{"id":431590,"date":"2026-08-13T08:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T08:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/431590\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T08:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T08:36:16","slug":"coalition-demands-long-beach-strengthen-immigrant-protection-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/431590\/","title":{"rendered":"Coalition demands Long Beach strengthen immigrant protection | Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Long<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Long Beach Justice Fund Coalition stood in front of Long Beach City Hall to make their demands. (By Jacqueline Garc\u00eda)<\/p>\n

Angela, who has been living in the U.S. for more than 20 years, can\u2019t stay silent anymore after seeing the constant ICE raids happening across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, she spoke at a press conference in front of Long Beach City Hall, asking the council members to strengthen local protections for immigrants by amending the Long Beach Values Act, which is the city’s sanctuary policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that the federal government has allocated more money to ICE, we are very scared to go out to work, to the market, to take kids to school,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Angela, who didn\u2019t provide her last name, said that last year, when the raids started in the Los Angeles area, ICE arrived near the building where she lives in Long Beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe they were so close to my home,\u201d she said. \u201cAs I closed the door, I felt I couldn\u2019t breathe. I imagined the agents knocking on my door.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the raids lasted for about a month. She didn\u2019t get out of her building. Her son did all the errands and she understood the feeling many people were experiencing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we are here asking the city to do everything possible to protect us,\u201d she said. \u201cWe also want the city to protect our private information and that they don\u2019t permit ICE agents to utilize our city-owned public property for staging and training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheyla Diaz, organizer with Long Beach for a Just Economy<\/a>, said this summer is not much different from last year\u2019s, with families still living in terror due to the constant ICE raids.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen communities live in fear, it is the responsibility of our local governments to do everything they can in their power to protect their constituents, regardless of documentation status,\u201d she said. \u201cLong Beach City Council, your community urges you to stand up and fight for them. Protect our families and our friends.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The demands<\/p>\n

Fernando Acevedo, \u00d3RALE Community Lawyer, said the Long Beach Justice Fund Coalition, a coalition of local organizations serving immigrant families, has been advocating since January for the council to make appropriate changes. However, because the council kept delaying the vote, they decided to speak up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said they are asking for the following amendments to strengthen the Long Beach Values Act<\/a>, which was first approved in 2018:<\/p>\n

Eliminate SB 54 exclusions and expand protections<\/p>\n

Ban local use of surveillance technology<\/p>\n

Strengthen city contracts to respond to Long Beach Values Act violations<\/p>\n

Adopting a private right of action<\/p>\n

Adopt stronger signage and clarify the City’s prohibition of the use of city public areas for immigration enforcement<\/p>\n

Prohibiting Long Beach Police Department cooperation or employment with immigration enforcement<\/p>\n

The coalition also asked the Long Beach City Council to increase the funding from $1 million to $3 million, as it was originally requested.<\/p>\n

Next steps<\/p>\n

After the press conference, members of the coalition spoke during the public comment portion of the council meeting. While the item wasn\u2019t agendized and wasn\u2019t voted on, Acevedo said they made their presence known to put pressure on the council to book it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why it\u2019s not happening today is because the city has shifted their attention to the budget and for us it looks like it might happen after budget season, which is going to end in mid-September, maybe October,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mayor Rex Richardson and Vice-Mayor Roberto Uranga have shown strong support for the demands. The remaining seven have shown interest but not openly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CAL\u00d3 News attempted to obtain a comment from the Long Beach City Council but hasn\u2019t yet received a response.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Long Beach Justice Fund Coalition stood in front of Long Beach City Hall to make their demands.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2871,2872,131,133,171489,132,171488,8446],"class_list":["post-431590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-ice","tag-immigrants","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-justice-fund","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-values-act","tag-undocumented"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431590","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=431590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}