*NEWS RELEASE*

Contact: Glenn Spencer

Phone: 818-501-2061
Release: 18 April 2000

"Don't Turn Los Angeles into another Miami!" immigration activists tell City Council

Groups announce "phone-in" protest over city's lack of cooperation with INS

LOS ANGELES - A number of groups are protesting the Los Angeles City Council's efforts to bar Immigration and Naturalization Service officers from Los Angeles police stations, warning that they don't want Los Angeles to become another Miami.

"We've seen what is happening in the Banana Republic of Miami and we don't want that for Los Angeles," said Glenn Spencer of Voice of Citizens Together (VCT). "This is a nation of laws and there must be cooperation among local, state, and federal law enforcement officers."

CITY COUNCIL PHONE
AND FAX NUMBERS,
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Spencer compared the situation to that in Miami where Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas has been widely criticized for condoning violence and for instructing local police not to cooperate with federal officials. Even the New York Times referred to Miami as "a nation apart."

L.A. City Council Special Order 40 prohibits the LAPD cooperating with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. At last week's meeting, the Council went even further, asking the Police Commission to bar the presence of Border Patrol and INS agents at police stations unless they have the permission of the station commander.

VCT, the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, Americans Against Illegal Immigration, and B.O.N.D. are calling on concerned citizens to jam the phone and fax lines of City Council members from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Wednesday with protests calling for repeal of Special Order 40.

"This is an outrage," Spencer said. "The Rampart corruption scandal shows us that no one should be above the law-not the police, not the City Council, not illegal aliens and not the cheap politicians who cater to them. President Clinton himself said that illegal aliens arrested by the police for other offenses should be deported. Special Order 40 must be repealed."

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has confirmed the right of local law enforcement officials to arrest illegal aliens, noting that federal law encourages cooperation. Last year the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of that decision.

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