{"id":178450,"date":"2026-02-14T23:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T23:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178450\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T23:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T23:56:11","slug":"long-beach-calls-for-dhs-secretary-kristi-noems-impeachment-but-organizers-say-they-want-stronger-local-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178450\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach calls for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem\u2019s impeachment, but organizers say they want stronger local protections"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Long Beach City Attorney was directed Tuesday night to draft a resolution expressing support for the impeachment or removal of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem. The resolution will also urge \u201can end to the federal policies and enforcement operations that subject local communities to violence and harm\u201d and affirm the City\u2019s \u201ccommitment to protecting civil rights, community trust and the dignity of all residents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That commitment was called into question earlier that night when local activist Anthony Bryson asked the City Council why Long Beach police show up to \u201cevery protest in riot gear when protestors are simply expressing their First Amendment right to protest.\u201d Bryson said he felt the City has been \u201csuppressing and repressing\u201d residents\u2019 right to protest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent over a year coming to the city council asking for you guys to be proactive and not be one of the cities joining other cities, but the city leading the initiative to get ICE out,\u201d Bryson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Long Beach police line up near Pine Ave. and E. 3rd Street to prevent protestors from going into the streets on Jan. 10, 2026.(Samuel Chacko | Signal Tribune)<\/p>\n

Copies of Long Beach\u2019s resolution will be sent to California federal and state representatives. Congressional representatives from states like New York, Ohio, California and Pennsylvania have called for Noem\u2019s impeachment or resignation<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, friends leave their home in the morning terrified that a routine shift at work will be their last moment of freedom,\u201d said Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk. \u201cWe cannot claim to be a safe community if we remain silent while federal agents operate with impunity in our neighborhoods. We cannot claim to protect civil rights if we look away when due process is violated and oversight is obstructed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to start off by saying I support law enforcement and I also support the rule of law,\u201d Councilmember Kristina Duggan began. Her words were met with boos from the audience until Mayor Rex Richardson asked the crowd to let her speak. \u201cI also support laws that protect people\u2019s rights to move through their communities without federal interference when there is no reason to believe they have committed a crime.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Third district Councilmember Kristina Duggan gives her remarks at the Long Beach Terrace Theater during the inauguration ceremony on Dec. 20, 2022. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune)<\/p>\n

A 17-year-old resident named Milo said he was disheartened at the speeches councilmembers gave and said the community demands were simple:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Call to abolish ICE<\/p>\n

Confirm the Long Beach Police Department does not cooperate with ICE<\/p>\n

Send out alerts to residents when ICE is in the community<\/p>\n

Document illegal activity that ICE does in the city<\/p>\n

Make sure hotels don\u2019t allow ICE to stay in the city\u00a0<\/p>\n

Multiple residents throughout the evening echoed the request for the City to alert residents when ICE is in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Want more local news? <\/p>\n

Sign up for the Signal Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter<\/p>\n

Mayoral candidate Regelio Martinez said multiple federal agencies contacted him after he posted a video on social media calling for \u201call 50 gangs in Long Beach to show up to city council\u201d to demand the City get ICE out. Martinez said Richardson\u2019s \u201cinaction\u201d on the ICE raids is what made him decide to run for mayor. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be mayor, I don\u2019t,\u201d Martinez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A resident in Duggan\u2019s district who identified herself as Lexie urged the council to enact a state of emergency so they could streamline resources to combat this issue, and asked what happened to the accountability mechanisms the City spoke about in July.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City Manager Tom Modica said the \u201cpolice does not assist ICE,\u201d and none of the companies the City is contracted with are allowed to use city resources for anything to do with immigration enforcement. He clarified there is only so much the City \u201chas control over\u201d when it comes to what companies do with their own resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\"\"<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Long Beach City Attorney was directed Tuesday night to draft a resolution expressing support for the impeachment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2871,14,38118,4701,131,133,132],"class_list":["post-178450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-ice","tag-immigration","tag-impeachment","tag-kristi-noem","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}