LOS ANGELES BRIEFING
August 2006

News this month

The ICE men cometh
Los Angeles is home to thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. The hotel and restaurant industries rely on their cheap labour, and the wealthy householders of west LA depend on them to do their washing, cleaning and gardening. The LA Police Department (LAPD) usually turns a blind eye to their presence. Under “Special Order 40”, enacted in 1979, police officers do not ask immigrants about their legal status when questioning them, since doing so would discourage them from reporting crimes.

But the tide seems to be turning. Under pressure from populist anti-immigration sentiment, the federal government is beefing up its “Los Angeles Fugitive Operations Team”. The aim is to hunt down immigrants who have defied court deportation orders, concentrating on violent gang members. Nationwide the initiative, crafted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), an investigative arm of the Department for Homeland Security, is catching about 1,000 fugitives a week—many of them in LA. Indeed, ICE reports that since October it has arrested more than 2,800 illegal immigrants in Los Angeles, more than in any other American city.
The Economist.