After months of meetings with City representatives, members of the Long Beach Justice Fund Coalition held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss the Long Beach Values Act and their recommended amendments.
“We planned the press conference to celebrate the city and having this agenda … but considering that wasn’t the case, the tone has shifted and so here we are today,” said Fernando Acevedo, community lawyer for Organizing Rooted in Abolition, Liberation & Empowerment (ÓRALE).
The Long Beach Justice Coalition is a community-driven alliance that advocates for immigrant rights, deportation defense and local policy protections. ÓRALE, Filipino Migrant Center, United Cambodian Community (UCC) and Long Beach for a Just Economy are just a few of the members in the coalition.
The coalition began its campaign to amend the Long Beach Values Act in January 2026, meeting with city councilmembers throughout February, intending to get it done in May. However, Acevedo said the City asked them to aim for mid-June, and the date continued to be pushed back for the next two months.
Acevedo said Aug. 11 was the date their demands were set to be agendized; ahead of Tuesday’s city council meeting, they received news that it wasn’t on the agenda due to the City’s focus on the budget.
“Obviously, Long Beach is undergoing a lot of budget struggles right now, and that’s understandable, but I think we had identified [this] a long time ago … we wanted to get this done before the budget season,” Acevedo said.
What are the amendments?
The Long Beach Justice Fund Coalition focused on six amendments that they’d like the City to add to the Long Beach Values Act:
- Eliminating Senate Bill 54 exclusions and expanding protections: Senate Bill 54 (California Values Act) exceptions allow local law enforcement to assist in immigration enforcement if an individual has serious prior criminal convictions or if authorities present a judicial warrant. The coalition argues that these carve-outs encourage double punishment, assuming the person has already served their sentence. They also argue that by eliminating this exception, the City can ensure it does not share the information of any resident with federal immigration authorities or transfer community members to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers.
- Banning local use of surveillance technology: The Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) conducts quarterly reviews of the Flock/Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPR) system to ensure security of information and compliance with LBPD policies and privacy laws. The coalition argues that there is no empirical evidence that the license plate readers and facial recognition technology (FRT) have a material impact on crime clearance rates or crime technology. They argue that there are documented cases of misuse of this tech, and Acevedo cited the incident in which LBPD accidentally shared license plate data with ICE in 2020.
- The coalition is asking the City of Long Beach to ban FRT and ALPR technology to prevent further harm to the immigrant community.
- Stricter punishments for violators of the Long Beach Value Act: The Long Beach Justice Fund Coalition cites that violations of the current policy may result in disqualification from future city contract opportunities. The coalition suggests that future contracts must include termination clauses for violations, assess penalties to the vendor and disqualify the vendor from future city contract opportunities, including renewals.
- The coalition also asks the City to develop a structure to monitor contracting parties for violations and commit to not contracting with companies that have a history of sharing or selling data to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
- Private right to action: The coalition says disciplinary measures for any city violation of the Values Act are currently handled through the City’s internal disciplinary procedures. They argue that there needs to be a private right of action, which would allow an individual or private party the authority to file a civil lawsuit against the City.
- Clarifying prohibition of use of city public areas for immigration enforcement: The Long Beach Justice Fund Coalition asks the City to clearly state its ban on public city spaces for immigration enforcement staging, and to use stronger signage on spaces to indicate its stance against federal immigration enforcement.
- No LBPD cooperation or employment with immigration enforcement: The Coalition asks the city to adopt a policy that ensures that no Long Beach peace officers, including LBPD, work for or volunteer with DHS or its contractors or any entity that assists/engages in immigration enforcement.
- Acevedo said he had a conversation with the chief of LBPD, Wally Hebeish, in which the police chief told him that requisitions for side jobs and additional employment with immigration enforcement would violate their internal policy. Acevedo still says that it’s important to codify it in the Values Act.
ÓRALE’s community lawyer said during the press conference that they are expecting to receive only $1 million in funding for the Justice Fund this fiscal year. They’re demanding $3 million in structural funding, a long-term guaranteed budget item where they wouldn’t have to ask for funding each year.
The Justice Fund focuses on providing free legal defense and provides legal help for low-income immigrants at risk of deportation who live or work in Long Beach.
Reactions to suggested amendments
“This summer, just like last summer, has been filled with terror and uncertainty. Summertime used to be filled with laughter and joy and water balloon fights … Now people live in fear, fear of being ripped off the street, out of their homes and out of their families’ homes just for simply wanting a better life for their families,” said Sheyla Diaz, a senior community organizer for Long Beach For A Just Economy (LBJE).
Diaz said she speaks with many Spanish speakers as a community organizer and hears their fears directly.
“They don’t feel comfortable going to the grocery store to get their necessities. They don’t feel comfortable taking their own kids to school, which is really sad,” she said.
That fear, Diaz said, continues as ICE received an additional $3.8 billion for custody operations in June.
“Our demands are not monetary. Our demands are protections,” she said in her press conference speech. “When we live in fear, it is the responsibility of our local government to do everything they can in their power to protect the immigrant community, regardless of documentation status.”
Angela, a community member for 20 years, spoke about her experience with ICE to the media. She saw ICE near her home while inside her neighbor’s car.
“We got in front of our building, but I stayed standing by the door. I cannot get in. I couldn’t believe they were close to my home. I closed the building door and went into my apartment. I felt like I could not breathe,” Angela said during the press conference.
Angela said that sense of fear lasted more than a month — she imagined the agents knocking at her door. She never left the house, she said, as her son did all her errands for her family.
“That same fear I felt has been felt by many others,” she said. “We need to keep ICE out of our city. That’s why we’re asking the city to make it a priority to agendize the Long Beach Values Act, because our community can’t keep waiting.”
The California Immigrant Policy Center Deputy Director of Immigrant & Racial Justice, Shiu-Ming Cheer said Long Beach is standing on solid legal ground to protect its residents from mass indiscriminate arrests, detentions and deportations.
She said that the federal government cannot force Long Beach into doing its enforcement work and that the City, county and state governments are well within their rights to pass legislation to disentangle themselves from the federal government’s attack on the immigrant community. Cheer cited the Tenth Amendment and noted federal judges have repeatedly struck down attempts to cut funding from sanctuary cities.
“My message to Long Beach is simple: don’t let anyone intimidate this city into silence,” Cheer said. “It’s the federal government, not the city, that’s acting unlawfully when it tries to punish Long Beach. Long Beach leaders have every legal tool they need to act. Now they should use them.”
Diaz said it’s imperative for the community to stand for each other’s rights, keep the pressure up and keep fighting.
“It’s been really hard for everyone, and so being in community and being in support of each other, having that camaraderie and the unity between us, is really what’s necessary right now. We can’t let anything really tear community apart. We have to be together,” she said.
