On Monday, Mayor Eric Garcetti and Chief Charlie Beck announced that the Los Angeles Police Department will no long adhere to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's requests to detain those suspected of being eligible for deportation.

"The federal government is in charge of enforcing federal immigration laws -- not us at the local level -- and that responsibility can't be forced onto local law enforcement officials who already have stretched budgets," Garcetti announced according to Los Angeles Times.

The mayor said the LAPD will not comply to detainer requests "without judicial review," Fox News Latino reported. Garcetti hopes this will help the city treat immigrants respectfully "while we wait on the federal government to act on immigration reform."

Garcetti explained that "violent or serious criminals" will not be released but instead see judicial review. Under the current system "you don't even have to go to a judge" for the ICE to send a detainer request, he said.

"We want to put more police officers back on the street, solving crimes, doing the things that our citizens pay their tax dollars to make sure law enforcement is doing," Garcetti said.

Beck backed Garcetti's announcement, saying that the LAPD will follow the mayor's decision.

"There's nothing more important to a police department than community trust," he said.

According to the chief, the LAPD has been "systematically" diminishing the number of detainer requests it complies to for the past three years, and despite not turning the immigrants into ICE, crime rates decreased. ICE sent Los Angeles 773 detainer requests since the start of 2013 according to Beck.

On Monday, the ICE defended its detainer requests system.

"When law enforcement agencies turn criminals over to ICE rather than releasing them into the community, it enhances public safety and the safety of law enforcement," Virginia Kice, Western regional spokeswoman, told Los Angeles Times in a statement.
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