Traci Park has built her political brand on fear, division, and white grievance. She markets herself as a “public safety” advocate, but her policies and rhetoric criminalize immigrants and deepen the trauma faced by undocumented Angelenos. From calling for police-led “quality of life” crackdowns to staying silent as ICE raids terrorized Los Angeles, Park has consistently stood with law enforcement and anti-immigrant interests rather than with the diverse working families who make up her district.
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents carried out a high-profile sting in August 2025—using a rental truck to lure and arrest Latino day laborers outside a Home Depot in Westlake—Traci Park said nothing. Community groups across Los Angeles condemned the operation, demanding protection for immigrant workers. Park offered no statement, no support, and no policy response.
Her silence was especially glaring as the City Council debated new rules to prevent city agencies from sharing data with immigration authorities. While immigrant rights organizations like CHIRLA, Ktown for All, and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center mobilized to stop deportations, Park continued funding LAPD-run “public safety operations” that enable cooperation with ICE. Her office’s reliance on police and sanitation sweeps keeps the same machinery of criminalization alive under a different name.
Park’s version of public safety is built on punishment. Her push for constant encampment sweeps, quality-of-life arrests, and surveillance in Venice and Westchester disproportionately harms Latino immigrants and refugees. Instead of investing in language-accessible outreach, tenant protections, or services, Park turns to LAPD and Sanitation to clear people out.
Her repeated use of terms like “restoring order” mirrors decades of anti-immigrant rhetoric that portrays working-class Black and brown communities as threats. Under her approach, unhoused and immigrant residents are not neighbors to help but nuisances to remove.
Park’s record shows open hostility to Los Angeles’ status as a sanctuary city. She has criticized partnerships with groups that provide legal and housing support for undocumented residents and has resisted efforts to create enforceable “non-cooperation” policies limiting LAPD’s contact with ICE.
Park’s record shows open hostility to Los Angeles’ status as a sanctuary city. She has criticized partnerships with groups that provide legal and housing support for undocumented residents and has resisted efforts to create enforceable “non-cooperation” policies limiting LAPD’s contact with ICE.
While other councilmembers introduced motions affirming sanctuary protections and funding deportation defense, Park either abstained or quietly worked to slow them down. She has opposed expanding legal aid programs and questioned the need for language access in city services. Each time, she sided with bureaucratic caution and law-enforcement control over the safety of immigrant families.
The homeowner groups and “public safety” coalitions that fueled Park’s campaign have long histories of anti-immigrant agitation. These organizations spread fear about Latino day laborers, migrant families, and street vendors. Park has appeared at their events, echoed their talking points, and repeated their dehumanizing language in her newsletters and social media posts.
By praising police crackdowns on “illegal activity” while ignoring the human toll, Park amplifies the same xenophobic framing that treats working-class immigrants as the problem rather than the backbone of the city.
Street vendors are among Los Angeles’ hardest-working residents. They are overwhelmingly immigrants, many undocumented, who provide affordable food and culture that define the city’s streets. Traci Park treats them as criminals.
Her office has coordinated with LAPD, Recreation and Parks, and Sanitation to remove vendors from the Venice Boardwalk, Clover Park, and other public spaces. These sweeps often involve cart confiscations, citations, and threats of arrest. Instead of supporting legalization or safety infrastructure for vendors, Park frames them as “nuisances” and “public safety hazards.” By attacking street vending, she attacks the immigrant workers who make Los Angeles vibrant.
Traci Park has ignored repeated calls from organizers to expand tenant protections for mixed-status households, to fund rapid legal defense for people facing deportation, and to guarantee that city data will never be shared with federal immigration enforcement. She has never attended immigrant rights events in her district, even when directly invited by groups working with families impacted by ICE raids.
Her actions show indifference, not leadership. Park’s district includes thousands of immigrant workers who clean homes, cook in restaurants, and sell food on sidewalks. Yet she has done nothing to defend their safety or dignity.
