Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman engaged in a public dispute over the Los Angeles Police Department’s history of immigration enforcement cooperation during a recent televised debate, intensifying tensions ahead of the November mayoral election.

The disagreement began when Raman cited former Police Chief Daryl Gates as an example of the LAPD’s historical reluctance to cooperate with immigration authorities. Raman referenced Special Order 40, a directive issued in 1979 that prohibits officers from questioning individuals solely about their immigration status. She argued that this approach helped build trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement, and criticized Bass’s administration for partnering with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which she said damages that trust.

Mayor Bass quickly rejected Raman’s characterization, accusing her of romanticizing Gates’s tenure and calling her remarks “a lie.” Bass pointed to Gates’s controversial legacy, including numerous allegations of police brutality and the widely condemned videotaped beating of Rodney King in 1991, as evidence that Gates’s leadership was marked by systemic abuse rather than respect for immigrant rights. Bass demanded an apology from Raman over the comments.

Raman pushed back, clarifying that her intention was to highlight Special Order 40, not to endorse Gates personally. She accused Bass of misrepresenting her words to deflect scrutiny from the administration’s current cooperation with ICE. Raman said her comments were meant to question ongoing LAPD policies that she and her supporters view as harmful to immigrant communities.

In response, Bass emphasized recent steps her administration has taken to address concerns about immigration enforcement. She pointed to the city’s decision to end its contract with Flock Safety, a company providing license plate reader technology, amid fears that data collected might be shared with ICE. Both candidates have made reducing LAPD collaboration with federal immigration agents a central theme of their campaigns, framing it as a key issue for Los Angeles’s large immigrant population.

As the mayoral race moves closer to election day, the exchange highlights contrasting approaches to policing and immigrant relations in a diverse city wrestling with complex law enforcement challenges.