Keep Culver City Safe From ICE — July 9 meeting!!

After all of your advocacy, the Culver City Council will have another special meeting on Wednesday, July 9th to put policies in place to help protect our immigrant community from ICE.

ICE raids are still ongoing in our community. There were even raids in West LA on the 4th of July.

Join the Wednesday night meeting in-person or virtually:

  1. CLICK HERE to register to speak and sign up for any/all of agenda items:
    1. A-1: CCPD support for ICE raids in LA
    2. A-2: license plate readers
    3. A-3: aid for families
  2. Join us at Culver City Hall (9770 Culver Blvd) on Wednesday, 7/9 at 6pm
  3. To join virtually, CLICK HERE at 6pm on Wednesday, 7/9.

Tell the City Council:

Turn off the Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)

Cameras planted throughout the city take pictures of every license plate that goes by and stores these pictures for 30 days. Law enforcement agencies use these ALPRs to track any vehicle that drives on our streets. According to data from CCPD, these cameras track 1.6 million unique license plates per month!!!

Culver City’s license plate data sits in cloud servers owned by a company called Flock. The City’s ALPR contract allows Flock to turn over the data to the Federal Government, including ICE. And 36 different law enforcement agencies in the LA area have direct access to our surveillance network — including agencies who are searching our data on behalf of ICE.

Other law enforcement agencies are releasing audit reports that show whether ICE has searched their data, but CCPD is refusing to release their audit reports.

Just last week ICE pulled over a car in Culver City for no reason other than they thought an undocumented person was inside. Just how many people in Culver City have been kidnapped by ICE because of our city’s surveillance network?

And it’s not just undocumented immigrants. We know that these cameras have been used to track women who have gone out of state for an abortion and people protesting ICE raids. Who will they turn these cameras on next?

Want to know more?

  • Can we use these cameras for good to track ICE? (1) CCPD has repeatedly said they will not interfere with ICE operations. (2) ICE often uses cars that don’t have license plates, and even if they do have license plates, we don’t know what those plates are.

  • Aren’t these readers helping us catch dangerous criminals? There’s no evidence that license plate readers make us safer. We’re spending a lot of money on a system that is not very effective and allows ICE to target people in our community.

  • Is CCPD’s policy limiting data sharing to agencies within LA County enough to protect us from ICE? No. Many agencies in LA County are illegally sharing data with ICE.

Aid for families

This is a no-brainer! When people can be kidnapped off the street, it’s no wonder that many in targeted communities are afraid to go to work. But, without work, families do not have enough money for essentials like rent or food. And, according to the Migration Policy Institute, about 40% of the undocumented population live with children, the majority of whom are US citizens. No one wants kids going hungry!

While many in the community are donating to help, local aid groups are quickly running out of money. The City should help our local nonprofits help these families.

Want to help?

Keep immigrant families in their homes

We know that many families in targeted communities will soon miss rent payments. Evicting these families from their homes will make them even more vulnerable to ICE and increase the number of people living on the street. The City should help them stay in their homes.

One way to help families stay in their homes is an eviction moratorium. During crises, cities often use eviction moratoriums to ensure people stay in their homes. LA County passed an eviction moratorium for those affected by the recent fires that is still in place. Culver City put an eviction moratorium in place during the pandemic.

Communities across LA County are calling for an eviction moratorium because evicting targeted families will only make this crisis worse.

Want to know more?

Stop CCPD from supporting ICE raids in the rest of LA

We’ve seen LAPD providing safe passage to ICE as they conduct raids, targeting the very community members who are helping with rapid response and even journalists covering this crisis. We do not want CCPD assisting ICE in any way, even by helping other police departments in the area put down anti-ICE protests. This kind of aid to LAPD and ICE goes against our policy as a sanctuary city.

Want to know more?