When Los Angeles police arrested Jose Juarez-Basilio in March on suspicion of threatening his ex-wife’s new romantic partner, he was released after less than 24 hours in prison.
About three months later, the brief stay spent triggering his deportation.
Even if there is no lawsuit against Juarez-Basilio, the seemingly routine offender with the police has taken the 35-year-old undocumented Mexican man, radar for U.S. immigration and customs enforcement, which has led him to track and remove him from the country.
For months, LAPD leaders have been assured the public that the department’s cooperation with immigration officials is subject to strict restrictions.
But dozens of cases identified in Juarez-Basilio and federal court records show how Los Angeles police can enable ICE to find new targets by regularly sharing fingerprints with federal law enforcement.
The implications of working with immigration authorities are the fundamental issue of LAPD under the continued crackdown of the Trump White House throughout the region. Hundreds of people were detained by masked ice and border patrol agents, sparking protests and an ongoing court battle to use the so-called “Patrol Patrol” to mess up the suspects.
LAPD chief Jim McDonnell often points to a long-term policy called Special Order 40, which prohibits officials from blocking a person for the sole purpose of determining their immigration status. The policy was implemented in 1979 to try to ensure the city’s growing immigrant community that can stand up as witnesses or victims of crimes without fear of deportation.
But given how complex the country’s immigration landscape has become over half a century, it’s time for LAPD to go beyond policy.
“I think the 40 order was the right thing to do at that time,” he said in a recent interview. “Do I think it’s happening now? Of course not.”
He said the particular concern is that LAPD processes data collected from automated license plate readers, deploying devices around the city to track the movement of vehicles. Police officials insist that the information was not shared with ICE. However, other local law enforcement agencies have violated their own similar rules in the past, raising concerns that LAPD may not be able to keep its speech.
“If LAPD could share any data with ICE in the slightest,” Soto-Martinez said, “the city needs to look at the vulnerability.”
Following the recent federal immigration raid, LAPD chief Jim McDonnell often pointed to a long-term policy called Special Order 40, which prohibits officials from blocking a person for the sole purpose of determining their immigration status.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
This month, Mayor Karen Bass ordered a working group to review LAPD’s immigration policy and potentially update. McDonald said at a press conference that he believes Special Order 40 still fulfills the initial mission of building public trust.
“If people don’t want to stand up, we won’t be able to work,” he said.
However, the Chief reiterated that his officers would not interfere with federal law enforcement operations, even if they violated a recent court ban that temporarily blocked federal agents. He said that if Angelenos is concerned, they can file a complaint with the Fed or seek other legal remedies.
In a city with more than half of the Latino population, this position is with critics leaning against whom they claim the department provides crowd control when attacking angry protesters, supporting ice by providing crowd control.
“You can’t go through a month and want the public to believe in any law enforcement that participates in this event,” said Connie Rice, a longtime civil rights attorney. “The immigration community asked: ‘Don’t you protect us?’”
Juarez-Basilio’s case shows how LAPD indirectly causes ICE to be deported even when complying with special order 40 and formally away from immigration enforcement.
Records show he was detained on March 23 for suspected criminal threats. Court documents describe an incident where he was accused of holding an unknown object under his T-shirt while threatening his ex-new partner.
When Juarez-Basilio was booked at the San Fernando Valley Jail and registered with fingerprints, it stimulated the Ice Pacific Law Enforcement Response Center in Orange County.
Court records show an ICE broker investigated Juarez-Basilio and learned that he had been deported three times before and had illegally re-entered the country, a federal crime, not just a violation of civil immigration laws.
Juarez-Basilio released Bond and was released before Ice Agents arrested him. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office refused to file the charges, citing a lack of evidence.
ICE agents were waiting to take him into custody after a hearing in federal court last month.
He was one of 30 people arrested by LAPD in recent months, and later was detained by immigration agents and was deported after illegally re-invading after being deported from the country, according to a review of the Criminal Court application.
In Juarez-Basilio’s case and several other cases, the paid documents have no reference to past crimes except for the border crossing. In a few cases, the arrested person was convicted of a felony of violence in advance.
Among several others, LAPD reminded federal authorities of felony arrests, such as two British citizens who were arrested for possessing a gun after being arrested in Hollywood in late June for failing to stop the stop sign on the Black Rolls-Royce. Both were above visas, court records show.
In some states, most police officers in the south have been aiding ICE for years by handing over prison inmates accused of immigration violations. Trump has threatened to cut off federal funds to cities like Los Angeles to refuse full cooperation on immigration enforcement.
Georgetown law professor Christy Lopez, who worked for the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights department, said it was against the city Trump faced with choice. Refusing to reduce the risk of losing federal funds. It also jeopardizes cooperation with agencies such as Homeland Security Investigations, which sometimes work with local law enforcement to destroy drug cartels, prevent terrorism and investigate other major crimes.
The link is expected to become even closer as Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Olympics.
But at this moment, working closely with the Fed could undermine trust in hard-working immigrant communities where people are already on guard against police.
“If a large population does not trust the police, you will not be able to ensure the safety of the city,” she said.
Earlier this year, the LAPD Spy Alliance sent a letter to the city police commission warning that information collected by LAPD officials during regular pedestrian and traffic stops is flowing into a large-scale database that could be mined by immigration authorities to help track a wanted criminal.
“Immigration enforcement will not act as the federal government in the eyes and ears of the local police and prosecutors network to ensure that anyone who is booked is arrested – no matter how trivial, no matter how trivial, no matter how trivial, or in court, is immediately placed on the ICE.”
Since its inception about 50 years ago, Special Order 40 has repeatedly attacked factions within LAPD and among anti-immigrant activists who challenged it on constitutional and practical reasons, saying it has provided free crimes for illegal offenders.
Stephen Downing, former deputy director of LAPD, helped draft Special Order 40, said it was a “law enforcement tool” designed to address gang violence encroached on the city, rather than a “real means of protecting immigrants from immigrants from immigrants.”
“It recognizes that these people are in the community, they are part of the community, and we need them to control the crime. We need them to report the crime,” Downing said. “It’s not as indifferent as it seemed at the time.”
