A coalition of seven community organizations is set to host a public forum Tuesday evening, where Police Chief Gene Harris, City Manager Miguel Márquez and Mayor Victor Gordo will take questions from residents about the Pasadena Police Department’s relationship with ICE.
“Community Dialogue: Local Policing, Legal Observers, ICE, and Building Trust” is scheduled for 6 p.m. at First Church of the Nazarene’s Gilmore Hall, 3700 E. Sierra Madre Blvd., Pasadena. It comes one month after the City Council voted unanimously to direct city staff to draft formal protocols governing police interactions with federal immigration agents.
Organizations sponsoring the forum include the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the NAACP Pasadena Branch, Pasadena Organizing for Progress, Altadena Rising, Grupo Auto Defensa, and My Tribe Rise.
Community organizers said they expect the City Attorney, at least one member of the City Council Public Safety Committee, members of the Community Police Oversight Commission, and the Independent Police Auditor to attend.
The forum follows more than a year of tension over immigration enforcement in Pasadena. In June 2025, ICE agents detained a group of men at a bus stop near Winchell’s Donuts at Orange Grove Boulevard and Los Robles Avenue, prompting the city to join a federal lawsuit on the men’s behalf.
On Jan. 7, police arrested José Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, after he followed an ICE vehicle through the city. An ICE agent had called 911, reporting a car was tailing him and being driven recklessly. Police cited Madera for misdemeanor obstruction of a peace officer and released him. The city’s prosecutor later declined to file charges.
Madera’s arrest triggered a sequence of events that included an agreement to hold a public forum with city officials on the precise nature of the police-ICE relationship.
The city has repeatedly said that Pasadena police do not take part in ICE operations.
“We have a very clear policy,” Gordo said in January. “We will not coordinate nor participate in ICE operations. We do not assist in any way or use municipal resources to coordinate with an ICE operation.”
Deputy Chief Chute told the Community Police Oversight Commission in August 2025 that officers do not detain or arrest people solely for immigration violations, will not honor civil immigration detainers, and that ICE may not use city facilities for staging or parking.
On Feb. 23, the Council voted 8-0 for a resolution, drafted by Councilmember Rick Cole and Mayor Gordo, that would ban any use of city property for civil immigration enforcement and direct the city manager, city attorney, and police chief to develop formal police-ICE protocols.
An event flyer distributed by the organizing groups calls the forum “an opportunity to ask questions, get information, and engage directly with city leadership.”
“Transparency from government officials and institutions is fundamental in these times of mass misinformation and persecution of neighbors and migrant families,” the flyer states.
The forum is open to all community members. Parking is available in the church lot.
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