Homeland Insecurity: DHS Pulled Its Hit List but the Danger Still Lurks

An update to the May 31 Beachcomber online posting: Long Beach Is on DHS’s Hit List. We Should All Be Alarmed.

Last week we warned that Long Beach had been falsely targeted and publicly smeared by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which had published an online “non-compliant sanctuary city” list with zero transparency, zero due process, and zero regard for fact. Long Beach wasn’t alone. Jurisdictions across the country – rural and urban, conservative and progressive – found themselves branded “sanctuary havens” based on fiction, political spite, or outright clerical incompetence.

Following intense public backlash, legal threats, and a wave of op-eds like ours published from coast to coast, DHS has quietly scrubbed the list from its website. Gone. No press release. No retraction. Just digital disappearance, as if the damage hadn’t already been done.

But make no mistake: this wasn’t an act of correction – it was an act of cover-up. DHS pulled the plug not to protect the truth, but to protect itself from accountability.

In the days following publication of the original Beachcomber op-ed, sheriffs and city officials from red states and blue states came out swinging. The National Sheriffs’ Association publicly condemned the list, calling it “inaccurate, inflammatory, and completely lacking in transparency.” Shawano County, Wisc., was included on the list for being a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” – a designation that has absolutely nothing to do with immigration. Huntington Beach proudly anti-sanctuary in its own ordinances – was wrongly accused of being “non-compliant.” The list was a legal and factual farce.

Closer to home, Long Beach City Manager Tom Modica swiftly responded to DHS’s unfounded accusation: “We received no communication from DHS prior to this listing. Long Beach complies with all applicable laws. We are seeking immediate retraction and clarification.”

Instead of a retraction, DHS tried to pretend the whole thing never happened. But the record remains. And so does the danger.

Let us not forget that this blacklist wasn’t just an embarrassing policy misstep – it was a signal. A threat. Under the Trump administration’s executive orders, DHS has been empowered to deploy masked federal agents into cities it labels “non-compliant.” We’ve seen this before – in Portland, in Chicago, and in immigrant communities across the country, where due process gives way to detainment, surveillance and fear.

What happens when a federal agency invents a list, posts it online without warning, then uses it to justify unconstitutional actions? What happens when that list falsely includes your city – and then vanishes without explanation?

We should all be alarmed, because the list may be gone, but the mindset that produced it is alive and well. It’s the same mindset that uses immigration enforcement as a political weapon. That treats the Constitution like an obstacle. That expects obedience, not partnership, from local law enforcement.

This updated op-ed is not just a follow-up – it’s a red flag.

Long Beach stood up. So did dozens of other wrongly accused jurisdictions. But the fight is far from over. DHS has shown its hand. It will lie, it will smear, and it will retreat only when caught.

We must continue to hold it accountable – not just when it posts a hit list, but when it acts like one.

Stephen Downing is a resident of Long Beach and a retired LAPD deputy chief.