Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he is "too pro-family" to see federal immigration officials break up families by deporting illegal immigrants who do not have serious criminal records.
During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Garcetti told a panel of co-hosts he is concerned with the activity he's seeing regarding the arrest and deportation of illegals and around his city — despite the fact that under President Barack Obama, more than 2.5 million aliens were deported.
"We are not getting transparency and as much information as we need," Garcetti said. "Initially, when they said there were over 100 people in Southern California that were brought in, that was denied. Later on, they admitted it was 161 people."
Garcetti was referring to ICE activity that resulted in nearly 700 illegals being arrested in recent operations. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said the arrests were part of normal ICE operations, but critics of President Donald Trump claim he is unfairly targeting people who should be allowed to remain in the United States.
"We don't want the grandmother who forgot to pay the parking ticket separated from her family, going back to a country she may not even know," Garcetti said. "Of course there's dangerous criminals and we want them off the street. But it somebody was driving without a license and they're the primary breadwinner for the family, let's make them a citizen, let's find a way for them to be here legally, rather than disrupting the social fabric in a city that a third of our GDP comes from contributions of our great immigrant community.
"I'm too pro-family to want to see [families] separated. I'm too pro-economy to see that 54 percent of our businesses were started by immigrants, including folks who are here temporarily or undocumented. I'm too pro-Constitution to say that our local law enforcement officials should continue a policy that we do not deputize them as immigration officials.
"We do want to cooperate with federal officials on serious criminals, but this is a huge distraction from the work I want to do with this administration on infrastructure, on jobs, and moving the country forward. But we will continue to protect our people."
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