After private and public outcries from concerned residents, the city of Glendale terminated its agreement with the United States Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to house federal immigration detainees at the Glendale Police Department facility.
Angela Givant, an organizer for Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) Parents for Public Schools, told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol how people in the community have been working over the years to pressure the city to end its contract with the department.
Glendale’s agreement with the U.S. Department dates back to 2007, but under Senate Bill (SB) 54, state and local law enforcement agencies are restricted from using their resources to enforce federal immigration law, including holding individuals in custody solely for immigration authorities to pick them up.
Givant recounted how, after SB 54 went into effect in 2018, community activists tried to have the city end its contract, but because the agreement was executed 10 years prior, it was allowed to continue under California law. Additionally, they were told that the contract was not actively being used, so no persons were being held by ICE.
Things started to change, however, around late May when a person was detained by ICE there. Through an immigration lawyer and Glendale resident, Sarah Houston, who had access to an ICE tracking system, it was verified that the person was being held in the local police facility.
“We learned that, in the several weeks before that initial detainment, that contract had started to be used again, and people had started to be processed through the Glendale jail,” Givant said. “We don’t know how many people, but that spurred a large group of community members to start figuring out how we could put real pressure on the city to end the contract.”
At first, they wrote to members of the Glendale City Council, arguing that SB 54 trumps any agreement made at the local level and that the city, therefore, was in violation of state law. But their efforts were fruitless – Givant said only one councilmember responded to her comment.
Undeterred, community activists directed their efforts towards calling the state Department of Justice, demanding that they investigate Glendale for possibly violating SB 54. It was also around this time that Houston made a public comment at a Glendale City Council meeting last Tuesday about the city’s agreement with Homeland Security.
“I want to ask you, do you want Glendale to be one of the only cities that allows a local police department to work with the Department of Homeland Security so they can just house and detain a lot of our immigrant sisters and brothers?” Houston said.
News media began to pick up the story after her public comment.
It isn’t known exactly what moved the needle, but on Thursday, June 5, Givant received word from people at Glendale City Hall that efforts were underway to rescind the contract. As to her understanding, the city manager at the time approved the agreement, meaning that the current City Manager Roubik Golanian had the power to rescind it.
Givant was relieved not only by the decision but also that it wasn’t left up to the City Council.
“We were concerned that if it was a council-based decision, they would uphold the contract [because] our council tends to lean right, tends to be reactionary,” Givant said. “We’ve had a lot of issues with them supporting and amplifying what I would describe as right-wing reactionary messaging, especially around the LGBTQ+ community and immigrants. And that is despite the fact that Glendale is a city that is over 50% foreign-born at this point.”
Glendale announced its decision on Sunday by releasing a statement saying: “This was a local decision and was not made lightly. … Nevertheless, despite the transparency and safeguards the city has upheld, the city recognizes that public perception of the ICE contract – no matter how limited or carefully managed, no matter the good – has become divisive.”
However, the city maintains that the decision is “not politically driven” and is instead rooted in “public safety, local accountability and trust.”
The statement goes on to say the Glendale Police Department does not enforce immigration law and the city is in full compliance with SB 54.
The decision comes during a time of civil unrest, as thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Los Angeles in protest starting last Friday after ICE raids swept through the area last week. Although the timing could be described as coincidental, Givant doesn’t see it that way “because all of these things are connected, and we can see how each injustice feeds another.”
While she thinks other people reacting to the decision have given the City Council too much credit for it since they didn’t make it, she’s still glad that it shows other communities “that people have the power to change the priorities of their city government. We have to use our collective power to force our leaders to make choices that represent our actual values that don’t target or hurt our neighbors.”
On Thursday, a planned “Moms Against ICE” rally in Glendale will take place at 7 p.m. at Brand and Glenoaks boulevards.