LA school police say they will not help ICE catch illegal immigrants in the district

The chief of police for the Los Angeles Unified School District released a statement on Tuesday confirming that his officers will not be assisting federal law enforcement to apprehend illegal immigrants now that criminals can no longer hide in schools and churches to avoid getting deported.

Interim Chief Aaron Pisarzewicz said his department has the responsibility and duty to "provide a safe and welcoming environment for all students to learn and succeed."

Claiming that mission takes precedence, Pisarzewicz went on to say, "We follow District policy and comply with state and federal laws related to the confidentiality of student records. We do not assist or engage in immigration compliance checks, immigration enforcement activities, or ICE-related task force operations."

'We need more deportations, a lot more deportations.'

"Our students are our priority, and we are committed to standing by them, ensuring they have a safe, supportive, and inclusive learning environment," Pisarzewicz concluded.

Los Angeles is one of the many liberal jurisdictions that have attempted to fortify their sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants as President Donald Trump's deportation operations are now under way. The Trump administration said federal law enforcement can enter areas such as churches, schools, and hospitals to apprehend public safety threats who would use those locations to hide.

In Chicago, there was unnecessary panic after school officials and officials all the way up to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempted to enter a school but were denied. It turns out Secret Service agents, not ICE agents, were there investigating a matter unrelated to immigration.

Border czar Tom Homan has noted that sanctuary cities and states are actually putting people who don't necessarily pose public safety threats in the crosshairs of immigration authorities, since agents are often not allowed to go to local jails to pick up illegal immigrants to process them for deportations. Agents are then forced to go to neighborhoods, where other people who are not active targets can also be picked up.

"It makes the job more dangerous for the agent, more dangerous for the alien, and more dangerous for the community. We’ve got to spend a lot of time trying to locate this person and seek to arrest them. It’s not efficient," Homan explained on Tuesday.

While Wednesday marked the first time the new Trump administration had arrested over 1,000 illegal immigrants within a 24-hour period, Homan said he is not satisfied with the current pace.

"We’ve got to do more. We’ve got to open the aperture up, which we are going to do. It was a good start. The first week was unprecedented. I mean, illegal crossings on the border, one day it was 540. I've never seen that. ... We went from 10,000 a day to under 600. It’s great, it’s good, but we're not finished. We need more deportations, a lot more deportations, and that’s what we are working on," Homan said.

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