The Interfaith Coalition For Immigrant Justice called on Mayor Craig Greenberg and the Louisville Metro Police Department to adhere to a 2017 Louisville Metro ordinance that limited LMPD’s cooperation with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
“Louisville should not scrape the bottom of the barrel to become a place where our neighbors are told that their voices are less important, nor should anyone have the face racist and xenophobic questions about their immigration status,” said Attica Scott, a former state representative who now oversees special projects at Forward Justice Action Network, a local advocacy organization.
She spoke at a press conference Wednesday aimed at shining light on the risk immigrants may face after Donald Trump takes office later this month.
The Louisville ordinance bars local law enforcement from assisting ICE in enforcing immigration actions unless LMPD officers have a warrant signed by a judge or if ICE “articulates a reasonable suspicion of a risk of violence or when there is a clear danger to the public.” It doesn’t prevent LMPD from enforcing criminal laws against anyone.
The ordinance also bars the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections from entering into a federal agreement to enforce immigration laws, and prohibits Metro employees from asking a person’s immigration status in most cases.
The ordinance followed an investigation by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, which revealed LMPD officers took calls from ICE agents who asked officers to serve as backup and make traffic stops, serve warrants and knock on the doors of nonviolent offenders wanted for immigration violations. Under the ordinance, LMPD officers cannot take those kinds of actions.
LMPD spokesperson Aaron Ellis said officers do not enforce federal law.
“We enforce laws of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and Louisville Metro ordinances,” he said in an email.
Mayor Greenberg said Wednesday he hasn’t received any formal or informal communication from the incoming Trump administration on enforcing deportation directives.
“For the time being, we’re going to continue operating the way that we have. We are certainly evaluating all of the potential legal ramifications about the things that are spoken about out there as possibilities. But at this point in time, there is nothing to respond to,” Greenberg said at his weekly press conference.
Muhammad Babar, a Louisville geriatrician, moved to the U.S. from Pakistan when he was 24. He’s found America to be welcoming, and said legislation hostile to immigrants will make it harder to fill certain jobs. He said many immigrant workers help fill shortages in elder care as baby boomers age.
“It's going to affect us all – from farming, from putting food on our table, from our industries, on constructions, on changing the roofs of our homes, to health care,” he said at the press conference.
The Trump administration has proposed a slew of policy changes that include mass deportations, allowing ICE agents to arrest undocumented people at or near sensitive locations like schools and places of worship, and cracking down on so-called “sanctuary” cities.
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar and a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, said in a 2024 interview that he wants local law enforcement to respond to ICE’s requests to hand over undocumented immigrants in their custody, “especially when they pose a public safety threat.”
During his first term, Trump attempted to block federal law enforcement grants to sanctuary cities if officers did not cooperate with ICE. This time, the administration is reportedly discussing reviving those efforts and expanding them to other sources of federal funding.
While Louisville is not a sanctuary city, it faced scrutiny in 2017 by the Department of Justice and federal officials under the first Trump administration. They wanted Louisville to prove the ordinance limiting LMPD’s involvement with ICE didn’t conflict with federal laws that require local governments to communicate with and provide information to agencies. Louisville officials defended the ordinance, saying the concerns were inaccurate.
