Los Angeles is a city of immigrants, where one in three Angelenos were born outside the U.S. It’s also a sanctuary city, with protections in place for migrants since the Central America immigrant surge of the 1980s. One of those protections stipulates that no employee of the Metropolitan Transit Authority should cooperate with federal enforcement agencies, like ICE, unless specific conditions are met. Immigrants in L.A. depend on the public transportation system to get to work, school and anywhere else they need to go.
ACT-LA organizes low-income residents around housing and transportation justice issues. In June, after ICE raids led to the arrests of hundreds of immigrants in Los Angeles, the group sent a letter to the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority asking for changes to strengthen protections for immigrants.
Those changes include continuing transit service during protests and distribution of‘Know Your Rights’ cards on buses and at rail stations. The group also asked for all Metro transit employees to be trained in what to do if ICE agents show up at a station, bus stop, or onboard a transit vehicle without a warrant. Between The Line’s Melinda Tuhus spoke with Scarlett de Leon, executive director of ACT-LA, who elaborates on what her group is asking of L.A.’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
For more information, visit ACT-LA at act-la.org.
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