By Los Angeles County Politics / Analysis
Whittier city officials recently confirmed that federal immigration agents conducted an arrest near the Whittier Public Library on Washington Avenue on the morning of July 6, as the city remains in mid-transition from a once bedrock conservative place and home to Richard M. Nixon to a Latino majority with a strengthened Democratic Party.
“The City has confirmed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel were present in the area and that an arrest was made,” the City of Whittier said in a written statement following the July 6 arrest. “The enforcement activity was conducted by a federal agency and was not coordinated by or conducted on behalf of the City of Whittier. The safety of our community remains the City’s highest priority.”
That carefully worded distancing language comes following a wave of immigrant community organizing triggered by ICE enforcement activity, which flipped Whittier’s city council from a conservative majority to a Democratic one in April. This includes electing Democratic Mayor James Becerra and two new council members who campaigned explicitly on passing local ICE restrictions.
The incoming officials pledged to adopt an ordinance restricting ICE activity — the same ordinance the previous council majority had rejected. The April election also produced the first Latino-majority city council in Whittier’s history.
Whittier’s history with ICE enforcement over the past year has been dramatic. According to Bolts magazine — a left-leaning nonprofit outlet covering democracy and voting rights — masked federal agents conducted raids at a local Home Depot, car washes, and near the public library and city hall last summer, arresting workers with no advance notice to the city.
Following these immigration arrests, a city council meeting was moved to a larger auditorium to accommodate the crowd of residents demanding action. The conservative council majority rebuffed a proposed ordinance to restrict ICE activity.
Community groups formed Organize Whittier and joined with dozens of other LA-area organizations to create the Community Self Defense Coalition, which trains volunteers to patrol neighborhoods, document ICE arrests, and visit detention centers to help detainees access legal assistance.
“We expected the city council to do something to make us safer, and we did not receive that response,” Renee Lorenzo of Organize Whittier told Bolts in May.
The political reversal came in April, when Becerra ousted a longtime Republican mayor with 67% of the vote in an election that saw turnout double that of recent municipal cycles. But the new government’s position on ICE has not gone unchallenged — and not just from outside the city.
When Becerra publicly confronted federal agents during a June incident near Washington Avenue, the city’s own social media statement drew a sharply divided public response.
According to the Whittier 360 News Network, a local digital news outlet that reviewed the public comments, reactions ran in both directions — residents who thanked the mayor for standing up to federal agents alongside residents who argued ICE is a legitimate federal law enforcement agency that local officials have no business interfering with.
“A growing number of residents and commenters are asking why Whittier officials are opposing federal immigration enforcement at all,” Whittier 360 reported. The outlet noted that support for federal immigration enforcement appeared stronger in public comments than in official statements or outside media coverage.
The City Council voted 5-0 on June 12 to direct staff to draft a formal protocol for responding to ICE activity near city facilities. As of this post, no formal protocol has been drafted.
The immigration enforcement issue comes as Santa Fe Springs formally terminated its 35-year law enforcement services agreement with the Whittier Police Department and appointed its first-ever police chief — a separate but equally significant shift in the city’s relationship with its longtime neighbor.
