Recommendation to Support SB 54 (De Leon), The California Values Act, and SB 31 (Lara), the California Religious Freedom Act. These two legislative proposals protect the safety and well-being of all Californians by ensuring State and local resources are not used to support deportations, separate families, collect information about an individual's religious beliefs or affiliations, and ultimately hurt California's economy.
Okay, great. And so on. I believe if you are a vote by mail voter, I believe the counties probably sent those ballots out, as someone had said earlier. So thank you very much. Okay. Thank you all for that. We're going to move on to the next item here, and that is going to be item number 23. Madam Court Communication from Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilmember Pierce, Councilmember Urunga, Vice Mayor Richardson, recommendation to support SB 54, the California Values Act and SB 31, the California Religious Freedom Act. Okay. Let me turn this over first to Councilmember Gonzalez, since it's her item. Yes. Thank you. I want to thank everybody for being so patient and thank you all for for being here. So I'll start with when this came to my office, I couldn't help but support it 150%. And I'll explain why. As many of us know. But I have to reiterate and reaffirm my belief and certainly many of your beliefs as well, that immigrants and those of diverse religious faiths are valuable and essential. Members of the California and Long Beach family and communities in Long Beach, it is said. One in every four people identify as foreign born per the last U.S. Census Census data. And our city's residents are comprised of over 40% Latino. We have the largest Cambodian population outside of the country. We celebrate a Persian New Year, the API celebration and History Month. We have amazing friends who are Muslim and LGBTQ. And now here we are today. And unfortunately, our country's newly elected administration is incited in negative and divisive debate over how best to address immigration and the freedom of people to celebrate their culture and religion. Currently, our state legislature considering is considering two bills that pertain to immigration and religious freedom. SB 54 and SB 31 brought forward by Senator Ricardo Lara and Senate Pro Tem Kevin de Leon. I'd like to ask first Diana Ting, our manager of government affairs, to come up and give us an overview of these two bills. So there's clarity around each bill. And then I would like to hear from the public on this item before I make a motion. So, Diana. Thank you, Councilwoman. I'll give a brief overview of both of these bills and of course, be available for questions afterwards. I'll start with SB 54. This is legislation that is authorized by Senate Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, and it is known as the California Values Act. The bill would limit state and local law enforcement agencies from using money, facilities, property, equipment or personnel to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect or arrest individuals for immigration enforcement purposes. This bill specifically states that the state and local law enforcement agencies would not be able to inquire about or collect information about an individual's immigration status. Detain an individual on the sole basis of an immigration, hold request. Respond to requests for notifications for transfers solely for immigration enforcement, provide non publicly available information about an individual, for example, home address or work address for immigration enforcement purposes. Give federal immigration authorities access to interview individuals in the state or local law enforcement's custody for immigration enforcement purposes, or assist federal immigration authorities in carrying out federal immigration enforcement functions. The bill also directs that the state and local law enforcement agencies shall not make databases of information available by the state and local governments to federal immigration authorities. For the purposes of immigration enforcement, though, nothing in this bill shall prevent the state or any local law enforcement agency for responding to a request from federal immigration authorities for information about a person specific criminal arrest or convictions, as is currently permitted by state law. SB 54 is an urgency bill, which means that it requires a two thirds vote to pass the state legislature before being presented to the governor for consideration. So that is SB 54. And I believe there was also a request for a summary on SB 31, which is authored by Senator Lora, and this is the California Religious Freedom Act. This bill proposes to prohibit state and local law enforcement agencies from providing, disclosing or supporting, whether financially with personnel or equipment, the collection of personally identifiable information regarding the religious beliefs, practices or affiliation of any individual. For the purposes of compiling a registry or database of individuals based on religious affiliation, national origin or ethnicity. Nothing in SB 31 prohibits any state or local agency from sending to or receiving from a local law enforcement agency, state or federal agency information regarding an individual's citizenship or immigration status. And nothing in this bill is intended to prevent any state or local agency from compiling aggregate, non-personal, identifiable information about religious belief, practice, affiliation, or national origin. So that I am available for questions. Thank you, Miss Tang. Councilman, that you said you wanted to go to the public. Yes, please. Okay. So we're going to go and take public comment now for the motion on the floor, which is to support SB 54 and SB 31. And so please make sure that you come forward, make sure you say your name, and we'll go through the public comments. So please. Good evening. That honored mayor and City Council. My name is Tarek Muhammad, the chairman of Long Beach Islamic Center and may be have and Muslim community in Long Beach and over than 1000 a student in is a state college state university in Long. Beach. And over than 1000 family in Long Beach. Muslim Muslim community in Long Beach. We support you strongly to vote yes for SPF 54 and 31. And when you do, that really isn't a lot of messages. One of the message is tapping back our in the top of the back of our community. The people who this fellow those getting fear, the feeling threating by the the white power I'm sorry the white people in the tub of the power in our country right now. Also, you sent a very beautiful, beautiful and strong message for the people having the power that is the source of law and source of source of law and of the rule and regulation and build this great nation, people with the freedom excuse me, people of the freedom and justice. People the knows whether they mean freedom and they never going to give it away. A My community sent the message with me that that message of hope that that this is could change a little bit of the position and the things as a muslim community facing that day. So thank you for it. Really encourage you to vote yes with with with with P 54 and 31. And you are the champion and Long. Beach. City Council can lead the lead the city and the city can lead another city to say yes and all the city can lead all California and California can lead the whole United States to best this beautiful belt. Thank you very much. And I want. To. Thank you, sir, and thank you for all of your all of your work and want to I want to thank you for inviting us to to the Islamic Center as well. It was a wonderful opportunity for us. And I loved meeting you and the community. So, you know, we support you. So thank you very much, sir. Next speaker. Yes, Robert. Better housing from Long Beach. I hear what Mohamed saying. That's all fine and dandy, but if it's legal. Hey, no problem. Hey. True that whatever illegal voting so illegal could be illegal. No, I have a California penal colony. I got a few said, well, let me go. 834 B says, basically, if they're arrested, all the authorities have to go along with ICE officers. Now it says if they are arrested. So that's what all these things about. Don't arrest them. No. If I have to organize somebody and put all of them under citizen's arrest and then you got to and then we get the lawsuit. No, black folks ain't got nothing needs. And I know the brothers. You know this straight up. We ain't got nothing yet. Now, when Clinton was in and he called us super predators, he put us all away on three strikes. Okay? And half the time, you know how many times I'm sitting on the curb in the back of a car because I'm walking while black. Driving while black. And just because I'm a Negro, I got to go through all this being laid on the ground with guns on me. Now, you got people who are here with Muhammad saying, but I was just at the airport going against and they talking about killing us ten down the wall. If we if that would be federal money, if it was built. I don't want them taking my tax dollars till now. And then you have people with foreign flags at the airport. I'm not with none of this. I don't want $0.01 of my tax dollars. We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare of Americans. Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, not Muhammad and his posterity. That's cool, Muhammad. I'm glad you want it. Sir. Let's please continue your comments directed at me. I'm going. On. Directed at you. Thank you. Americans and that posterity. So, listen, my people ain't got nothing too much other than that dude that was just in office. He ain't did Jack. So. That being said, I'm not for putting no money out there. Put it towards Americans. Vote towards Americans. Because I'm going to remember everybody. That's going to be my thing, man to man. See, this? Got all this political correctness selling all this socialism? No, this is this is free world. Free market. Let's keep it like that. This is all mumbo jumbo. No America for all Americans. Let's start thinking about that. You know, I know. I know your people from somewhere else. My people from Cuba. Okay. But I'm not for Castro and none of that. I'm for capitalism, American system, not socialism. Because my people ain't got nothing. So we ain't going to communism for my people. Get them. We're got to stay right in the free market. And capitalism. Black folks going to get something and and then maybe. But some hundreds of years up the road, we'll talk about maybe a little social, whatever. But right now, no, we need to get black folks pay and stop trying to get everybody else money. I don't ever hear you talking about black issues. I'm through. Okay. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening, everyone. My name is Julio Perez. Grew up in the ninth district. Graduated from Cabrillo High School. Cal State Fullerton. Alumni. Currently work at Central CHA. And I'm here to speak on behalf of these issues. In support of SB 54 and 31. Personally, I'm an immigrant myself, and I'd just like to say that with a few opportunities right now I'm on my road to go to law school becoming an attorney. And, you know, I'm just one of many stories. Thank you. So, you know, with that being said, you know, it's it's sad to hear the the the divisive rhetoric. And, you know, it's one of the problems that we have here is that, you know, we get someone dividing us and, you know, then we're fighting for the very few resources that we have. So, you know, with that being said, I really commend all of the council members that are supporting these bills. Mayor, thank you for all of your support and thank you for your time. Thank you. I'm proud of you, brother. Congratulations. Next speaker. Stephanie. Awesome to a democratic socialists of America and a district two resident. I'm going to start off with a small anecdote for my second year of law school when I was working as an intern for the Orange County District Attorney's Office. We had a I was we had a juvenile assault and we had one witness, an eyewitness to the particular crime of a rather vicious assault where they say, I needed to go to jail. In my opinion, the gentleman was of upstanding character, you know, perfect eyewitness of his. Ms.. Price we can imagine that's the perfect person you want to put on the stand to be able to testify to what happened. The only problem is that his immigration status was not to where you were, not to where the position where he would want to be in an open courtroom and surrounded by officers. The attorney who was leading the case tried his best to be able to convince the person to come in. But when facing deportation and separation from his family, the individual probably within his best interest, chose to not not respond to that subpoena that day. These sorts of laws are an attack on our community. The president that the president is in office right now is a malignant fascist who is using these regulations not because of any particular apparent threat to our but to our country, but rather because he's never stepped outside of his own home. This is these rules are going to be these rules, as are that are being coming from the federal government, are going to be targeted specifically against Long Beach residents and against a type of collective progressive community that we have built. They serve no legitimate purpose. And I'm very grateful for for Councilwoman Gonzales to bring this measure forth. They can have a good day. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, mayor garcia and council members. I'm the reverend melinda teeter dodge i co-pastor the Los Altos United Methodist Church in East Long Beach. It's located in the Fifth District, and I also reside in that district. Tonight, I bring to you the collective and diverse voices of my faith, tradition and community. I speak in support of Bill 31 and 54. I encourage the Council's recommendation of this important work being done by our California state legislature. And while I offer strong support to the Council for these bills, I would ask that our Council consider taking even bolder steps to designate our city as a sanctuary city. And to work and work with local organizations and community members to define what that means and looks like. I speak to you as a Christian leader of a very diverse community that is united by the love of God through many interfaith relationships and united through our scriptural narrative with the major Abrahamic faith traditions. I want to share two quick images for you. This past Wednesday, our church welcomed three other churches from the LDS tradition, and after a shared meal, we made 200 blankets and 200 cards. Each of those blankets this week is being delivered to persons in need throughout the city of Long Beach. A few weeks ago, our faith community wrote love letters. To our brothers and sisters at the Long Beach Islamic Center. In response to the hate mail that they had received, you see it as an inherent, indivisible, part of who we are as a faith community that this work in caring with and for one another, this work to open our hearts and resources to learn from and serve alongside one another so that all may prosper. It is an inherent tenet of our faith and how we live our daily lives, welcoming and honoring all peoples. This is who we are as a faith community, and I would say who we strive to be as the great American city of Long Beach and state of California. We welcome all we care for one another. We steward our resources so that all may thrive. And we work to protect the vulnerable. As you continue your work tonight in the days ahead, I implore the Council to be resolute in its efforts to ensure that Long Beach is a true place of welcome for all peoples. We must ensure that our city is not complicit in the establishment or enforcement of a muslim registry or the return of the national security entry exit registration system. Our city should prohibit the use of resources to enforce a federal program requiring registration of individuals on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation , religion, or national or ethnic origin. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. I'm Zoe Nicholson. Rose Park. Beautiful. Rose Park. Where I actually have a green lawn now. Um, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, and members of this beautiful community. Last week, I had the immeasurable good fortune of hearing Reverend Dr. William Barber speak. He was here from North Carolina to receive an honorary degree from Occidental College. He is the founder of Moral Mondays, the Forward Together Gathering Movement and Repairs to the Breach. He lives and breathes on the acute intersection of social justice and examined Christianity. He told us many things that night. He actually got me to sing and clap. He is irresistible. First, he captured my mind with his deep understanding of how this particular moment in history predictably unfurled. He nourished my soul with a call to care for the poor, the disenfranchized and marginalized. Most importantly, he lifted me from a spiritual, dark despair I had been in since November when he explained, This is not Democrats versus GOP. This is not conservatives versus liberals. This is actually not about thugs versus righteous people. We are in a crisis. We are in a moral crisis. We are called to rise to the light. We are called to mind the light. This is an ultimate call to be a moral society. A moral people beginning with a moral person. So besides asking you to be a more sanctuary city, I believe that is the least we can do. Let us rise together and say, I am a sanctuary person. You are safe with me. I live in a sanctuary community. You are safe with us. And finally, that we actually become a sanctuary city so we can proudly be on the record where our hearts and souls reside. Let us be a light to the rest of the country. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor Garcia, members of the city council. City Manager Pat West. It's an honor and a privilege to be here today. My name is Jessica Quintana, and I'm the executive director of Central Cha and a long time resident of the city of Long Beach for over 52 years. So, as you can tell, I love this city, have the privilege to work here. And for the past 16 years, our organization has been a leader in delivering immigration services and integration services to our constituents here in the city of Long Beach. And we've helped. Thousands of people become new naturalized citizens and helping them to stay united with families and boost their economic upward mobility and contribute to the city's economy. So today, we're just really proud of our city council to be the first across the state of California to support this initiative. Because what I could tell you about Long Beach is we're into building bridges and not walls. And so this is the kind of leadership we have. Absolutely. So what I'd like to do is just applaud you for your leadership. Councilwoman Gonzalez, thank you so much. Councilwoman Pierce, thank you for supporting this initiative. Vice Mayor Brett Richardson and of course, our councilman from from the West Side from the seventh District. Thank you so much. And I would just like to urge the rest of our city council members to support this. My councilman from the eighth District, Councilman Austin, truly would appreciate your support on this initiative, because what I can tell you is not only does Long Beach, the Center Cha, have a leadership here in our local community, but we belong to statewide one California Networks and L.A. County Immigration North American Initiative. And that works. And it's the same thing what we're hearing across the state. And so folks are very much in fear. And so it is up to our elected officials to really take the the leadership and ensure that our communities are safe, that that they're responding to their their fears, and that this is this is a public safety issue. This is a quality of life. Public safety issue. And if you can imagine, never should we be coming to council and be divided and asking for equity and equality for certain groups that should never be. And so I just, you know, encourage your leadership and support this. And thank everybody. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Hey, my name's Andrew Guy. I live in Bluff Heights and Councilwoman Pearce's district and councilwoman here. And you speak in the lobby this hour, earlier this evening, I'm even more proud than I was to have voted for you. So thanks for the work that you're doing. This issue affects my family. My husband is undocumented, so we're a gay immigrant, socialist household. So apologies to the sensibilities of some in the room today. And on election night, we were just stunned in front of our television, you know, actually crying, thinking about the talk of deportation forces that we'd heard during the campaign and wondering what the future held for us. So I'm happy to see that the councilmembers are supporting the state bills that their senators, Laura and DeLeon, are proposing. But I want to emphasize that this should only be a start. The people of Long Beach's immigrant community know that the state of California will stand up for them, but they need to know that their city will, too. Cities like Santa Ana are ahead of Long Beach in drafting actual ordinances, not just resolutions of support to protect their immigrant residents. There are steps that Long Beach needs to take separately from the proposed state bills to do the same. With respect, many of us do not agree that criminal offenses should be grounds for deportation, and the city should take steps to help ensure that low level offenses do not lead to ICE actions, specifically offering alternatives to incarceration and prohibiting the use of any city resources, including entry to the Long Beach Jail, to ICE agents without a criminal warrant. So in short, I'm happy to see that the council is taking a step in the right direction today, and I hope it's only the first. I know that there's a dedicated community in our city that's committed to making sure that it is. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker, please. Yeah. Next speaker, please. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Patty and I'm a member of Echo District nine, affiliated with Pico, California. I just got to say, I love Long Beach and I love the people, and that's why I'm here. I'm also a voter, a long term Long Beach resident. We are proud to be sponsors of the California Values Act Bill. We applaud the city for taking steps and supporting of this statewide bill that would increase the protection of our immigrant community. However, we see this is only the first step regardless of Trump's threats. We and I want to emphasize this regardless of Trump's threats, we need to know that our city leaders will stand behind our immigrants community over any federal money with. With that being said, we are asking for our city leaders to support Long Beach as a sanctuary city. We also ask staff agents and especially the Long Beach Police Department to have the maximum sensitivity and discretion on our low level offenses. In Long Beach, we have a clear example of a family being thrown apart. I'm referring to the Jose Alvarez case being pulled over and deported for a broken taillight. Our immigrants communities fear and are intimidated by the police department due to the fact that their union endorsed Trump. Finally, we are asking you to support on this vote and looking forward to see the city of Long Beach walk with us in protecting our immigrants and community in officially becoming a sanctuary city. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hi, my name is Ashley Thomas and I'm also with the Democratic Socialists of America Long Beach chapter. I just want to start by acknowledging that we're living in frightening times. Trump's Muslim ban and his wall makes me ashamed to be an American. Thankfully, California is leading the fight against this xenophobic administration, and this fight is important. So I urge you to vote to support SB 54 and SB 31. But Long Beach can do more. I urge the City Council to show the rest of the country what it truly means to be a sanctuary. Show them how much stronger a community can be. When we as a city. Refuse to use the resource to use our resources to facilitate deportations. When we refuse to book low level offenders in county jail where they will risk deportation, whether they're guilty or not. Tell the rest of California and the rest of the country that Long Beach will never cooperate with any type of registry. Muslim or not. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hello, Honorable Council and mayor. My name is Giovanni Rodriguez Leiva, and I'm here as a member of the Long Beach Immigrants Rights Coalition and Fuel at Cal State Long Beach. I'm also here as an undocumented immigrant. Directly impacted by Trump's executive orders on immigration. I have been living as an undocumented immigrants in this country for over 27 years, and I have never felt more concerned for my safety or the safety of my community as I do today. I have had the opportunity to serve as a middle school teacher for the Long Beach Unified School District. This has been my lifelong dream. But recently I have noticed the fear and through the eyes of some of my students, either they're afraid of what may happen to them or they're afraid of what may happen to their parents under this administration. We can't let this happen. We need to make sure that they and their families are safe. I need my students to come into the classroom focused and ready to learn. We need to take a stand. That is why I'm here today. I am thankful to Councilwoman Gonzalez for introducing this resolution in support of SB 54 and SB 31. And in an era when Trump is attacking the most vulnerable in our community. We. We need further action. We need to declare Long Beach a sanctuary city now. We need to ensure that local resources will not facilitate the threat of mass deportations. We need to ensure that when we enter a state or local agency, our information will not be used against us. We need a local policy to ensure accountability. I welcome this first step and I hope we can create we can move towards an ordinance and ensure the safety of this community. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time and work. Next speaker. Please. Oh. Good afternoon, council members and mayor. My name's Marie de Soto, and I live in the ninth district. I was born and raised in Long Beach and also work in the local hospitality industry. Recently, I have been at the forefront fighting for women's rights, working in the hospitality industry all over L.A. County. I am here today concerned about my sisters who are without status. I am concerned my sisters will not be able to call the paramedics in case of an emergency because of the fear of being deported. They should have they should not have to choose between their children's lives and the ability to stay in this country. I am here because working immigrant women deserve the right to call police when they when they are victims of mental and physical abuse at their home or their workplace. Women should not fear the police that are supposed to protect them. I am here because no matter. Because no mother should walk into a school with the fear of being deported. A woman, regardless of background or immigration status or religion, deserve to deserve respect. I am here today standing in solidarity with the community, asking council to take a bold stance and take our city into being a sanctuary city through the act of infrastructure. I want a policy that will ensure that my sisters, my family and my home and my workplace are safe here in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Speaker, please. Hello. My name is Myron Wolin. I am the president of the Long Beach Gray Panthers and an official with the California Alliance for Retired Americans. I want to thank the council members who have promoted the support for SB 54 and SB 31. Thank you very much. These are measures that need to be supported and approved on the state level. We are a country of immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants. We are a city of immigrants. Our mayor is from Peru. He is an. Immigrant. My my mother. My father were immigrants to this country. We should be. Welcoming. Welcoming. And we've known as a welcoming nation. What we are seeing today in the current political climate is a fear of the stranger, fear of the immigrant. We hurt. We we are hurtful. We we hate the fact that politicians will use fear. Fear of the stranger to gather votes to make a political statement in this way. The Great Panthers have come out in support of making Long Beach a sanctuary city. We we feel that our our city should be open to immigrants, should be open to the stranger. We as a Jew, I remember how we were discriminated against, how at certain times we were forced not to be allowed to come into this country . I remember a a reading in history about a ship called the St Louis that had a bunch of Jewish immigrants that were trying to come into this country. They were refused to come here. And the charge against it was, we don't know if there are Nazi spies. That could be invested in this ship, and therefore we won't allow. Anybody to come aboard and to come. Here. And this was in 1939. And one quarter of those Jews were then were killed in the Holocaust as a result of not being allowed to come to this country. So this is very personal to me. This is very personal to the Jewish community. And we urge you to make. Long Beach a sanctuary city. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Speaker Honorable mayor and council members. And my name is Maria. And in a time where everyone's living in fear, I say I'm. Undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic. I came here at the age of three. I have that guy just in case, you know, I'm protected. So I came here at the age of three, not having seen my dad since birth. Birth? Okay. I got reunited with my dad. I've been living here. I've been contributing. I, I many of you here, sitting here. I have volunteered in your campaigns. I have been. A productive citizen of the city of Long Beach for as long as I can remember. I graduated from HLB CC with an associate's in social sciences. I graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a bachelor's in Chicano Latino Studies. I, I have worked hard for where I am standing right now. I'm not going to let down. I'm not going to. Let no one take that from me. Because that's not what. That's not what we do. We don't take things from our neighbors. We give them help. If our neighbors dealing with with the rent increases, she can't afford it. Cooperative. Come on, everybody turn. You know you want to. You don't want this family to become homeless. We all help each other out because that's what we do. That's where our roots come from. I don't just come here to make my life better. I come here to make my community better. To make my state. Better, to make my country better. So all this. All this hate of illegal and decriminalizing and dehumanizing people. I left that in, like. Senior grade in high school. Why? Because I knew there was bigger. And better goals. So today you are all on fire. Measure H. Sanctuary City. Come on. If you're here for support of undocumented community, stand up. Let me see the side. We are here with you. We are going to take a stab with you. Thank you for standing up for undocumented communities. And thank you for serving in a major, major way today. Thank you. All. Oh. Next speaker. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Good evening. My name is Africa ARTIM and I'm. I'm a junior at Millikan High School, the Quest program. I am actually a first generation going to college. I've had an unweighted 4.0 since my freshman year, and I really hope I really aspire to go to UCLA, majoring in molecular biology and eventually start my career for pathology. And none of that would have happened if my parents, well, my family then decided to immigrate to the United States. And my grandpa came as a bracero, and they let me have these dreams. These dreams. And I really wish they. Could be here. Today. But I really have friends. Friends and really close friends of my people that I love. And some of them can even kind of play to become darker students or some of them are really afraid of that their parents are going to be deported. So I really hope that you guys support SB 31 and SB 54. Because their dreams matter, too. I've had an undocumented friend of mine. He really tried to get into the community college so he can start as a high school student concurrent enrollment, so he can start getting out ahead of his classes. But most community colleges. Asked him for papers. And he couldn't provide any because he's not eligible for DECA or he I mean, he just doesn't have papers. And so how can you just turn away people like that? That's to me. If you want to learn, you come to this country wanting to learn and wanting to contribute, wanting to be your lawyers, your teachers, or maybe even one of them wants to be sitting in a chair that you're sitting in right now. And I really hope one of them does. So I really hope SPF 31 and SPF 54 will eventually promote inclusivity of the undocumented students in the classroom now, not just at the high school level, but for higher education, because in the end, in this competitive workforce. You need. A bachelor's. Master's or a doctorate degree. To even survive. So I'm really thankful that you guys are taking into consideration this, but I also really hope. That you. Create a sanctuary city. Because to prevent to make sure students go to school safely, to make sure they're assured. That their. That one day their families are still going to be they're not going to be gone. So I think you. You you're you're in a high school. You're at Milliken, you said. Yeah, I'm a student. Amazing, amazing words from a high school student. Just a very inspiring for for the future. So thank you very much. Mayor. I would actually like to think I have a lot of my friends, my teammates are here. A couple of my friends over here. And so I really want to thank. You because to them, this is really important. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is U.S.A. Party and I'm the leadership development coordinator at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a member of the Shura Council of Southern California, a muslim organization that represents over half a million Muslims in SoCal alone. We urge the City Council to support SB 31, the California Religious Freedoms Act, and SB 54. The California Values Act. SB 31 provides robust state action to protect vulnerable communities from ineffective and harmful programs that undermine public safety and diminish public trust in law enforcement, while also fulfilling California's duty to ensure equal treatment under the law. A database, a registry based on religion, ethnicity or national origin would go against the principles this country was founded on by prohibiting state and local law enforcement agencies from participating in federal immigration enforcement efforts. SB 54 protects immigrants from detention, deportation, and, most importantly, the separation of families. When local law enforcement enforces federal immigration laws, it reduces community trust in cooperation with police, thus jeopardizing the public safety of all residents. People are afraid and they need to be able to trust and rely on local law enforcement and elected officials such as yourselves. Now more than ever, we implore you to support these two critical pieces of legislation and protect and defend the rights of all residents of California, regardless of their national origin, their immigration status, or their religious beliefs. In light of the controversy that has spread following President Trump's executive orders, bills such as SB 31 and SB 54 are essential in protecting marginalized communities. Lastly, I would like to share a personal story with you. A few days ago, I participated in the Alex protests in order to pressure the CPS to follow the newest protocol when executing the Muslim ban. When I was there, I saw folks of all walks of life come together to support the Muslims community. Truly, this bothered me and warmed my heart. But one woman, bless her heart, I'm sure she had the best of intentions. She told me something that really made me reflect. She told me that I was welcome here. I'm sure she had the purest intentions. I'm sure. But I couldn't help but ponder on her words. How could someone welcome me to the country that I was born in for country that I the only country that I've ever known? It's like telling me I'm welcome into my own house. It's my house. And how could I ever hurt anyone or anything in my house? And how could I be surveillance in my own house? I'll. I'll enter my house and leave it as I please without fear of getting kicked out or of being monitored. And that goes for the country that I live in and the country that I'm born in as well. I tell you this story to put things in perspective. You weren't doing me a favor by voting in support in support of these measures. Rather, you're confirming the rights that I already have. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Destiny and I didn't plan on speaking because I'm new here to Long Beach. But I felt compelled to speak. Because I used to be in a relationship with a guy who was undocumented. And he ended up getting caught with marijuana and going to. Jail for. A small amount. And while in jail, they told him that they asked him. For his Social Security. Number and he told them that he didn't have one. So they called ice and within a month later, he was deported. When they deported him, they didn't care how many nights he stayed. How many nights he stayed up. Thinking of ways to better the community. That he was forced to leave, leaving care that he had no family and no friends in Mexico. He didn't know anybody. He came here to the United States as a two year old, and they didn't care that he he would end up going days without food. They didn't care that he struggled with bipolar disorder. And that would and that would go on because of. Not being treated. They he within three years later, committed suicide. When he got deported, his mom. Started marking his calendars, how many days it had been since she had last seen him. And the last day. Was less than nine. It was less than a thousand days. And she will now never see him again. And obviously, everyone who gets deported. Is doesn't meet that fate. But it's a risk. And I just I just want to thank you all for having this on the agenda. And I want to thank you for caring. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Josh Butler housing Long Beach. Good evening once again. Remember the city council. And first, I want to say, you want to give it up to our community organizer, Maria Lopez for her comments. I know that from working with her that these have been trying times for her and even just trying to fly to Sacramento with colleagues in our community has become something that was a challenge to us to be able to do as a group. I also want to echo the comments of Mr. Wilson and the Gray Panthers, as I am also from the Jewish faith, and I like him, know that when you smell trouble, there's trouble. You don't wait. And housing. Long Beach is in full support of making Long Beach a sanctuary city. Long Beach. Long Beach is the international city and we celebrate diversity and we welcome all people. So let's live up to that. We need to send a message that our city has your back. As you've heard, or as you may or may not know, the anti tenant group Better Housing for Long Beach has called our city's inspection program a violation of human rights. They have stated that the city inspectors are demanding ID from tenants. We have heard stories that tenants have been chased out of their units within three days. The threat of ice hanging over their heads. You heard attempts at intimidation directed at me this evening. Imagine what our low income tenants, our immigrant communities, undocumented citizens feel from their from landlords like this and folks like that. So we asked you to stand up to that kind of aggression, to stand up to that kind of intimidation so that our citizens know that Long Beach is a sanctuary for them and that we're not going to support these kind of tactics and we're not going to support these kind of efforts, and we're going to support people here in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi folks. My name is Salvador Sarmiento with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. We've been working on these policies for a long time, and I think it's important to mention right off, right off the bat, you know, this is about immigration. This is about immigrants and refugees. But not not only I think folks that have been paying attention for a while know that sanctuary cities were really a revolt over the last eight years over the massive expansion of the federal program known as Secure Communities. Right. And it's not. When I say also it's not just about immigrant, it's not just an issue of immigration. Secure Communities is probably the best, most emblematic of the fusion between mass deportation and mass incarceration. Right. That's that's what that's what the revolt against Secure Communities really was about. And that's what being a sanctuary city, sanctuary policy, sanctuary state, whatever you want to call it, is really about and I don't know if you know, when when we've worked on these issues. I remember the mayor is an old like an old civil rights fighter in Tuskegee, Alabama, when they passed their their policy about three or four years ago, this guy, he you know, he he confronted what is white terrorism. Right. And really call it what it is. The folks that we have in the White House are being conduits to white supremacist groups and leaders. And and they are now in control of that massive deportation mechanism that was built over the last 20 years. And so I think, first of all, I want to say, I mean, if you all saw the O'Reilly interview of Donald Trump right before the game, that terrible game on Sunday. But, you know, Trump says California is out of control. California Values Act means that California is out of his control to use as part of his that deportation force. And so it's it's incredibly powerful that you support SB 54 and SB 31, but in particular, it's important that you support it in its current form, that the way it's drafted currently is that ensures it escapes the trap of picking winners and losers. Good immigrants, bad immigrants, you know, throwing out the folks with any prior conviction, which I think Long Beach in particular knows that that's B.S. And that's a pretense to scapegoat immigrants and folks with convictions, and that folks have been doing that since the nineties, and we won't accept that anymore. So to support the Values Act as it is, that's incredibly important and everybody in the room could be a voice for that. The last thing I'll say around the funding issue, the federal funding issues, it's there's a really good piece by Chemerinsky out of UCI Law School, which really breaks it down if there's concerns about that. The last thing I'll say is the most powerful thing that this council could do and the mayor and the city could do to support 54 is to make sure, because we don't know how or when that's going to be enacted at the state level. And there's a lot of conservative pockets in the state that they're going to try to carve out pieces, pass a local policy here, make it good, make the standard high. Let's make it happen here. There's no reason that Long Beach has to wait for this. We can have it. This can happen now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Nicole Kabob. I'm a Lumbee resident and an organizer with the Filipino Migrant Center. You've heard from many of us today. Given the recent executive orders, the rhetoric that has really stirred immense fear and anxiety in our community and the threats of deportation and hate crimes that loom over us. But across the city and across the United States, people are standing up against hate. They're standing up against xenophobia. They're standing up against Islamophobia. We applaud the. City leaders. For starting this discussion to support SB 54 and SB 31. But like many have mentioned earlier, this is only the beginning and we can't wait for the state to do the right thing. Santa Ana, the second largest city of Orange County, recently passed a local resolution and a local policy to protect all undocumented immigrants in their city . That's Orange County. We. As Long Beach, the second largest city in Los Angeles County, should join Santa Ana, should join San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and all across the state and Los Angeles in making sure that our city becomes a sanctuary city for all. We, together with the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition, the greater echo clue Building Healthy Communities and Lane want the city of Long Beach to become a sanctuary in five particular ways. One prohibit the use of local Long Beach resources that would facilitate deportations. This includes prohibiting those local resources, facilities or personnel to assist in federal immigration enforcement. Two, we want to provide diversion and alternatives to incarceration for low level offenses. That means that we want to make sure that city staff agents and the Long Beach Police Department are appropriately trained and encouraged to exercise maximum discretion for low level offenses . There should be alternatives that promote the goal of rehabilitation and not incarceration. The Long Beach Police Department should also adopt a policy of siting and releasing individuals charged with low level offenses in lieu of booking them into county jails. Third, we want to defend pro-immigrant policies from any attacks by the federal government. We've already heard from this new administration. The attacks and threats that would impose limits on federal government's authority. But we want to make sure that the city of Long Beach stands up and acts to protect our immigrant population against these and proper threats. The fourth, we want to oppose any registry based on religious identity and protect other protected characteristics. This includes ensuring that city personnel are prohibited from responding to civil immigration warrants, that city personnel do not cooperate with federal agents to enforce any sort of registry, and that city databases and information are not used for the purposes of building a registry or even enforcing it. And lastly, we want the city of Long Beach to ensure the protection of sensitive and confidential information. Without this robust confidentiality protections, immigrant members will be afraid of coming to the city of Long Beach. And we want to make sure that the city does the right thing. We invite you to be on the right side of history. We invite you to be a part of making the city of Long Beach a sanctuary city for all. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mayor Garcia and council members. Thank you, Lina, for introducing this resolution. It's very much needed. My name is Jane Wilson Barbosa. I'm a resident of District four for 38 years past, president of the. United Methodist Women Los Altos Methodist Church and a member of CLU. I've been an educator and administrator for 40 years and I now direct the ESL Breakfast Club. But most. Importantly, I am the grandmother of a new little seven. Week old baby. His name is Martin, and he's named after Martin Luther King. And I woke this morning at 4:00. Really wanting to rock him by the fireplace. But I'm here tonight because fear clawed my heart about the quality of life. That Martin may have to face. And I'll tell you why. There's a woman. In the Breakfast Club whose name I've changed. Her name is Christina. She came across the border without papers in order to earn money for her father, who lay dying in Mexico. She suffered. Much abuse. She found a man here in the. United States whom she loves and who loves. Her so much that he's adopted her son. She's learning English so that. She can take a citizenship test and speak to her son's. Teachers. And she she's applying for legal permanent residence. And for some reason, which I don't understand, her request has been. Denied. And she's been ordered back to Juarez, Mexico. To wait for six. Months and reapply for entry to the United States. We know those doors are slamming shut. Her husband is terrified that he'll never see her again. And this I know, Christina, is. A wonderful, creative, generous person who teaches children. Here in Long Beach. And as long as I draw breath. I will never cooperate with any federal agent. That asks for any identification or. Is trying to track her down. And I'm asking you, the members of the council to stand with me. Tonight to make Long Beach a sanctuary city so that. My grandson, Martin, can grow up surrounded. By people who have the courage to stand with the people who are most vulnerable in our society, the Bible says. Indeed, I tell you in so much as you do. This, for the least of these members of my family, you do it for me. So I'm asking you to stand for the most vulnerable people and make Long Beach a sanctuary city. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. Thank you very much for. For this amendment. I really like it. My name. Is Marlene Alvarado. And I am the proud daughter of an undocumented worker. He fought in World War Two. Right. He worked for Harold Washington in Chicago, because I'm a Chicana from Chicago, but I've been living here. I've been living here for the last 15 years. I produced a television program called Soy the Pueblo, and it talks about all of the other undocumented people. I talks about homeless people. It talks about health care. It talks about antiwar. I belong to Long Beach Area Peace Network. I belong to military family. Speak out. I have a son who is who is in the Navy. I have. Taught undocumented. Workers. I'm a retired teacher, ESL teacher. As far as this gentleman over here is concerned, I have worked in systems and supported Central Americans who are coming over to this country because the United States had set up military dictatorships in their country right now in front of their and for and our borders are women and children who are suffering right now. Meanwhile, we're allowing this man from Cuba because he comes from a communist country to come in here. And we gave him Social Security. We gave all kinds of stuff. But the but the victims of our wars in Central America can't even cross the border. And there are women and their children, and they're suffering from violence, from the military dictators we have set up, as far as I'm concerned, is this is a great idea. We should be a sanctuary city. And the other thing I want to tell you about is that according to Mendel, right, Mendelian law, in order for the species to survive, it is best that we are diverse. He proved it. I mean, if you're just if you're the genetics of interracial and crossed right. You know racial marriage is really important in my family. We have Poles, we have Italians, we have African-Americans, we have the United Nations. So in my third generation, we are totally American. And we started from an undocumented worker. Thank you. Next speaker Newt. Good afternoon. My name is Barcelos Chavez. And I've been. Around immigrants all my life because my grandpa was an immigrant. He was back. On the seventies is to pick up apples. On Washington. You know, that's hard work building up on the ladders. And for people of, you know, I come from a long way. You know, I was born here and I was raised in Mexico. I can see all their. Life over there. I came back when I was, you know. Like ten years old. And all my life. Been living here in Long Beach. I care for Long Beach or work Long Beach. And I can see. All the hard work the people has done. Like, you know. You know, I have a lot of relatives, but they work hard. And, you know, I've been working since I was like 15, you know, since I was a kid. I used to like. You know, take you know, we raised cows would take them back home, you know walking at eight years old. I got here when I got here. I was working. I don't even care if I get paid. I just did it because I liked it. I had friends. I work on a restaurant by a neighborhood alliance for Lambic. And you know, I worked on the I used to work on this company as a roofing company. And, you know, things got you know, I was 15. I was working. You know, I can see I've been working with people that, you know, they don't have papers, but they come here for one reason. They come to work. You know, all those matches you see over there by Orange County, you know who did them? Immigrants. Immigrants. They're don't you know, I work with my cousins. They're dry cleaners. They get high on those buildings. They're building million dollar homes. You know who did them? Immigrants. My mom. She was an immigrant before. She used to pick cherries. Pick strawberries when she was pretty. There's only one thing, you know, I take pride in my. Work, you know? You know, I. Come from a long way. You know, one thing, I'm here for the people. That can make it here. But I've been all around, you know, I've been on Stockton. I used to work with the immigrants. They build homes over there, tracks, drywall, stucco ceilings, all that kind of work, you know? And, you know, I'm just here. One thing I think, I believe on 54 and 31. I truly believe in that, you know, and then people are here not to take anything away from no one. There's people that cut grass is who you know. You know those people. They wake up early in the morning and do their job. That's the only thing they come here, you know, just provide for their families. You're I'm saying, you know, I. Believe on 54 and 31. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Uh, good evening. Uh, my name is Thomas. Like, I belong to the second district. I have to say that the current administration's rhetoric, the executive orders, reverberate throughout my soul. I'm rattled by the sense of urgency to port to support these measures. I would just like to ask everyone to focus on the fact that this just isn't a matter of discovering who's undocumented, who's a criminal, and who isn't. This is about resisting, resisting legislation that is not only divisive, it's deeply invasive and human. It's an inhuman way of sending a message to those who are different from us. The message is regardless to whether or not you're a drug dealer. Have a few outstanding parking tickets. None of that really matters. It's your religion, your culture, your existence. That isn't normal. It isn't accepted. And we're telling people that it's shameful and evil. And that's not the message that I want to get behind, and it's not the message that I want my cities to support. That being said, support for SB 54 and SB 31 is a wonderful foundation for a safe, prosperous community. I mean, clearly, we have so many people that are coming from all walks of life that are excelling and striving for to live up to the very best of what they can be. So I hope we can build on this foundation and soon become a sanctuary city. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is running for the fifth district. I wasn't intending on talking today. I didn't even know this was going to be on the the menu for this evening. And so everybody talking here is completely educated me in many ways. And so I want to thank the very impassioned pleas that especially that lady who whose friend had passed away. One of the things that that my parents are from India and they immigrated legally. So the undocumented folks don't really fit in. When I was a kid. I woke up, I was like five an hour. Garage was burned down. Somebody had burn it down because my parents were. We know who it was. Had had burned down our garage. Now, that's a hate crime. It doesn't necessarily fit in here. But one of the things that that has come to me is that as I've grown up, I really haven't been discriminated that much. But one of the things that I know is that there is a lot of information, a lot of data that's being collected out there. And a lot of people don't have any idea the depth of the information that's out there in some cases. The ship has already sailed and trying to stop something from occurring is going to be very difficult. If you get pulled over, chances are they can get all the information they can they want from you regarding your immigration status right there. Pretty much, you know, and that may be an exaggeration, but it can come very quickly. That's my fear is not necessarily all of the information gathering just on your origin, but in every other aspect of your life you want to if people want to know what you. Any phone call that you've made in your entire life, they can pick up the phone and they can they can they can do it. They can play a recording any day of the time that you've ever been on the phone. It's there. Whether it's accessible to the police, I don't know. But it's all there. My main point that I'm trying to make is, though that that. The immigrants have become a an important part of our community. You go to schools when I was going. Many of them. The whole composition has changed. And I don't know how teachers could keep on teaching without the number of, you know, undocumented people that are in our schools. We'd have to change the whole system. I'm not sure what the answer is at all. I have no idea. But it's very difficult to unwind all of this stuff and I don't know how we're going to manage all of this stuff. That's all I'm saying. Thank you. Next, bigger, please. Hello, Mr. Mayor. And members of the council. My name is Angela Logan, and I am a resident of the fourth District. I want to urge the Council to pass a resolution supporting SB 54 and SB 31. I think that that's a threshold that's like where we start, right? Over the years. I've heard a number of folks. Behind the dais describe the city of Long Beach. As a progressive city. A progressive city doesn't stop at. Passing resolutions supporting state legislation. But progressive city. Moves towards measures. That are going to protect their residents and their communities. Progressive City works diligently to get over those barriers. Those challenges not recoil. But be bold and move. Towards measures such as sanctuary cities. I want to encourage you. I want to urge you. I want to support you. I think you have your. Whole city behind you, all of your residents behind you in passing and working towards a sanctuary city policy. Thank you. Hello, everyone. City Council members. Mayor, I am a Long Beach resident of the First District and an active member in my community. I have been fighting for immigrant rights for over 15 years. And I'm very proud of all the. Work that we've done. But there's still a lot to be done. I am a neighborhood leadership program alumni and most recently, a city employee. We are all here before you, the city council members and the mayor. Of our beautiful city of Long Beach. Asking you to support. SB 54. Excuse me. And we. 31 And to also make Long Beach a sanctuary city for immigrants. As a sanctuary city, we can stand up for immigrants rights and remind the rest of this country that the United States of America has been, is and will always be a nation of immigrants. We are all immigrants. We need to stop racism now. We cannot wait till more lives are lost and more lives. More families are separated by heat for loss. We need to. Stand together in solidarity and protect our immigrant brothers and sisters. We need to act now before it is too late. In the audience. My mother is here. Mom. My mother came here as an immigrant. And I have seen her struggles. As a single. Mother taking care of her. Children. But I have also seen how opportunities have changed for us, how our lives have changed as being part of the U.S.. So I'm really nervous. But it's been such a change to see. My mother struggle to put food on our table. Till now. I'm a university graduate working for the city, and I'm very proud of everything. That we've done. And I feel that. As Long Beach, I'm very proud to be here. It's a very diverse city, and I love that we are here discussing the making Long Beach, a sanctuary city. And I really hope. That our city council members decide to take that stand. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Wayne Marchant. You can call me Wayne Second District. You've heard pretty much from everybody that we support SB 54 and 31. However, you've heard from many people that the language we are looking for is declaring Long Beach a sanctuary city. You know, these are extraordinary times and this room is full of extraordinary people. There are many more out there. For everyone that's here, there's 20 more extraordinary people out there and they've got friends as well. So we're looking for extraordinary action and thinking from you, our city council, in these extraordinary times. You. Thank you. Next speaker. Larry. Good clerk as the address. About 15 minutes ago, somebody made a very interesting comment in a well-reasoned comment saying they deserve respect. He was an advocate of the sanctuary city. But yet. A great many people that spoke tonight. And Legions More out there. Showed no disrespect. And give a little finger. To the legions, legions of people that follow the law, stand in line and wait for their turn. Period. No ex, no arms, no bucks. No. There's no question that the Twitter in chief, who was not my first choice for president, I would rather have Ryan . But I think he is. And he jumped the gun or it was poorly intimate, implemented, and he'll die back. No reason person. Would take a stance against. An immigrant in this country if they're here illegally, period. As they point out, most of us, our ancestors came from other countries. But it's the law that you have to follow. Don't you know if you try not to? What happens in other countries when you don't follow the law? That's why our lines are so long. But you follow the law. Period. Okay. I just want make sure that we're. If the audience can just the speaker should be the only one speaking to continue. Mr. Good. You appreciate that. And I don't see in this council and I haven't yet met any person. That supports a concept of going after and checking what religion. People are in, period. And I don't see that coming out of Washington. I think, as I said, I think it was poorly implemented. Whoever the commander in chief is, his responsibility is to protect this country, period. And we've got a lot of people that want to nuke this country. Or send over terrorist. There's no question there was a lot of confusion in the airports, but. If you think about it, it wasn't much more than with exception of the individuals who, if I were the president, I would have it. I would reimburse them for their expense, so forth or hotel rooms. Caught up in that because quite frankly, the mask was essentially not much more of a mess. And you'd find on any holiday weekend, when the computer systems went down or weather was down and so forth, it was absolute chaos. But again, it goes back to respect, respect the law. The law says get in line. Wait. Q Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Put. My name is Nadir Tushnet, and. I live in the third district. I'm a member of a lot of organizations, but. Tonight I'm representing the Long Beach Area Peace. Network. We are in favor of Long Beach becoming a sister city, a sanctuary city. I'm sorry. I was about to quote my brother is what this is about. And the quote that we in my family always say is the pastor nee miler vote quote and what my brother says when they came for you. Not today. Not today. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Next speaker and just I know we're reaching the end here. I just want make sure I get it cut off the speakers less if there's anyone else that's not in line. I see someone at the end there. Okay. Is there someone else? Okay, so be our last speaker. Is the. Okay. Well, actually. Okay, that's okay. Well, let me wait till this folks get in line and then I'm anchored. Cut off the speaker's list. So we have everyone in line. Okay. And the gentleman there will be the last speaker. The gentleman at the end is the last speaker. Okay. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Hi. My name is Mansur Saba and I'm in fourth district. Mr. Super Nice, Councilman. Super. And unfortunately, I think I got to be compelled to be here to make comments. I really didn't have anything extra to say than what's already been said. But just because the the. The name or. The law was used. That they are. Laws that we are supposed to follow. And I want to compel the council members that there is a higher law that we need to follow, and that is a humanity law that we need to have that doesn't recognize borders, doesn't recognize hunger, doesn't recognize homelessness. And that's why I'm here to. Encourage you to pass. SB 40, 54 and 31. And please follow it up with a policy for the city that we need to have. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mayor Garcia, and good evening, council members. My name is George Acosta and I have lived in Long Beach my entire life. I'm here speaking for those who are afraid to speak. I am absolutely terrified of public speaking. But at this moment, I don't care if my fear of my fear of speaking up because I'm more terrified of losing my mother. I'm currently a high school junior at polling high school, and I want my mother to go to my high school graduation. I plan to go to see. She will be. And I want to have a I want to have our my college graduation. I want to see I want her to see me succeed and thrive in the city which I've lived my entire life in and plan to stay for much longer. My sister is months away from graduating from CSU will be. And I know she's scared to speak tonight. So I'm here doing this for her. She is part of the BRC and when she said she was coming, I wanted to show my support, but I do not plan to speak. Once I heard all these stories and began thinking of my loved ones. I felt the need to speak up. I don't want to lose. I want I don't want us or anyone to have to lose so much that they've grown up with that they've lived in. I'm speaking for my best friend who is undocumented. Who I've known for since my first week in high school as a. Freshman. He is terrified. He doesn't want to leave. He's lived here his entire life. He doesn't deserve to leave. He. But that's. I ask. I'm sorry. So I ask you not solely on my behalf, but for everyone when I ask you to protect your citizens. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council members I support SB 54 SB 31. My name is was De Soto. I am an immigrant from Michael. Was able to become a citizen when I was 18 and I work with Unite Here Local 11 things to guard things for that immigration system that is still intact that we can still save. I'm here. I hear all this talk about being free in America. Liberty, life, liberty and property. We come here and we work to death. We get hurt on the job and we push with lifelong injuries. Immigrants are free to come here and work to death, making purchases which the city, state and federal employees as well as Americans people benefit from on a daily basis living free while we immigrants can reach that same level of quality as others dehumanize us. We contribute to into these systems such as the Social Security system, Medicare, Medicaid, either through helping those who do have Social Security numbers or don't, just by helping we are here contributing to a system we collect no benefits from. We're free to pay taxes every purchase, every you know, we pay, but we pay taxes on every purchase to help the police force and immigrant and immigration system, which intimidates us as we work day to day to pay them and to to contribute to the system. We're free to come and contribute, but not free to collect benefits from the funds that we contribute to on a day to day basis. That in itself is criminal injustice on a daily basis. Next speaker. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Garcia and City Council for staying here late with all of us, for the police force, for our security officers, for giving us all of this time to voice our opinions as public citizens of Long Beach. My name is Connor Locke. I'm a member of the fourth District. I grew up in Southern California. I went to Georgetown University, where I studied, studied international political economy, organizational development, and the failure of states. What we have here is an opportunity to show members of other states in our union that we do not stand by idly while they persecute, demonize and harm our citizens. Our soon to be citizens and those who hope to be citizens of this country. My grandfather is a Native American, so I think I have a long view on what it means to be a citizen of a country in which you reside. My other grandfather would nowadays be termed as an anchor baby from the Netherlands, of all places. I come from a family of immigrants and non-immigrants. I have no recent past in my family, in my own life that matches any of the stories you've heard here today. I can't think of one bad thing that's happened to me because of who I am and the lucky, unbelievably fortunate life I've been born into. So I ask all of you in the hard work you've done to reach the positions you're in, in the lucky or unlucky lives into which you were born. To say to the rest of the union that voted for the Commander in Chief because he is the Commander in chief. He can have tax dollars, federal tax dollars, support any of these harmful initiatives he wants. But he's not going to be able to use Long Beach tax revenues. He's not going to be able to use California tax revenues. He's not going to be able to use the products of our labor and our effort to remove people from our cities and from the lives they work hard to build. I don't think that's partizan. I don't think that's left or right. I think that's there. Our local resources. And we can choose whether or not we share the product of those resources with the federal government. So he can use those resources to do what he wants to do. But please support both of these bills. Make Long Beach a sanctuary city. These people have worked hard to be here. Anything that says anything to the contrary is demeaning to their work ethic and what they believe they are. The huddled masses who yearn to breathe free. And they're here. Let's keep them here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Good evening, everyone. My name is Maribel Cruz. And I have with me my goddaughter. Natalie Cuevas. She's about to be five. I am here. I work with the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition. But tonight I'm here on a personal note. I am a resident of District four, and I have personally seen the fear that not only my family has, but my community has. And I just want to not only fight for them, but also for her. She's so small right now, she doesn't realize what's happening. But her mom is undocumented. She should not grow up in a place where she might not see her mom when she comes back from school. And I'm sorry. I really I feel for her because she is so young and she doesn't know what's going on. And if you have the if you have the power to push policies that protect families and prevent family separations, I urge you to take that step. Long Beach needs to be a sanctuary city, not only for us adults, but for little kids who don't want to be and should be separated from their families. And so that's why I urge you and I thank you for pass for supporting SB 54 and SB 31. But I strongly urge you to think about making Long Beach a sanctuary city. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for taking your time to hear everyone. And thank you, everyone for for speaking on my coming here in support of both these resolutions. And I hope we will make Long Beach a sanctuary city and let's it. Excuse me. Immigrants contribute enormous amounts of value to the country and to the world and to our community. It's just insane. California has some of the most productive farms on earth, and I wonder why that is. The idea that Donald Trump thinks he can wave a few drops in the bucket of federal funds to try to make us capitulate to his racism is, I think, insane and insulting. We have some of the most productive people in the world. I'm sure we can find a couple more million dollars of tax money if it comes down to it. I think, again, I think that's a breach of the way the federal government should be behaving, using its privilege and its state power to come down on small councils and state governments. Immigrants contribute value and they don't just and that's not just in my heart or in my mind. Value is a real thing and has economic worth. Everybody who's in this room tonight, if they move to Long Beach or if they chose do like I did, they probably came here because of its diversity, which means that diversity shows itself in higher property values, which means immigrants contribute to high property values because people want to live in a city that's diverse. Of course, those property values end up getting privatized by the landlord class, which is very unfortunate. It's a lie to say also that immigrants don't pay taxes. Anyone who has studied economics will tell you that the incidence of taxation can rest largely on consumers, depending on the tax. And our immigrant communities definitely are consuming their share of the goods that we produce, and they're producing more than their share of the goods that we consume. I think it's very insulting to our immigrant communities who have contributed so much. And who have risked so much to get here with no promise of reward. For us to not even take the very small step that these resolutions demand, which is a small step and a reasonable step, in my opinion. We should be taking and I think a lot of people in this room would back me up. We should be taking more radical steps to ensure that our immigrant communities have greater access to health care and greater access to education and greater access to services and greater access to housing. We? We should be. Giving back to these people who give us so much. Rather than joining in one great American tradition which is taking from immigrants whether they were forced here or not. America also has a different tradition that we all share and we all know, and that is the tradition of giving American people are some of the most generous people on earth. And this is a generous resolution and long reaches of generosity. And I hope that you will support it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hold on 1/2. Just make sure you know. Just make sure that. Please. Let's be respectful. Sir, I know of everyone. That speaking. Yes. How are you? Major Robert Garcia, honorable city council member. Thank you so much for your attention for this led to a lesson to all of us to express and why our opinion. To protect the refugee and immigration. My name is Chen Hobson. I'm a resident of Second District, so my councilmember Jeanine Pearce, and I was here since 1980 as a refugee when I fled the communist Khmer Rouge from Cambodia alone. Because all of my family already gone. I had hope that I came here and I take this city as my home forever for my permanent home. But I came here from the killing field to Lumbee Theory to the city that full of diverse people, full of generosity, compassion, caring, understanding. I educate myself. I become a successful citizen, a productive citizen. I invest my skill, my talent, my time, my soul and my heart to educate the kid after school program, to give them to leadership development, to provide scholarship annually so they can go to college and get the bachelor degree and have a bright future. And then that aside, I vote in gay and very active in the civic and the city function. I'm here tonight because a lot already and a lot of people already online. I would like to ask all of you to support and declare the all below city alone to be a sanctuary city now to protect the interests of all people, refugee immigrants. So please, right here. And why? My support and I fully support. The city. I support the mayor and I support all the city council who worked so hard and that heart to make the city along be a heaven city for all of us. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. And Christensen. I'd just like everybody to notice that. Oh, what a beautiful struggle this is. In this moment, I hear these voices of these young people and it's so powerful. We do have a future. We we do have hope. And yes, we have to struggle. But when we struggle, we get to see each other and all you people at home come on down. This is this is a great center of of spiritual and power right now. And I just am so grateful to be here as a witness to history, but also in the hopes that we will make history tonight more good history like the city council made when we when we had our different heritage days. I don't remember our first Hispanic Heritage Day, but we had our first Native American Heritage Day. We followed it up with support for Standing Rock and a recognition of the first and now maybe the most recent people to to be in our community. As far as the law goes, I would like to point out that higher power that was referred to has been codified by the United Nations as the right of the Human Rights and United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, a treaty that we signed. The highest law of the land is treaty law. So while Donald Trump apparently is prepared to make it a criminal act to take a school lunch if you are undocumented. Literally two, that will be a crime. Now, if your your child is in the school lunch program. And we we know that everything Hitler did was legal. We don't know the future. We don't want to be overly dramatic. Or maybe I'm being overly dramatic. I hope. I hope I am. But we must realize that we choose and pick what laws we we enforce. And that goes down to our own police department. And I would very much like our police department to be able to have some kind of a position that is open and to comment or somehow to rethink and make very, very clear how our our police department is going to respond not only to the child who ate the lunch or that child's parent, but to those of us who will be on the streets and are already on the streets, in and by and peacefully standing up for the human rights of all of us. Oh, 13 seconds left. Oh, yeah. I saw a great T-shirt. What would Chemerinsky do now for those at home? We might not know. Or you don't know? He's a lawyer. He's a really very, very famous lawyer and a famous human rights activist. Ask yourself, what would Chemerinsky do? Thank you. Next speaker for. Hi. Good evening. My name is Amy BARTOLONE. I reside in District seven. I am a Long Beach native, born and raised here in Long Beach. And I actually work in Long Beach at the Hyatt Regency, downtown Long Beach at the front desk. So I welcome guests all the time. And I've seen a couple of you guys in the lobby before, so I'm well aware of everyone here. And I honestly wasn't going to say anything. I wasn't going to speak tonight because I felt so I was actually coming out of class from Long Beach City College because I'm taking classes now. I'm a single mother, I'm going to school Long Beach native, and I felt the need to come here to support everyone as a student, as a mother, as a working native here in Long Beach, I need to be here to tell you guys that Long Beach needs to be a sanctuary city. My parents are immigrants. My parents and my daughter. Imagine for my parents not to help me to go to school and not for them to be there for my little one. I want to be here. I want to show her that Long Beach is a humble place to be and it is home for me. And I want you guys to take deep consideration of all these other cities trying to make these actions. We must take a step forward and become in unison. And I love my Long Beach. I even want to work here some day and try to move mountains for these people and for my people, for the people that I have been born and raised here in Long Beach. And I just wanted to say, please consider everyone here in this room, working students, people who have all of these beautiful roles that can strike Long Beach to who we are today. And I love these streets, and I want these streets to still be welcoming and to still keep these immigrants and keep my parents here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker, there are last two speakers. Here, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. My name is Steve Downey and I'm a resident of the third district. I'm also a retired deputy chief from the Los Angeles Police Department. I'm on a national board of 10,000 criminal justice professionals that support criminal justice reform and initiatives of this sort. When I read about the introduction of this legislation by the two senators, I said, we have two very courageous heroes and Sacramento. And I would like to say to you that if you find the courage to pass a especially a unanimous resolution to make Long Beach a sanctuary city, I would celebrate you as heroes as well. But I think that there is more than just the support of this legislation. It's going to take a while for it to pass. And I think that there is more than just declaring ourselves a sanctuary city. I think that we need to be involved with implementing policy that truly makes us a sanctuary city. As a senior command officer in the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1970s. I was involved in initiating, drafting and implementing what is known today as special order number 40. It was the genesis of making the City of Los Angeles a sanctuary city. We told our police officers how to treat the immigrant population, what kind of questions to ask of them, what kind of questions not to ask of them, and how to approach our enforcement policies in the city. That special order was our guiding light. But it has to be reinforced. It has to be reinforced through supervision and training. And as the years passed after I retired under some weak chiefs, I saw it dwindle a little bit. And as a result, we saw. The Rampart scandal. Very, very nasty scandal. But it was strengthened again under Chief Bratton when he came in. And it remains a document that should be live by by all cities across this nation. And you can really show an example by in your resolution saying, let's get that document. Let's see how it works for Long Beach. Let's implement it. Let's put it into training at our police academy and our roll call rooms, and we'll be a better city for it. Thank you very much. Thank you. And. And our final speaker. Don't boomy Robert Council. Mr. Mayor, my name is Johnny Weir and I am from Better Housing for Long Beach. We are a property owners in Long Beach. And I do want to I really appreciate the passion in the room here. It's quite a group. I actually recognize a lot of people I recognize since your show because I actually work with them and I had some issues with the tenant of the building. I recognized Porter here from the Gay and Lesbian Center. I recognize that there is what Leon is here building healthy communities and better house and housing. Long Beach. Josh Butlers Housing. Long Beach Now. In fact, a lot of you were involved in pushing an ordinance called Prep, which was very, very unnerving to a lot of the undocumented community. So, you know, you got to remember that some of these things that you guys push have unintended consequences. And so we don't. Better housing for Long Beach is a bipartisan group. We don't have a dog in the fight in this in this situation. But we share a lot of the same things that you share. We share fear. There's fear in the room. Housing providers are in fear because there's ordinances that are being pushed on us that are putting a lot of us out of business. Excuse me. Did you say something? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I heard a voice. VOICEOVER It must be Robert. Anyway, so I just want to say that that raising fees, more taxes drives rents up. Ordinances that stop redevelopment creates less affordable housing. So we're in the we're in the business of creating affordable housing. We, you know, we see ordinances coming through and being pushed in these kind of forms, and they are not really supporting the community. And I think it's important that we look at the same groups come every time when there's an issue that's being presented. And I wonder why they come. Because housing Long Beach is supposed to be about housing. Why are they here focusing on this ordinance right now? So, again, you know, we support good renters, whether they're documented or undocumented. I have some tenants. They may be undocumented. I have some incredible people that work with me. And, you know, we are not a racist group, which Rob Josh Butler is telling a lot of people that we're about. We want to bring a community together and this is not our issue, but we're being brought into this issue. So I will say this better housing for Long Beach supports good renters and good property owners. And Robert, the gentleman is booing. He's a renter. He's not a property owner. So I just want to make that clear. And he just joined our group. So we have a lot of colorful people that we support and we encourage to get involved and give give their perspective. You know, hey, there's room at the table for everybody. There's room at the table for everybody and all differences. So, Danielle. Thank you so much. And I'm sorry it's been a crazy night, but I do really appreciate everybody's passion. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Thank you. Let let this gentleman speak real quick. I swear to God. I swear. I swear. Okay. All right, guys. I got. I've got to get start. We got to start. Go ahead. So, listen, we're going to we're going to go into the get go meeting, so. So what? I, I cut out the speakers. Listen, I'm going to let you speak, okay? So it'll be the last one. I had cut it off earlier, but you got in line, so I will let you have your 3 minutes. Okay, sir. And then we're going to go back to the Councilman Gonzales. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And you all great in the city council meeting. And Jack Kim of. You know, very well known in Long Beach, German people shouldn't be bullied. And speaking of Darren or Drew, legally, they write the book, not the Bull, but Darren or Drew. He wants everybody to think. When I'm thanking them, then they're. Having. The support of immigration. You're more than a drain. You don't have no respect for people in the laws of the land. You know, people illegally can accuse or. Sir. That's that's very rude. Okay, sir. So if you keep doing that, I'm going have to ask you to leave. So please stop that. Please continue, sir. Thank you. Don't drink or have no respect for people and the law. Because he. He beat Davis, Barenboim, all five of the Jews for defending people that. There. He says he let go, but there was legal. And so right now they're going to go to the Supreme Court. So if he may have dead was bad for them all to move on to the Supreme Court and married and get. Who could give. And Pete I'm supposed to be helping people with job they say everybody is is illegal in California all legally where 22 year old burn burned by. We love. So he say everybody is illegal in California. He needs to know who's legally illegal. The American. I think God speak the truth to. To help to help a lot of people understand to. Thank you for always coming down. We appreciate. Your birthday. Thank you. You have a good night. Keep up the good work. We're doing great. Thank you, sir, for coming. Thank you. You too. Thank you. We're going to go ahead. Now, I'm a turn this back over to Councilwoman Gonzalez, who has the floor. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes, thank you. I want to thank everybody for their comments and all of their great discussions around this issue. I think it's very important that we're hearing all voices from all over the city and even some of you that have supported this item for many, many years now. I want to thank you for your advocacy and your hard work. And so as one of the largest cities in the state of California, the fifth largest economy, as we've heard, we cannot and I believe we cannot stay silent on this issue. We have to take a stand. We have to remain committed to ensure that we are known as a city that supports its diversity and inclusiveness, supports people that have positivity, has positively I'm sorry, contributed to our city and country as students, service workers, engineers, lawyers, entrepreneurs. The list goes on. SB 54 and SB 31 will reaffirm that immigration enforcement collection of religious information is not a state or local issue. Specifically, SB 54, carried by Kevin DeLeon, sets a statewide standard for protection so that immigrants are not only safe in Long Beach because of course, we want them to be safe here in Long Beach, but that they're safe statewide. And I think as we think about our neighbors and our brothers and sisters in different cities, this will reaffirm that protection for all of us, which I think is very important and key. So I have a few questions for Diana. Just to clear up the process and what has been done so far. Diana. I can barely see you. Councilwoman, I think these things are right. Okay. Yes, I'm here. Great. Yes. These two bills are currently in the Senate where they were introduced earlier this year. They were heard in the first policy committee. And now both have been referred to the Appropriations Committee. So both have passed the first policy committee. They're in appropriations. There's no hearing date yet that we're still pretty early on in the legislative session. So it's not very common right now for there to be many appropriation committee hearings. If the bills do pass the appropriation committees and they would be heard on the Senate floor if the bills receive a two thirds vote because they're both urgency bills. If they receive a two thirds vote on the Senate floor, then the bills would go over to the state assembly and the Rules Committee. They would be referred to a policy committee or two, and then also the Appropriations Committee and then on to the assembly floor for a two thirds vote there as well. If the bills pass each of those milestones, then they would be eligible to be sent to the governor's desk for his consideration. Great. Thank you. The legislative process is, you know, definitely important to to learn as we go through this process. I also have another question related to the amendments that have already been discussed by Senate Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, respective to SB 54. So what has he amended already? Because I know as it stands, there are some questions related to violent and serious crimes committed by individuals. So can you explain and clarify what has been done so far? Councilmember when SB 54 was heard in the Senate Public Safety Committee on January 31st, there was testimony by some law enforcement agencies requesting clarification on their ability to partner with federal law enforcement agencies when it comes to serious and violent crimes. Currently, that is allowable. And the question is, is that going to be allowable into the future? Because I think the bill in its original form, it has not been amended, but there are some areas that could be clarified. And so that in particular is is one that they are working on together. Okay. And have any thank you and have any items already been stricken from this bill at this point? SB 54 is still currently in the original form that it was introduced in on December 5th. So there have been no adopted amendments thus far. Okay. I was under the impression that something related to human trafficking might have been taken out. Is that correct or no? No. So in in the bill as it was introduced, there are amendments that are being proposed to existing law. And I, I can't speak specifically to human trafficking, but I think that one of the issues that law enforcement agencies have requested is the ability to continue to work with federal law enforcement agencies to combat organized crime, such as human trafficking. But that issue specifically is not in any of the amendments in the bill right now. Okay. So at this time, with that said. Councilman, can I add one thing to that? I want to also add that I know that Mr. Tang has been speaking with with staff at the Times office, and I spoke with Senator DeLeo and pro tem today as well. And so just the the two areas in which he's trying to work with and not just are I know are some of our folks in our police department, but with other law enforcement and the two that he mentioned to me today and certainly said that it was I should mention was one is he's working with the State Police Chiefs Association to ensure that there is the ability for there to be multi-agency conversations around a variety of issues so that interagency issues, particularly around human trafficking and other issues, are able to be worked on in multi-agency and in multi-agency task force. He also had mentioned mentioned to me that he was looking at and supports changes so that the for serious and violent crimes that there would still be access for law enforcement agencies to have discretion with local agencies. And so that hasn't been completely vetted out. But he is working with state law enforcement and advocates across the state on that issue. And so as bills come forward, as you all know, these things move and have amendments can come back and forth. But those are the areas of which there is discussion. So I just want to make sure that I mentioned that I spoke with him today directly, as well as with Senator Lora, and those are the two areas that are being discussed for four amendments as of today. Great. So with that said, and I'm glad that our Senate pro tem, de Leon is discussing having discussions with the Police Chiefs Association. I've personally spoken with our police chief about this very issue. I've spoken with many of you about this issue. And I feel that it is certainly important that we support SB 31, the California Religious Freedom Act, and SB 54 the California Values Act. However, I'd like to include an amendment to the letter bill, SB 54, similar to what Kevin DeLeon is already doing to ensure that local law enforcement agencies have clear discretion to partner with federal law enforcement agencies to combat serious and violent crimes. So I'd like us to also include the participation in multiagency federal task force operations with the intention of fighting organized crime, such as human and drug trafficking, which I think needs to be clear and disclosed. With that said, I'd like to move forward with these items and support with these amendments solely. It's important that we support the spirit of our immigrant and faith based communities, but also that we are making sure that these two amendments are supported as the bill goes through with its through its state legislative process as well. And then I'll conclude by saying that there are tons of supporters for these items. I think Long Beach making a statement being the first city to support this effort is very important. We have supporters from the ACLU, California Faculty Association, the AFL-CIO, the South Bay Islamic Council, even my own soon to be alma mater, Loyola Immigrant Center , LGBT centers across the nation and ACP chapters across the nation. And I understand that SB 54 is intended to protect the safety and well-being of all Californians and believe amendments addressing those two issues I just referenced are important and remain in the spirit of the bill, which is to protect immigrant communities and religious faiths who are positively contributing to our communities and our economy. I've been in contact as well with our Senate pro tem office and I know they are actively working with the Police Chiefs Association. As we discussed, discussed and I understand the Police Chiefs Association is currently, you know, looking at the bill as well with us, Long Beach's support for SB 31 is also important and I believe it is equally important that we are involved and engage with. SB With both of these efforts in support of legislation and with the amendments we are seeking. It's imperative that we extend our support to both of these items now to ensure that we are not proactively engaging in any type of action that would prohibit immigrants or people of religious faith from coming here. And we cannot vilify the bad actions of a few, but instead we must support and stand committed to the incredible actions of many immigrants in our city. And so to clarify, those amendments again will just be amendments already supported by Senate pro-tem Kevin DeLeon. They're already working on these issues. However, I don't want this to be misconstrued as not supporting immigrants and people of religious faith. This is a support. Now we want to make sure that our local resources are supporting our immigrants now that we as a council are supporting them now. And I ask for my council colleagues support in this. I think these amendments are reasonable. They tackle issues of public safety that are important to all of us, but they also are all encompassing of of this spirit and effort. So I look forward to hearing dialog from my council colleagues. And thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman Gonzales, Councilmember Pierce. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for your passion and for your courage for those that are undocumented to come out and speak tonight. I know how hard that must be. And I just really want to say I've never been prouder being up here on council chambers to see you guys speak from your heart and really push us to do what you feel is the right thing for your communities. And so thank you for that. I want to thank you to the colleagues who brought this forward and asked us to endorse this. And I have a couple of of comments and then a couple of questions. I want to say that I think it's really fitting tonight that Long Beach takes a stand as a council. We voted on a resolution in November urging the federal government to provide Jose Alvarez with humanitarian parole after he was pulled over for a broken headlight at Cal State Long Beach. And it was Jose Alvarez's son, Victor Alvarez, who gave moving testimony on his father's deportation to the Senate Public Safety Committee, which approved the California Values Bill just last week. Long Beach is a city of immigrants. We've we've been a refuge for those escaping war. For those seeking a better life. Over a quarter Long Beach, its population is foreign born, with 40% Latino, 12% Asian. And we are believed to have the largest Cambodian community outside of Cambodia. Many of who came here as refugees like Jose, many immigrants in Long Beach. On their businesses, they work at our hotels, our restaurants that contribute greatly to local economies workers, consumers, business owners and taxpayers. In a study Dhaka found and a study on Dhaka, recipients found that 43% were in school and 83% were fully employed working to advance their lives in this country. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has estimated that undocumented immigrants pay 11.6 billion in taxes, and other data from Pew Research and Public Policy Institute say the undocumented that are part of sanctuary cities are less likely to commit crimes, not more. Finally, we know from police chiefs that a relationship of trust between police and community is critical to making sure that crimes are reported and that we can ensure safer communities as a state, as a city, we've come too far and we will not go back. I asked my colleagues to join me tonight in supporting this item. As city leaders, we have a moral obligation to stand up for our diverse communities. With that being said, I've had a lot of questions around what does it mean to be a sanctuary state and what does it mean to be a sanctuary city? And so I want to ask a couple of questions to kind of make sure that we are on the same page, because I really appreciate the community coming forward with your list that you want to make sure that Long Beach is really diverting enough resources away from this. So if this state bill 54 passes, it says that we will not use city, we will not use resources to aid in the deportation. And so I want to be really clear that it's not at the state level, but that also means that locally our city police, our schools, our universities and our hospitals will not participate in that. So a mustang, if you could. Diana, if you could. Sorry. Go ahead, Councilman. I am. Well, can. I'll just say that the bill is in its infancy. It was just introduced about a month ago. It just had its first policy committee hearing, as we heard. Thus, the author is working with stakeholder groups on amendments and so without it being enacted legislation, I do believe that it would be too early to speculate on how it would impact Long Beach and what changes we might make. Okay. I mean, in my my reading of it and. It would make sense to me that this would mean that our police, just as they already are, would not support that. So let me let me ask another question. For the trust act right now, and I'm not sure if it's you or if it's our police chief that could answer this question right now with the Trust Act. What are we doing locally? No. Sorry, guys. We have officers in Chief Beckman who can answer the questions about the Trust Act. Thank you. Just trying to get some clarity on what if we do this at the state level? What does it mean for us to come back to a conversation around your request tonight, which was obviously very loudly heard? Council member, Honorable Mayor Mike Beckman, and the deputy chief of the Support Bureau and police chief Robert Luna cannot be here tonight. He sends us his regrets. He's traveling on city business. I'm going to give you an answer that's probably shorter than it took me to get out of that aisle. But basically, the Long Beach Police Department complies with the California Trust Act, or Assembly Bill four. And I can provide some specifics with regard to people that we have in custody, if you wish. But generally speaking, we do comply with the Trust Act. And can you clarify for those in the audience what the Trust Act is? The. The Trust Act. Well, what I'd rather do if it's okay, is go through how we handle people who are in our custody with regard to the Trust Act. If that would be okay, that's fine. Yes. When we arrest a person and upon processing, there might be an occasion where immigration would send to us a immigration detainer, where ICE would send us an immigration detainer. And upon receipt of that detainer, our booking staff would then assess a person based on criteria provided in California. Government Code 7 to 8 2.5 a. And at that particular point. If the criteria is met and the criteria is quite extensive. So I won't get into detail about that. But if that criteria is met, then the Long Beach Police Department fax is a form that we've created back to ICE that states we will not hold an affected inmate unless ICE provides a signed court order commanding the Long Beach Police Department to further detain that individual. If we do not receive that signed order, then the release of that individual takes place as any other release would. If a signed court order is received, a no bond holders in placed and ICE is notified to pick the individual up. And I will close with this. I will tell you, to our knowledge, since the Trust Act was implemented, ICE has never provided the Long Beach Police Department a signed court order and or has traveled to the Long Beach Police Department to take custody of an undocumented immigrant. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. To be clear, in the SB 54 or how it's drafted now, that is the essentially the same language in SB 54, from what I understand. So. From calling the office today and going through their policy that essentially says that they would have to have a judicial warrant to come after and ask for us to detain. And so I just want to clarify that when we talk about using city resources to do deportation for providing diversion alternatives to our incarceration for low level offenses. Is Kelly here? Kelly Colby, we. Kelly. We had talked a little bit earlier today with my staff around just clarifying what the city is already doing in these matters, because I think we have the health department, our city prosecutors that have done a lot of great work on this. And so when I take the opportunity to talk about we're already doing. Good evening. Our primary focus for diversion for a low level offense is around mental health diversion. Our work there, as we've been in conversation and planning for the past two years, is a partnership with the city prosecutor's office, the police department, the health department and a number of community providers, as well as L.A. County. We we participate in the Permanent Diversion Committee for the for L.A. County as well. In those plans, we are applying for Prop 47 to resource those efforts. So we'll be looking at different ways to divert from custody at different sort of different places to divert. In terms of where in the process into mental health and also substance use treatment through the Prop 47 fund if those funds become available. Great. Thank you so much. One of the requests in here is a policy of siting and releasing individuals charged with low level offenses. That is something that, as you just said, we are already doing in Long Beach. Yes. Thank you. I want to number three on this list says defend pro-immigrant policies from attacks from the federal government. I think that this is something that definitely is not already included in SB 54 and obviously has a lot of discussion that needs to be included in that. I would like to ask if it's appropriate to send that section to the Fed led Committee for you guys to discuss in further detail. Is that something you would be open to? Yes. So absolutely, I'd be open to that. Great. Thank you. And then the opposing any registry based on religious identity or other protected characteristics. This is included in SB 54 or not, NESBY 54. Yes, it's only 31. And the only part that is in there, that's the only part of your request that is not included in that is the sexual orientation, which I'm not sure is something that's come up yet. But I think it's worth the conversation down the road about how do we you know, right now we're talking about immigration status down the road. We might be talking about how policies that come forward around the LGBT community. And I think we need to have that discussion when when the time is appropriate. But that obviously Long Beach has been a champion on this issue. And so we want to work with you guys to make sure that it's not just around immigration, that we're working on it, but that it's a bigger policy. So this is I think what I'm getting to is the fact that at the state level, if we pass this and we support this, which we need to urgently do, because we know that families right now are living in fear and are already torn apart. So I want to urge us to vote yes today on this and to have some good conversations following around the legislation piece or on the Fed ledge and the LGBT component and maybe come back with some clarity down the road around exactly how this would implement once the policy's completely fleshed out. So, again, urging my colleagues to vote yes tonight and sending that one section of what the community requested to the Fed lunch time. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman, I want to go to councilman and before we go, because I had to just go clarify with Mr. Hank, which I want to make sure I had heard it correctly. But just to clarify, the Councilman Pierce's initial question on whether her, her or her comments were included in the current bill. They're part of the current bill. But I'm correct. I'm wrong here mistaking. But any bill, of course, is never final until the very end. Absolutely. But they are. But what she said is part of the current bill. Correct? Okay. I just want to make sure because I that's why I had it over, just to make sure it was hearing that part. Correct. Okay, great. Councilmember Ringo. And I can live with that. I had prepared statements, but hearing. The wonderful testimony tonight, hearing it earlier and having them having dealt with the Jose Alvarez situation back in November. You'll make my total thinking of this is is different. In a good way. I. I don't want anybody to misunderstand what I'm trying to say. It's you know, I reflect on this. I'm the son of immigrant parents. If they were around the time today of this president. I think that they would be in complete fear of being here in this country. And I would be in complete fear for my mom and dad. Because they came here. All they came here with with a green card and a visa, and they would renew it every year. And every year my dad would say, what's this green card? I'm not an alien. I'm a human being. And every year he would have to fill that out to re read reality. His his humanity to the country, to the United States. My brother was also an immigrant. I was the first one born here. I was the last of six. I was born here. So my brothers and sisters were also immigrants to this country. They were educated here. My one brother served in the U.S. military, honorably discharged what he had been living in fear of being in this country. And would he have wanted to serve his country even though he was not a U.S. citizen? And so I reflect on that right now in terms of what that what are we saying to families now here who are immigrants and they're validation of who they are and where they want to be. It's interesting that, you know, history goes in cycles and we're we're experiencing a cycle right now that's not very, very good. Not only that, we're experiencing a president who is a thug. Who's a blackmailer. And who is potentially an extortionist. He is threatening to withhold federal funds. To not only the states at state of California, but to the city of Long Beach as well. So what we're doing here today with this support of SB 54 and SB 31. It's preemptive. It's a preemptive measure. We're saying to the to the president, you threaten us. We've got things in place to stop you. From threatening us. It's like preempting a blackmailer. If you can do that. You're blackmailing me. But I'm going to. I'm going to hide my money before you get to me. So what we're doing here today is a is a step in that process of stopping this president from making those kinds of threats to us, to our immigrants. To people who come here to. Get away from oppression. To get to exercise your religious freedom. To exercise the their own abilities to want to live. A greater and better life in this country, in the U.S., just like my mom and dad did, though, so many years ago. So I want to reinforce what my colleagues have already done, and I want to thank my colleagues who who signed off on this as well. Councilor Gonzalez Pearce and Vice Mayor Richardson. Because it's it's that type of courage that we need to take to ensure that our residents in Long Beach, our immigrant families in Long Beach. I protect it. And it can live here safely without any fear of having a simple encounter with any of our agent agents, whether it be police. Fire. Housing inspector, animal control officer, anybody that that would be a prelude to endangering their status in this country or their status here in Long Beach. So I want to thank you guys for that kind of of exhibiting that kind of courage. And I want to especially especially thank our senators, President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon and our Senator Ricardo Lara, for bringing this forward because that is courage. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilwoman Price. Thank you very much. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this important discussion to the council chamber. I really enjoyed the comments that I heard from the audience tonight. As many of you know and I have shared, I am a descendant of immigrants from one of the countries where there is currently the non ban. And and it has been a very scary time for people in my community as well. And I actually had the opportunity to meet with them on Sunday. We had a great conversation with Congressman Lowenthal. And I explained to the people in that community my concerns with sanctuary city. And really it does come down to a financial concern for the city. I don't know if the city manager might know off the top of his head, you know, how much money we rely on in federal funding for our homeless programs and our law enforcement programs and things like that. I'm going to give that to Diana Tang. Councilwoman in terms of the total amount of federal funding that we receive. That amount inclusive of what is provided to the port, is in the range of $224 million, and that is just a number that we were able to pull off of financial reporting or financial reporting system. But I would also like to caveat that the executive order that was issued. Is unclear how much and of what pots of money would be vulnerable. And so that is the total that it's we don't yet know what is actually at risk. Thank you very much. So I mean, that that answer alone demonstrates kind of what I want to share is that we're living in very uncertain times and there is a lot at stake for many members of our community. Immigrants? Well, we're all immigrants. We're all descendants of immigrants. But everybody is living in uncertain times right now. And so I think for me, I know the item tonight is and I appreciate it almost. You know, I was trying to count the comments. Almost all of them were about sanctuary city. And I really I took some time to read through the agenda item again. And I don't that's not an item that's on the agenda tonight. And I, I want everyone to be clear about that, that that is not an item that anybody that was on this council had on the agenda tonight or prepared for. It's item 23. You guys are welcome to read the agenda. There's no there's nothing on there about Sanctuary City. So that's not a conversation that I think we're going to have this evening, because that's not and I know that's what I'm listening to the audience and that's what you guys were asking us to do. And so I want to make sure you understand, if we don't do that, it's because it's not on the agenda tonight, among other things. But there are a lot of considerations in regards to what we do in these uncertain times as a city and how we go forward. I have a friendly amendment that I would like to propose, and I'd like to articulate why I think we need to do that. And then I'll I'll ask Councilwoman Gonzalez if she's open to this. I have no issues with Senate Bill 31. My I have a hesitation about both of these bills, and they're both recently introduced, which means they're just undergoing the process. And we know that there's going to be a lot of modifications and changes that happen through the process. We don't know yet what amendments might be added by virtue of a compromise that legislators might get involved in. Similar to what we sometimes do as a body, we don't know what form the bill is ultimately going to take. What I do know is that we here, all of us in this room, support the idea of not splitting up families, support the idea of inclusion, support the idea of people not being discriminated against based on their national origin, their gender, their religion, all of the things that are so important to this body. So the intent behind both bills is is I think is a very, very honorable intent. But my recommendation would be to go ahead and support Senate Bill 31, because I think that that particular Senate bill has minimal amendments in terms of what it would need to become satisfactory. And I don't think there's going to be anything on there that's going to surprise us. I did go through. And read the legislative history, which is very minimal on both bills today on Senate Bill 54, my recommendation or my my friendly amendment would be to send that particular item to the state legislative committee and the Public Safety Committee so we can track the bill as it goes through the Senate process so that we can see if the changes that we're recommending. By the way, we can't amend the bills because they're they're not our bills. We're not the author of the bill. We can recommend that the author of the bill add these to his bill. But then the item asks us to support the bill and the bill as written. We can't amend we can't amend the bill. So that's my understanding. So one of the few things that I have concerns with in Senate Bill 54 is that I think we need clarification on before we would vote to support it is and again , it's very preliminary written and I'm sure just with any piece of legislation, the author hasn't gone through and made the necessary tweaks. But if you look at it, for example, in the Public Safety Committee analysis, they talk about the database, but it's not clear, for example, in 54 that the database relates only to immigration and not to other databases that would be maintained by law enforcement, such as a gang database or human trafficking database. Also talks about. Educational institutions, and they talk about the University of California being encouraged to adopt a policy. But they don't mention the California State University, which I'm sure we would want included as well. They talk about partnerships with other task forces. And although I know that the personal conversation that our mayor had with Senator De Leone indicates that he's looking to amend. That the bill. As written prohibits our law enforcement officers from working with federal. Ortiz They work together all the time, and they have a great partnership that helps make public safety a priority for our city and our state. They work together on drug task forces. They work together on human trafficking task forces. They work together on gang task forces. And so it's very important that that language be amended to allow that collaboration to continue. There's also the intent of this legislation. Initially that's. Being changed. Was that people. Who. Were witnesses and victims in a crime and Stefan spoke to it should not be afraid to come forward to the police because they are an illegal immigrant. And that is absolutely true. But what 54 doesn't do currently, and I'm happy to hear that Senator De Leon is working on that, but it doesn't currently address what happens to serious and violent offenders, people who have been convicted of a serious or violent felony as defined in the penal code. There's no provision in this code for whether or not those individuals can be. Their information can be shared with law enforcement. Those individuals are actually not contributing to the economy as the item that was submitted by my colleagues would like us to support. Those individuals are actually taxing our economy in our system. So those individuals, in my opinion, should not be covered by the protections of the intent of SB 74. And so I think there's a few areas here where. And drug sales activity, for example, that one of the main this this particular SB 54 seeks to change a section of the Health and Safety Code 11 369 which dealt with drug activity. The Senate Bill 54 doesn't address drug dealing activity at all. So people who are convicted of drug dealing, selling drugs are not addressed. And SB 54 and certainly we can all agree that the intent of the comments tonight was not to protect people who aren't following the law, who are committing serious and violent felonies, but rather to protect people who are hard working, who live in our our community. So my recommendation would be that we send 54 to the state ledge and Public Safety Committee to have them evaluate and track the bill. Because. Right now we are adopting support for a bill that's in its infancy and we know is already going to be amended, and we don't know how it's going to be amended. There may be amendments that are made to it that we don't like. There may be amendments to it that we didn't think of that we really like. And I would just recommend that we forward it to the Committee for review. And that would be my friendly. Councilwoman Gonzalez. So I appreciate the discussion. Councilwoman Pryce I do. I have to respectfully disagree and say that, and perhaps I was. Not clear. And perhaps I was not very clear, and that is certainly my thought. I'll take the blame for that. But when I created the amendments, what I said was I wanted to support SB 31 and 54. I know 54 still has a lot of work to be done. Being the vice chair of both the state and federal legislative committee, the immigration issues have been at both committees, and I know we have a meeting scheduled very, very soon to talk about these very issues. And I assume if this passes, we will add those to both the state and federal legislative committees anyhow. However, what I had mentioned is that I would like us as a council to support these items, however, support as amended. And so, Diana, can you clarify what that means, support as amended? Because I understand that as it's going through its amendments, we will support it as amended. And that includes amendments such as local law enforcement agencies having clear discretion to partner with federal law enforcement agencies to combat serious and violent crimes, participate in multiagency federal task force operations with the intention of fighting organized crime such as human and drug trafficking, which I think is a point that Councilwoman Pryce brings up very clearly. And I think we need to make that distinction so support as amended. What does that mean? Diana, can you just clarify that for us? Sure. And if I may also clarify, we are supporting SB 31 and then take a break. We are supporting or the proposal is to support SB 54 as amended with the two amendments that you had described. Correct. Okay. So the term support as amended or support with amendments is something that is used when there's interest in supporting legislation. However, with the condition that there be additional components added to the bill or taken out of the bill, whichever it is that the amendments that we're asking for and in this case as support, as amended position on SB 54, would mean that we would support SB 54 on the condition that the bill also include the amendments that you had described as they relate to partnering with federal law enforcement agencies on combating serious and violent crime as well as organized. Organized crime. Okay. Thank you. So we would not we would want to support this with those conditions. And I think that that puts us in a really good place because it speaks to both of those issues of support for immigrant communities. Also with these conditions as amended, as described as we described. So and then also, I know that Senate pro-tem Kevin de Leon also had suggested that we could be we could have a seat at the table. Since he is meeting with the Police Chiefs Association, he wants to hear from Long Beach to see what the issues are with this bill as he's amending them. As this bill is evolving, I think it's important that we have a seat at the table, that we contact him directly, whether it's you in the audience or ourselves, myself as a state legislative committee member and also federal legislative committee member, we're going to have to take these at both levels . And so I think it's important that we all provide an opportunity to speak to our senators and describe these amendments, because we also want to make sure that we're taking care of our public safety here at home. So I hope that clears it up. And I thank you again for discussion. Thank you, Councilwoman. Next up is Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I have a I'm really want to just say the public comment today has really moved me this evening. I've listened attentively and tried to be respectful to to everybody's point of view this evening. I mean, my colleagues, the back and forth has been very, very helpful when I'm asked about what democracy look like looks like. I look around Long Beach. I look at this council chamber tonight. I look at this dais and this is what democracy looks like today. Thank you. I wanted to spare you the chant tonight. Today, millions of residents and American citizens are living in disgust and fear due to impulsive and reckless and mean spirited executive orders from the current occupant of the White House. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this item forward. Somebody brought up and called me out and asked me to support this item. This is a no brainer for me to support in concert. This is a no brainer for me to support it. If you know me, you know this is a no brainer for me to support. When you bring up forth an item you can only bring for the maximum amount of supporters you can bring on is for and I'm support. I'm very, very sure that this is going to get more and more people to support at the end of the night. And so and as chair of the city's state legislative committee, I look forward to working to get both of these Assembly bills or Senate bills passed with my colleagues. I think Council member Lena Gonzalez's amendments are considerate and responsible, but I'm going to be offering some more advice. Obviously, California cannot condone profiling or discrimination of any kind. That's not who we are as a state, and I don't believe that's who we are as a city. I know for a fact that's not who we are as a city and as elected officials. It's our responsibility to protect families and oppose injustice. And Dr. Martin Luther King, his famous quote was An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere I was raised to. And this is a political slogan nowadays to be my brother's keeper. Right. And gentlemen, the first speaker referred to me as his brother. And yes, I'm your brother, but I'm his brother as well. Right. His brother as well. I'm his brother as well. My brothers are black, Latino. They're white. They're Cambodian. The Filipino. They're all what's. My brothers are Christians and Muslims and Buddhists. This is a diverse city and I love this city and I wish that the rest of the nation could experience the life and the community and the sense of community that we have here. Councilmember Gonzalez, I do appreciate the conversation between you and a. Councilmember Price regarding the bill. And we do know that in Sacramento. Bills do go through machinations. Right. And today, this language is something I think we can support in concept. And so my my my advice for friendly amendment or my friendly amendment would be to support this bill, this bill, SB 31 and SB 54 and any other bills that may be introduced. Right. Because there may be a few bills out there that we may want to have the flexibility as a city to support in concept that that that accomplishes the same same thing here. And and again, I think you said where we're stuck right now is support with amendments. We can take support and concept. I think we can we can bring everybody along. So that would be my recommendation. Thank you. I appreciate that and I'll gladly accept. Thank you. Oh. Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And so I've particularly enjoyed this conversation. I think this is, you know, occasionally it's our job to to lean in and better understand these issues and take positions on them when appropriate. And these bills on the table, they demonstrate some very critical values, religious freedom and trust. And I personally believe in both of those things. But this goes a long way in terms of having an impact on community policing, which is entirely built on trust. The tone in Washington is quickly eroding that trust. And local communities should take a position and particular interest in protecting that trust and congruence and respect with our community . Now, despite the fact that these bills are not signed, it may still change. I think something makes sense to lending our support to a bill while it's being crafted and add to that momentum to help it to get across the finish line. It's important. It's important. Thanks. It's important that know that residents know and understand that we understand and acknowledge their plight. And we prioritize that as we serve them. I'm concerned about the moment we're in in our country, because, frankly, we've seen this before. Let's just say the great majority of us that immigrate to this country were not under ideal circumstances. When we got here, we were all forced with opposition oppression, second class citizenship. Jim Crow laws. Mass and carceral internment. Deportment. But deportation. Intimidation. And that's why we have to protect values like checks and balances. Separation of church and state. States rights and democracy. And so comments like wait in line are incredibly insensitive and privileged. And to me, this means as a. So to me, this means as a city, we should be patriots and take a position on federal issues based on what we feel is right. Now, history has always looked favorably on those who have served as havens or sanctuaries to those who are oppressed. And and we should consider that as we address this threat, this this threat on cities in California who have taken positions or the state of California who has taken a position to serve as a sanctuary or a haven. And so I you know, I do serve as chair of our federal legislation committee, which is particularly interested in the impacts of federal policy. I serve as chair of our housing authority, which use federal dollars to protect and to house our needy individuals. And my position is not that we should sit back and wait to see what the see what these policies or these laws should become. I think we should go get a seat at the table now, take a position early, help craft that. And I believe Councilman Gonzalez said get a seat at the table so that when these are are adopted, we can say we had a hand in that and it was crafted for Long Beach. So that said, I do believe that we should take a position early, but should also engage our committees to make sure that legislation that comes down federally and on the state side, we are at the table for that legislation. So that said, I do strongly support this motion. Thank you. Then we have we have Councilmember Supernova, and then I'm going to make some comments and we're going to go to a vote council for Superman. Okay. I too would like to thank everyone for attending tonight. Being here a long time and speaking and you spoke with a lot of passion. And I'd just like to reiterate, because I still see the signs about Sanctuary City, and that is not the agenda item tonight. And the city clerk can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I'm not even allowed to talk about it. It would be a Brownback violation. Is that accurate? Mr. City Attorney. That's correct. You can't engage in dialog or conversation about an item which has not been placed on the agenda according to the bar. Okay. Thank you. But and that's troublesome to me in that so many of the speakers, that is what you felt you were here for tonight. And we're here on to state legislative items and and also like to thank Diana Tang for speaking. There was no staff report tonight. Do we know when this item came to us on the supplemental agenda? What day and time? I mean, I guess it'd be a question for the clerk. It arrived in the city clerk's office on Friday. Okay. So my weekly newsletter goes out at 1:30 p.m. every Friday. So I didn't even get the message to my constituents. And I appreciate everyone being here tonight, but that's one duty I always feel. I have to let the folks know what is on the agenda and give people a chance to contact my office. The other thing I'm troubled by, and that is what Councilman Pryce brought up. And I would just call it a vetting process that, well, the Fed Pledge Committee was mentioned and my colleague mentioned the state committee. I can think of half a dozen committees or commissions that could take part in the vetting process for this. And I'm concerned in the process, and I don't want to hang the item up tonight on process, but we're kind of getting a habit here. I hope it's not a habit, but we tend to pass stuff and then go back and reverse engineer and make sure it's right after the fact. And I think the purpose of our committees and commissions is to vet the items first so we get all the facts here to make a reasonable, rational decision. Also, I think that dollar amount, that's also what we have to weigh of two state legislative items. And then this issue of the dollars. And one of the speakers said, you know, a couple or a few million dollars. And while the 224 million may not be accurate, it's still a substantial amount of money here we're talking about and all of us as as voters here tonight have to consider that. I think I think the ideas for the amendments that Councilwoman Pryce made were reasonable. But if that's not accepted moving forward, I guess what we're being asked to do is to sign onto an item. And I'll use Dinah Tang's language items that are in their infancy. And even a phone call from the mayor to Senator De Leone could not sort this out today. So that's we all want to do our fiduciary responsibility here and vote the right way. But we're really kind of flying blind. And let's hope that this council has that influence at the state level because we have no guarantee of that and and we can sort it out in committee after the fact. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to wrap up. Councilwoman Pryce. I just have just one more possible friendly. Is it possible that we can bring it back and it's amended form and again vote to support it just in case there's any amendments that we didn't already? I know that we listed two areas, but there could be other amendments that are added. Is it possible that we can bring it back to council once all the amendments have been added so that we can again vote to support the completed legislation? So after we know what all the different amendments were, I think what we're doing is we're supporting as amended. That's what it states. So in the amendments are included and that's okay. But what if what if there's another city council somewhere that has a different amendments they want to include and the senator listens to a group or other groups and adds amendments in there that we don't like or we don't. Then if we if we're firmly opposed to something, we're not going to support it. Okay. So we're not voting to support it tonight. We are voting to support as amended. So the amendments that include the local law enforcement participation and multi-agency federal task force. But I also think yeah, so I'll just leave it there. We'll support as amended. I think that it's very important that we we do this and we support it today and. Continue discussions with our state legislative committee and federal legislative committee. Okay. Let me just make some comments and then we're going to go to a vote. Well, first of all, I just want to say to everyone that came out, you all made me very proud to be an American tonight. And I wasn't always an American. And so to see so many folks just come out and support people that are undocumented, people that are may have a different religious background than the majority of the country, I think is very inspiring. We should all be inspired by all of your words. I especially want to thank the people that were here, the young people that were in high school or younger that came out really, really proud of you for being vocal. I think it's important to note that Long Beach is a city of not just immigrants, but refugees. And in fact, this city's history, if you're a student of the city's history, is a story of refugees from Cambodia of of incredible pain through an immigration from our Filipino Americans throughout Long Beach and the county, including their incredible service to our military, which is literally they literally built much of the military economy that was in throughout Long Beach. It's a story, of course, of all sorts of people from different religious face coming to the city of Long Beach. And as you know, is now a city of an incredibly large and robust Latino community, both Latino-Americans and and Latinos that would love the honor and privilege of one day being an American. And so I think in my conversations with our both the president of the Senate and our state senator, I'm really proud of them of stepping forward and bringing forward these pieces of legislation. I do want to say a couple of things we think are important. There are already there are already about 40 cities across the state of California, including the largest city, the largest cities in the state, whether it's San Francisco or whether it's San Diego or Los Angeles, San Jose, that essentially follow or have codified what is currently already in the California Act that's been proposed by Pro Tem DeLeon. So those cities are most of those cities are either close or have already codified the work that's happening. What the intention of of this bill in part is to ensure that if you are a citizen and so is Long Beach. By the way, I have personally worked with our police department, our chief and other folks to ensure that we are also a city that is supportive of everyone. And but what is important is if you are a citizen of Los Angeles or of Long Beach or of San Jose, I want to make sure that you are being treated the same when you go to Fresno or when you go to Newport Beach or when you go to any other city that may not have the same protections. And so I think having a statewide standard and a statewide protections is important. And so I think that's that's what I think is important about these bills. The other thing is and Councilmember Austin knows this because he's very involved with me, the two of us in a lot of the state bills is bills. Change. And they adapt through the legislative process. What we're doing tonight is no different than many of the other bills that we've passed years before. We support a bill, we may recommend amendments, and then the bill moves forward in the process. And of course, at any time if a bill got to a point where we didn't support it, the council can step in and pull their support for a bill. But today it's possible to move forward. We support four bills and that's something that is that the council does in common. So I want to just begin by saying that I support both bills. I have supported them from the day that they were presented. And and I certainly support Councilwoman Gonzalez tonight as well. I want to say that. Long Beach. And this is I think it's important to say as much as possible. And if we're connected on social media, you know that I actively and consistently trying to bring voice to our values. And Long Beach will always be a place that supports all people. That's what that's what Long Beach is about. Long Beach is about everyone. And everyone includes people that are undocumented, that are Muslim-Americans and that need our support. We should not at any point as a community feel threatened. Or bullied by anyone, whether it's another governor of another state, a U.S. senator or the president of the United States . We have to always stick up for the values that we believe in. And so I will say that I think I would encourage us all to stay active in this conversation as the bill moves forward. I think there have been some good ideas brought forward tonight, and I also believe that everyone on this council, every single person on this council, believes in supporting immigrants and wants to see people protected. I do believe every single person on this council believes that. And so I want to think again, the makers of the motion, I want to thank our two senators. And and hopefully tonight will be an important step in ensuring that there are statewide protections that include Long Beach, of course, but statewide protections across the state of California. And so with that members, I'm going to call for a vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Thank you all. I'm I'm going to go ahead I'm going to go ahead and take a just a few minute recess because we have an agenda that's still very long tonight. So thank you for coming. We're going to take a two minute recess and we'll be back in 2 minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We're going to if I can have everyone please exit the council meeting if or if you're going to stay. I need to start the meeting. The meeting again. Thank you. Thank you very. Okay, guys, I need to start the council meeting, so I need everyone to take a seat or exit, please. Thank you again. Yeah. Okay. Rock roll call, please. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Councilmember Pierce. Councilwoman Price, council member. Super Now. Councilwoman Mongo. Councilman Andrew's Council member. Your UNGA. Councilman Austin. Vice Mayor Richardson. Mayor Garcia. Hey, guys. Everyone hear that staff hash? We have we have a meeting. We're running right now. So if you're talking, you need to be. Thank you very much. Especially Pat West. Take a seat, sir. Thank you. Okay, we got to we have to finish our meeting, so we're going to. I think we have. Item number. Hold on 1/2. 19. I don't even. We still have. I think we have two members of public comment so that we haven't done. So let me let me do. We're going to do.