Eight people were arrested Monday in downtown Los Angeles at a protest calling for county Sheriff Jim McDonnell to “stop collaborating with President Donald Trump’s deportation force.”
The arrested protesters were part of a demonstration involving dozens of people outside the Hall of Justice called the “Caravan Against Fear.”
The caravan of community leaders, immigration advocates, labor groups and workers gathered late Monday morning outside the Hall of Justice at 211 W. Temple St.
Some demonstrators sat down on the street at about 1:30 p.m. and police ordered them to disperse. Eight refused and were arrested for failing to disperse as ordered, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The “Caravan” was on its eighth day and final California stop after events at the federal detention center in Richmond and the Adelanto Detention Facility, organizers said.
It will include stops in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in an effort to pressure lawmakers to pass sanctuary policies and refuse to cooperate with immigration officials, organizers said.
Some protesters are worried that McDonnell’s lack of support for Senatenforcement agencies from taking part in any immigration enforcement, aligns him with Trump’s get-tough-on- illegal-immigration policies.
“The term sanctuary city, sanctuary jurisdiction, there’s no definition for that …,” McDonnell told ABC7. “We operate within the law.
We’re law enforcement agents and when I look at what’s going on across this country, our goal is to be able to reduce the level of anxiety for people throughout Los Angeles County regardless of what their immigration status is.”
Despite McDonnell’s opposition to the bill, which he believes is too broadly written, the sheriff’s department has informed its personnel that they is not allowed to ask anyone their immigration status.
