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A federal agent pushes a protester at the entrance to Coast Guard Island last Thursday. With federal immigration agencies sending operatives into largely Democrat-controlled cities like Chicago, Portland and Oakland, Berkeley is working to limit their access to city property. Credit: AP\/Noah Berger<\/p>\n
Berkeley wants to keep federal immigration agents<\/a> off its turf.<\/p>\n The City Council Tuesday ordered the city administration to tighten its grip on who can use city property<\/a>, like parks<\/a> and parking lots, and how. The objective is to keep federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement from co-opting city-owned locations in pursuing the Trump administration\u2019s deportation agenda.<\/p>\n There is a potentially major hiccup. The city\u2019s recent track record on property management is so poor it completely lost track of a building it owned<\/a>. As such, the council ordered the city administration to put together an inventory of \u201call city-owned and city-controlled properties.\u201d<\/p>\n It is unclear whether any such centralized inventory already exists. Spokespeople for the city did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Berkeleyside.<\/p>\n Nor is it clear whether a city ordinance or policy would actually have any practical effect should Washington dispatch federal agents to Berkeley. In Portland, federal agents have fired tear gas and pepper balls at local law enforcement outside an ICE building, telling cops to \u201chelp or get out of the way,\u201d according to the city\u2019s police<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Berkeleyside inquired with Mayor Adena Ishii, one of the authors of the item, about the practical applications of the order, and how it would tangibly increase protections for Berkeley\u2019s immigrant communities. Melissa Male, a spokesperson for Ishii, said it would be up to the city\u2019s attorneys and city manager to \u201cdetermine the legal parameters and whether it has teeth, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are trying to use every possible tool in our toolbox to limit \u2014 as much as we can \u2014 the federal government\u2019s ability to carry out its harmful immigration actions,\u201d Male said in an email.<\/p>\n The measure was inspired in part by a similar executive order by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson earlier this month, declaring city-owned property \u201cICE free zones<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Berkeley has long been a sanctuary city<\/a>, with policies<\/a> prohibiting city workers from cooperating with or participating in federal immigration enforcement, among other things. In September the council enshrined that role into the city\u2019s municipal code<\/a>, a largely symbolic step, but one meant to reassure Berkeley immigrants and their families in a time when federal agencies have embarked on a frenzied, and frequently violent<\/a>, campaign of mass deportations.<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal agent pushes a protester at the entrance to Coast Guard Island last Thursday. With federal immigration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[21641,7981,2466,14,143,145,144,13,3277],"class_list":{"0":"post-29083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-auditor","9":"tag-berkeley-city-council","10":"tag-home-lead","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-school-safety"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29083","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=29083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}