Council Votes 8-6 for L.A. Sanctuary : Symbolic Step for Central American Refugees Seen as Slap at U.S. Policy

A divided Los Angeles City Council, in a slap at the Reagan Administration’s refugee policy, narrowly adopted a resolution Wednesday declaring the city a sanctuary for Central Americans fleeing political persecution and violence in their homelands.

The controversial resolution, approved by an 8-6 vote after a long and emotional debate, was immediately labeled “an absolute insult” by federal officials, despite its limited, largely symbolic effect.

The sanctuary statement, if signed by Mayor Tom Bradley, would instruct city employees not to voluntarily assist the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in finding and deporting Central American illegal aliens. The resolution singles out refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala as those it is particularly intended to protect. An estimated 300,000 immigrants from those two countries have settled in Los Angeles.

The resolution would also set a policy empowering city employees to ignore a person’s refugee status in providing public services and would call upon the federal government to halt the deportation of Salvadorans until hostilities there cease and it becomes safe for refugees to return.

‘On the Same Boat’

“I feel that what we’ve adopted here is a sane, rational policy,” said City Councilman Michael Woo, who authored the resolution and shepherded it through a tense three-hour debate that included a clash over the real meaning of the council action.

Bucking opposition from the immigration service, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and others, including an official of the Los Angeles Board of Education, Woo said supporters fought to push through the sanctuary statement on behalf of a class of people not represented at City Hall.

“The basic question is what kind of city do we want Los Angeles to be, and what kind of country do we want to live in,” Woo said. “All of us are on the same boat. . . . It’s important for us to get this message across.”

Woo said the resolution would remove the “climate of fear” that pervades the refugee community and encourage refugees to report crimes when they are victims or turn in landlords for building code violations if they are forced to live in substandard conditions.

Opponents were just as impassioned. “This is going to send a message to all of South America and all the other countries that if you can just get here, pay whatever you got to pay, then you’re OK. And I think that’s contrary to what this nation stands for,” said Harold Ezell, the immigration service’s Western regional director, who had been the most vocal of the resolution’s opponents. He called the occasion of its passage by the council “a sad day for the city.”

For and Against

Voting for the resolution were council members Woo, Zev Yaroslavsky, Joel Wachs, Pat Russell, Joy Picus, Marvin Braude, Howard Finn and Robert Farrell. Opposing it were David Cunningham, Hal Bernson, Joan Milke Flores, Gilbert Lindsay, Ernani Bernardi and John Ferraro.

In adopting a sanctuary resolution, Los Angeles joined nearly a dozen other cities that have backed a dissident movement, led by church groups, to help harbor illegal aliens seeking political asylum. Because Los Angeles is the nation’s second-largest city and has a refugee population that is considered the largest in the country, the importance of Wednesday’s council vote was clear to both sides.

Sister Jo’Ann De Quattro, the sanctuary chair for the Southern California Ecumenical Council’s Interfaith Task Force on Central America, said her group is “elated” over the council vote.

“We believe that by providing sanctuary, it’s giving a message that our own (Reagan) Administration is not administering the refugee laws correctly. They should be applied to these people from Central America, and they are not,” she said.

Administration policy has been to deport most illegal immigrants from El Salvador and Guatemala on grounds that they left for economic reasons and not because of political persecution. Nationally, the immigration service rejected 99% of Salvadorans and Guatemalans applying for political asylum during the last fiscal year. In that period, only 24 Salvadoran applications out of 1,140 processed by the immigration service’s Los Angeles office were approved. One Guatemalan applicant, of 193 who applied, was approved for asylum.

The real battle over the resolution revolved, however, around the symbolism of turning Los Angeles into a “sanctuary” and commending a church group-led movement that harbors illegal aliens seeking political asylum.

Despite the resolution’s sanctuary wording, refugees wanted by the immigration service would not be immune from arrest and deportation. Nevertheless, Ezell and other opponents of the resolution had lobbied heavily to block the measure, claiming that the city is intruding in a foreign policy issue that could lead to a massive influx of immigrants into Los Angeles.

“I think it’s unfortunate. It’s an absolute mistake for the city of Los Angeles. I think we have tantamount to a City Council trying to be their own immigration and naturalization service,” Ezell said.

Language Softened

Some council members agreed, including Flores, who said she does not want the city to embark on its own foreign policy.In the council action, amendments were added that softened the language criticizing the Reagan Administration, but the resolution’s central message was left intact.

In formalizing a city refugee policy, the resolution reaffirmed a Los Angeles Police Department policy that orders its officers not to arrest or detain undocumented immigrants merely for being in this country illegally.

The Police Department already restricts the circumstances under which the police can turn over illegal aliens to federal authorities. Police may notify the immigration service only if an immigrant suspect has been booked for multiple misdemeanors, a high-grade misdemeanor, such as some forms of drunk driving or prostitution, or a felony offence.

Resource Drain Feared

Although Woo insisted that his resolution would not lead to any major increase in city costs, other council members expressed fears Wednesday that it would drain more resources from a financially strapped city.

“What this will mean for my district,” Cunningham said, is “overcrowding, unconscionable rents” and other problems for both immigrants and other residents.

Some council members said they are concerned about violating federal law. Assistant City Atty. George Buchanan remained noncommittal. “I can’t speculate on that,” he said. “It’s a matter of interpretation, a judgment call.”

After the council vote, Alan Gershman, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education, said he will ask his colleagues to join him in asking the city to assure school board members that the new policy will not mean a greater financial burden. He said the city should be prepared to pay any added costs.

“I don’t see how we can avoid being impacted--in the overcrowding of schools--by this resolution,” Gershman said.

The Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 on Tuesday to oppose efforts to make any part of the county a sanctuary.

The tenor of the council debate, played out in front of packed chamber of more than 400 people and a bank of television cameras, reflected the emotional atmosphere surrounding the sanctuary issue.

One public speaker who opposed the resolution warned council members that they would be condoning terrorism if they approved sanctuary because safe-houses where illegal aliens are harbored could be used to hide a cache of weapons. Another speaker urged members to keep the community free of immigrants who take jobs and other services from legal residents.

‘Fanning the Flames’

At one point, Councilman Bernson, who voted to oppose the resolution, rebuked some of those who sided with him because of their statements on the sanctuary resolutions, and members of the public were not the only ones rebuked.

Ezell, who sat at a center table surrounded by the council members, also drew the wrath of council members at one juncture with his warnings that the city’s resolution would open the floodgates to illegal aliens, many of whom he said would be criminals.

Councilman Wachs accused Ezell of “fanning the flames of prejudice and hysteria.” Another sanctuary supporter, Councilman Yaroslavsky, also disputed Ezell’s comments and said there is nothing in the resolution to support allegations that it would harm the city.

Pointing to the ancestry of the various council members, Yaroslavsky argued that at various times in history, other ethnic groups were denied entry to the United States by federal officials, and he reminded his colleagues that during World War II, Jewish refugees trying to flee Nazi Germany in a boat were refused sanctuary and were forced into situations where they died.

“That, to me, is what this resolution is about,” he said. “This, to me, is what this debate is about.”

In addition to the testimony of homeowners, clergymen and actor Mike Farrell, council members heard from a Salvadoran refugee who said that he had been denied political asylum and that he faces death if he is deported to his country. Council members also received a letter from the Roman Catholic archbishop of El Salvador and Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony urging them to recognize this as a “city of refuge” for Central American refugees.