Trump supports L.A.’s Olympic bid, Mayor Garcetti’s office says
President-elect Donald Trump expressed his support for Los Angeles’ 2024 Olympic bid during a phone call with Mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday.
Garcetti spokeswoman Connie Llanos said Trump spoke on the phone with the mayor in their first exchange since the Nov. 8 election.
Besides talking about the Olympic bid, Llanos said in a statement, the pair “had a productive conversation about ways to expand infrastructure investments and opportunities in communities across America.”
Llanos did not provide details about the tone of the call, how long the two men spoke, or what Trump said about immigration.
However, she said the mayor “stressed the important role that immigrants and immigration reform will play in L.A.’s — and the nation’s — long-term success.”
The phone call came as the country’s big-city mayors, mostly representing heavily Democratic cities, are reaching out to Trump.
The president-elect’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the phone call.
Garcetti supported fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton during the presidential race and had slammed Trump as a “racist” and a “bigot.” He also had questioned whether a Trump presidency would hurt L.A.’s chances of securing the Olympics.
Reince Priebus, Trump’s choice for White House chief of staff, told CNN on Sunday that the Trump administration would explore cutting off federal money to so-called sanctuary cities, which has raised questions about whether Los Angeles will be targeted by the incoming president.
L.A. County is home to more than 1 million of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
City leaders have been discussing efforts to protect immigrants not here legally from an expected crackdown by Trump.
Last week, Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson announced that he would seek to hire an immigrant advocate to spearhead those efforts and pursue policies to prevent L.A. residents from being deported. He also said the city should work with schools and community colleges on strategies to keep families together and prevent deportations.
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck also has reiterated that his department has no plans to get involved in any deportation efforts by the federal government and would continue a longstanding policy against allowing officers to stop people solely to determine their immigration status.
Illegal immigration was a central issue of Trump’s presidential campaign.
He called for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, deportation of people who are in the country illegally, a rollback in the immigration relief created under President Obama and the withholding of federal funds to punish sanctuary cities.
Since his election, Trump has not proposed a specific immigration policy.
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UPDATES:
8:41 a.m., Nov. 24: This article was updated with background about Los Angeles’ policy on immigration enforcement.
This article was originally published at 6:40 p.m., Nov. 23.
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