Could Trump try to deport immigrant LAPD officers with DACA status?

By Libor JanyStaff Writer

Feb. 14, 2025 3 AM PT

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Will a badge and gun be enough to shield someone from potential deportation under President Trump’s immigration crackdown?

That is the question facing the Los Angeles Police Department and the handful of other law enforcement agencies who employ police officers protected by DACA, the Obama-era program that is short for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Granted to more than 500,000 people brought to the U.S. illegally as small children, DACA provides work authorization and other benefits. Since 2022, California has been one of a handful of states where DACA recipients are allowed work as cops. The LAPD says it has 13 officers who were hired under the program, with another seven currently working their way through the Police Academy.

Speaking at a ribbon-cutting in the Harbor area last week, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell voiced his support for the officers saying they are no different than any of their other colleagues.

McDonnell said that the department has been monitoring the “current political climate,” and that it would do “everything within the law to protect them.”

He did not elaborate on what extra protections the department could provide if the Trump administration were to rescind DACA.

The L.A. County sheriff’s department says it has 15 DACA deputies, with an additional eight recruits still in training.

Trump’s first-term attempts at dismantling the program were blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, the president has issued sometimes contradictory messaging about his position on DACA.

A recent federal appeals court ruling opened the door to the Supreme Court taking up the policy for a third time.

Caleb Mason, a criminal defense attorney who has represented police officers, noted that the Trump administration has shown a willingness to rewrite immigration policy, including recently revoking Temporary Protected Status granted to immigrants from Venezuela.

Previously, Mason said he could not have imagined a scenario where “there’d be some Homeland Security raid going into LAPD stations and rounding up officers who have DACA status.” Now he’s not so sure, he says.

Mason, who has represented clients in deportation appeal proceedings before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, added: “I think if the federal government wants to push deporting people regardless of profession (it could).”

Mason says he knows of no special protections for officers or other government employees hired under DACA, but said it’s possible they could be excluded from a crackdown through “executive discretion” from the White House.

Officials in L.A. and other cities with large immigrant communities are already pushing back against the White House, but Victor Narro, project director at the UCLA Labor Center, said there’s only so much they can do.

“I just don’t have a solution to the question about what happens if DACA is eliminated,” he said. “What are we going to do with the hundreds of thousands of DACA employees who are so integrated into our economy?”

The new LAPD chief’s record on immigration has come under scrutiny since he was sworn in last fall.

While serving as L.A. County sheriff during Trump’s first term, McDonnell was often criticized for allowing federal immigration authorities to target jailed people for deportation.

McDonnell has defended his decisions as sheriff in numerous public hearings and interviews, while insisting that he would abide with longstanding LAPD policies that prohibit officers from cooperating closely with federal immigration authorities.

Since 1979, the LAPD has ordered its officers not to initiate contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally.

The majority-Latino department currently bars officers from inquiring about a place of birth when interviewing victims, witnesses or people who are temporarily detained. It has also stopped its previous practice of recording a suspect’s place of birth during fingerprinting and uploading that info to an FBI database, which immigration authorities can access.

The department has planned forums and listening sessions in immigrant communities across the city to remind residents of their rights, just as it did during the first Trump presidency.

Federal agents are planning to carry out a “large scale” immigration enforcement action in the Los Angeles area before the end of the month, according to a leaked document reported last week by The Times.

During Charlie Beck’s tenure as chief from 2009 to 2018, the department stopped turning over people arrested for low-level crimes to federal agents for deportation. Officials also refused to keep immigrants jailed at the request of federal officials.

But advocates for the immigrant community say police encounters remain fraught with risk for the city’s undocumented population, and will become even more so under under the new administration.

Although the LAPD may not work directly with federal agencies, advocates say they are concerned that data sharing agreements mean that technologies like license plate readers placed around the city could be used for immigration enforcement.

Trump has vowed to carry out the largest deportation efforts in the country’s history, declaring a national emergency and deploying troops at the southern border with Mexico.

The administration has threatened to withhold millions in federal funding to Los Angeles and other cities that don’t cooperate with its immigration crackdown. News reports from earlier this week said LAPD and city officials are assessing the potential impact if the funds are frozen.

Times staff writer Keri Blakinger and the Associated Press contributed to this report.