victor Gordo.

“One of the questions that’s been raised is what is the policy of the Pasadena Police Department?” Gordo said. “Pasadena has limited policing resources and those resources are focused and should continue to be focused on protecting our streets and our neighborhoods — not carrying out the work of the federal government and certainly not breaking up families when they’ve not violated any local or State law.”

A Pasadena Police Department spokesperson said that the department is not in the business of discriminating against people based on their citizenship status or aiding in federal operations dealing with immigration.

“It’s been longstanding of the Pasadena Police Department not to single out members in our community solely based on immigration status. It’s not a practice we engage in — we don’t ask and it’s not our purpose to seek those persons out. The Pasadena Police Department values all members of the community,” said Lt. Vasken Gourdikian.

At the time the 2013 resolution was contemplated, Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez strongly urged its support because he believed it would lead to undocumented families putting their children into public school and coming forward to access resources offered by the police department and the city.

Sanchez also reinforced the notion that the Pasadena Police department is not involved in deportation.

“It is not our job to do deportation, that is the federal government’s job and we leave that to them,” Sanchez said.

Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network Pablo Alvarado says creating a more detailed City policy will go further for peace of mind than what he described as the “symbolic gestures” that come in the form of the 2013 resolution.

“I don’t think that Pasadena is a full blown ‘sanctuary city,’ but it’s on its way to becoming one. In the same way that Trump has sent a wave of fear, the City of Pasadena must send a wave of trust within our neighborhoods and the way to do that is by establishing a policy that creates a bright line between immigration agents and local police. That doesn’t exist. There’s no clarity about how the city will protect undocumented immigrants. It can no longer be symbolic — it has to be real,” said Alvarado.