During his Sunday night post-election interview with 60 Minutes, Donald Trump announced that he wasn’t just blowing smoke about his promise to remove undocumented immigrants from the United States. Indeed, the president-elect put a number on it to the effect of two to three million such souls that he’d immediately deport: “We are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.” His remarks were met with push back by President Obama, who stated that Trump should “think long and hard before they are endangering the status of who, for all practical purposes, are American kids.” In effect, Trump would be forcing children to hide after they were brought here by their families.

Following the declaration, Trump has not met cooperation with leaders in some large cities. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared that he would maintain sanctuary city status. In addition, the Los Angeles Police Department — which has long distanced itself from all federal policies regarding immigration — has refused to change its practices to aid Trump, according to Chief Charlie Beck, who spoke with the LA Times:

The LAPD prohibits officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally, mandated by a special order signed by then-chief Daryl Gates in 1979. During Beck’s tenure as chief, the department stopped turning over people arrested for low-level crimes to federal agents for deportation and moved away from honoring federal requests to detain inmates who might be deportable past their jail terms. On Monday, Beck said he planned to maintain the long-standing separation. I don’t intend on doing anything different,” he said. “We are not going to engage in law enforcement activities solely based on somebody’s immigration status. We are not going to work in conjunction with Homeland Security on deportation efforts. That is not our job, nor will I make it our job.”

Beck also addressed how nothing has changed with the LAPD, nor would it, as a result of any election. They’re committed to the same practices, values, and enforcement strategies as they were last week (and for countless weeks and years prior) and won’t alter their policies to suit any new president.

(Via Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune & Bloomberg)