By Los Angeles County Politics (LACP)
Parris’s letter to Lancaster community honors MLK
Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris, in his mayor’s letter to the community this week, noted how Martin Luther King Day offers a meaningful opportunity to come together in service and community.
“In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we’re hosting a special MLK Day of Service Love Your City Clean-Up, part of our ongoing Love Your City efforts to care for our neighborhoods and for one another,” Parris wrote.
“Dr. King believed that everyone can be great because everyone can serve, and this event reflects that spirit in action. Whether you’re lending a hand for the first time or joining us again, your participation helps strengthen our City and the connections that make Lancaster such a special place to call home.
“Join us on January 17 for the MLK Day of Service as part of our Love Your City cleanups, our most ambitious effort yet. This citywide day of service honors Dr. King’s legacy through action, bringing neighbors together to care for the places we share.”
This third community cleanup goes beyond a neighborhood sweep and includes a desert cleanup, anti-graffiti mural painting, block wall painting to cover patchwork graffiti removals, park beautification, and additional service opportunities at locations across the City.
The clean-up community event is slated to start at 8 am tomorrow, Jan. 17, with a meetup at Desert Vineyard Church, 1011 E Avenue I. Lunch will be provided and participants should wear closed-toed shoes and comfortable clothes for walking, painting, and outdoor work.
Sign up and learn more at www.cityoflancasterca.gov/loveyourcity.
Bass sounds alarm on ICE Activity in Fashion District
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass yesterday said she was deeply alarmed by multiple reports of federal immigration enforcement activity in the Fashion District, one of the first areas targeted by ICE when the Trump administration began its reckless, dangerous raids in Los Angeles over the summer.
According to ABC Eyewitness News, vendors and shoppers in the heavily Latino-dominant downtown Los Angeles’ Fashion District were left shaken after federal agents raided the busy area yesterday.
Witnesses, who were afraid to speak on camera, told the media outlet that agents swarmed the area in the morning and began asking vendors for proof of citizenship. It’s unclear if anyone was detained.
“This show of force by ICE is particularly troubling given the recent ICE escalation and violence in American cities, including the fatal shootings of Keith Porter Jr. by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve here in Los Angeles and Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis,” said Bass.
“Equally troubling are the President’s threats of invoking the Insurrection Act, which would bring military intervention into our cities.
“This purposeful campaign of fear and intimidation by the administration is unacceptable. These tactics do not make anyone safer – they only sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city. Angelenos – and Americans across the country – have made it clear: we want ICE out of our cities,” the Mayor concluded.
Friedman announces legislation to cut red tape on Fed Housing
U.S. Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Burbank, Glendale, West Hollywood, Hollywood) yesterday announced new bipartisan, bicameral legislation that cuts red tape to unlock poorly designed federal investment programs that have limited housing production, particularly for smaller and community-based developments.
Dubbed the Build Housing, Unlock Benefits and Services (HUBS) Act, the measure purports to unlock poorly designed federal investment programs that have limited housing production, particularly for smaller and community-based developments. In particular, it strengthens the federal government’s ability to support transit-oriented development (TOD), a proven approach that increases land use efficiency, saves taxpayers money, and attracts economic development.
“Too many communities are ready to build near transit but are blocked from securing the investments they need by unnecessary red tape. The Build HUBS Act breaks out the scissors and gives local governments the flexibility and tools to build more housing near jobs, services, and public transportation,” said Friedman. “It’s a commonsense, bipartisan step to address our housing shortage and create more connected, sustainable communities.”
TOD is a development strategy that creates dense, walkable, mixed-use development near public transportation. TOD increases land use efficiency, spurs neighborhood revitalization, and provides access to workforce housing, jobs, and services.
A section-by-section bill summary is available here. Full text is available here.
Kamlager-Dove, DWC demand protections for Immigrant Survivors
U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Culver City, View Park-Windsor Hills, parts of South LA), Co-Chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus (DWC) Policy Task Force, along with Co-Chairs U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and Gwen Moore (D-WI) yesterday led a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem demanding that DHS reinstate protections for immigrant survivors and release the applicants for survivor visas currently held in detention.
This DWC letter is a follow-up from a July letter in which Moore Jayapal asked DHS to reinstate an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directive that protects victims of crimes seeking a T or U visa from immigration enforcement.
DHS failed to respond meaningfully or to work with DWC members to address this urgent concern, so yesterday’s follow-up letter demanded a meeting with Noem to hold her accountable for her failure to protect survivors.
“Our laws promise immigrant survivors protection in exchange for their cooperation with law enforcement, a process that carries real risk, particularly when reporting gender-based violence. Those protections, such as deferred action, may not be unilaterally revoked by ICE,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Upholding these safeguards is essential to the well-being of women and children and to maintaining the trust that allows survivors to come forward to help law enforcement in identifying and prosecuting perpetrators. The more that survivors can trust government systems to protect them, the more law enforcement can do their job to keep the community safe and save lives.”
Read the full letter here.
