By JAIMIE DING, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a so-called “sanctuary city” ordinance that prevents city resources from being used for immigration enforcement and city departments from sharing information about people without legal status with federal immigration authorities, in anticipation of potential mass deportations under President-elect Donald Trump.

Council members voted unanimously on the measure, joining more than a dozen cities across the United States with similar ordinances. Sanctuary cities or states are not legal terms but have come to symbolize a promise to protect and support immigrant communities and refuse to voluntarily provide information to immigration enforcement officials. Proponents say they are safe havens for immigrants to feel safe and be able to report crimes without fear of deportation.

The measure will return to the council for a second vote as a formality. Mayor Karen Bass, who has veto power, has said she supports the ordinance.

With Trump’s promises of a big immigration measures when he returned to the White House in January, immigration advocates urged Los Angeles council members to move quickly.

“We’re going to send a very clear message that the city of Los Angeles will not cooperate with ICE in any way,” said Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. “We want people to feel protected and be able to believe in their government and for women to be able to report domestic violence, crime.”

Soto-Martinez, one of the council members who introduced the first motion last year, said his parents and many of his constituents are undocumented immigrants. They are “embedded in the larger community,” from cooking and cleaning houses to working as nannies, he said.

But it’s unclear how much will change under the ordinance because the city already isn’t cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

The Los Angeles Police Department has a policy that requires officers not to ask about a person’s immigration status or make arrests based on legal status. It is new Police Chief Jim McDonnell has also pledged not to cooperate with mass deportation efforts or federal authorities on matters related to immigration enforcement.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive order in 2019 offering protections for immigrants, but Tuesday’s ordinance would codify those protections into city law.

The state of California has similar protections. Former California Governor Jerry Brown signed the sanctuary state’s legislation 2017 to prevent law enforcement from asking people about their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement activities.

Then-President Trump responded with trying to hold back funding from sanctuary cities and favoring cities that promise to cooperate with immigration enforcement for federal grants.

Cities from New York to San Francisco have longstanding policies to support immigrants, but criticism of those measures grew with the influx of migrants. Some of the backlash occurred after Republican governors in Texas and Florida took office buses migrants to Democratic-led “sanctuary cities” last year in what critics have called political stunts.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has since called for increased cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities, attacking the city’s current policy restricting such communications as harmful to public safety.

Migrants were also bussed to Los Angeles, though in smaller numbers.

More than 100 people gathered on the steps of City Hall Tuesday morning ahead of the vote to urge the City Council to pass the ordinance.

Martha Arévalo, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in LA, called the law “long overdue.”

“This is Trump 2.0 where he ran on a platform of hate and division and separating families and mass deportations,” Arevalo said. “It is traumatic for the immigrant community. There is a lot of trauma, there is a lot of fear.”