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DEEGAN ON LA—-Los Angeles has an additional element of attraction next to our perfect 77 and sunny climate: we are awake with a civic profile being highlighted by yet another progressive politico elected to a councilmember seat, and a City Hall edict that LA is now a “sanctuary city”.
In an unanimous motion last week, the City Council approved the proposed sanctuary policies to be an ordinance.
A trio of progressive council members are responsible leading the drive for this legislative relief. They are Councilmembers Nithya Raman (CD 4), Eunisses Hernandez (CD 1), and Hugo Soto-Martinez (CD 13).
Nithya Raman
The matter was spelled out in detail by Councilmember Raman, herself an immigrant, who described the new ordinance by saying “the newly adopted ordinance permanently enshrines sanctuary policies into municipal law and prohibits the use of City resources, including property and personnel, from being utilized for immigration enforcement or to cooperate with federal immigration agents engaged in immigration enforcement. Critically, the Ordinance also prohibits the direct and indirect sharing of data with federal immigration authorities – an important gap to close in our city’s protections for immigrants.”
Just two weeks earlier, the progressive cohort of council members added a fourth member when neophyte Ysabel Jurado defeated serial politico Kevin de Leon in CD 14.
Her election increases the progressive block to four of fifteen seats. The 2026 election cycle could add two more. By the 2028 cycle, progressives could hold a majority of LA city council seats giving them de facto control of the city.
These two back to back events—the sanctuary motion and the progressive electoral victory—set the stage for Los Angeles to burnish its place in the resistance to those trying to make America white again.
The 2020 Census reports LA as very diversified with Latino 46.9%, White, 28.9%, Asian 11.7%, Black 8.3% and Multiracial 3.3%.
The city has lots of other good things on the horizon, including Los Angeles hosting eight matches for FIFA World Cup 26 and hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Already, driverless cars are prowling our streets, and “air taxi” companies are being given consideration to add flying cars to the airways in the next few years.
The bluest of blue cities, LA continues to be a national leader in social and civic progress. It would take a lot to unring that blue bell.
(Tim Deegan is a civic activist whose Deegan on LA weekly column about city planning, new urbanism, the environment, and the homeless appear in CityWatch. Tim can be reached at [email protected].)
