Can Your Landlord Give Your Information to ICE or Report You? Here’s What LA Tenants Should Know

This article was first published by the nonprofit newsroom LA Public Press on July 25, 2025 and is republished here with permission.

Real estate attorneys in Atlanta say their clients received what appeared to be fake federal subpoenas demanding tenant files last week, according to industry reports — raising fears that similar tactics could spread to Los Angeles as immigration enforcement intensifies.

The incidents, reported by Baller Report, involved subpoenas that were not signed by a judge — making them legally invalid under federal law. While LA housing advocates say they haven’t documented similar cases locally, they report a rising number of landlords threatening to disclose tenants’ immigration status to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid the Trump administration’s stepped-up enforcement efforts.

David Smith, a lawyer and the director of litigation at the non-profit Inner City Law Center said his organization is seeing more landlords use immigration status to harass tenants who have filed lawsuits over issues including habitability.

“ Landlords are using that tactic to try to chill the tenants from pursuing the habitability claims or for other reasons, maybe to induce the tenants to move out,” Smith said.

In California, it’s illegal for a landlord to disclose a tenant’s immigration status in most cases. Landlords who violate this law can face criminal charges and civil lawsuits. In the city of Los Angeles, landlords are prohibited from harassing a tenant using their immigration status under the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance.

Kyle Nelson, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy or SAJE’s director of research and policy, said the organization sent several LA City Council members an email asking them to inform their constituents of these rights. LA Public Press reached out to several of those Councilmembers.

Alejandra Alarcon, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s communications director, called the reports “a deeply troubling escalation that puts the safety and well-being of tenants at risk, especially for immigrant and working-class communities already vulnerable to housing insecurity — communities that continue to show extraordinary resilience despite the relentless cruelty of federal immigration enforcement.”

Jurado’s office along with the offices of Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Adrin Nazarian and Hugo Soto-Martinez all said they were keeping their constituents informed of their rights as tenants and immigrants through Know Your Rights workshops, community events, email newsletters and other channels.

Councilmember Nithya Raman’s office informed LA Public Press that they had not heard of ICE trying to access tenant information but did not share what they were doing to educate constituents about their rights.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to a request for comment.

Daniel Yukelson, a landlord and the executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, said that his organization is made up of “professional housing providers who are trained to know they do not inquire about the immigration status of their residents, and they do not have this information in their possession.” Yukelson added that the organization has informed their landlord members via email and the association’s print magazine that they do not have to let ICE agents onto their private property or provide any information without seeing a warrant.

Yukelson also dismissed tenants’ claims of landlord harassment, saying they were “trying to create what may be less than a thousandth of a percent or less of landlords who allegedly have threatened to report a renter’s immigration status.”

California law prevents landlords from sharing tenant information with ICE

California lawmakers passed AB 291 in 2017 to prohibit landlords from disclosing a tenant’s immigration status to federal authorities unless they were served with a warrant or subpoena signed by a judge as part of a criminal investigation. Smith said that unsigned warrants or ones signed by an administrative or immigration judge are not valid. Even when presented with a warrant, landlords should consult with a lawyer before handing over any information.

If a landlord violates this law, Smith said that the state attorney general or a jurisdiction’s district attorneys could bring criminal charges against landlords who fail to comply.

On Tuesday, State Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office issued a statement reminding landlords of the existing legislation.

In the city of Los Angeles, tenants have additional protection under the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance from having their immigration status disclosed or from the threat thereof. The city attorney can bring charges against landlords who violate the law.

LA’s city attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment about how many lawsuits they have filed under the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance and how many were related to immigration status.

“California tenants — no matter their immigration status — have a right to safe housing and to access housing documents in a language they can understand,” Bonta said. “I will use the full force of my office to go after those who seek to take advantage of California tenants during an already challenging time.”

Bonta’s office encourages tenants to find a lawyer if this happens to them and to seek legal information and assistance at LawhelpCA.org. Tenants can also file consumer complaints on the attorney general’s website. Landlords can be required to pay damaged ans fines for violating AB 291. LA tenants can also seek legal assistance at the Stay Housed LA portal.

Smith said that local government officials don’t always have the resources to bring these types of cases against landlords.

However, Smith still advised tenants to reach out to housing nonprofits to let them know if landlords are breaking the law so that non-profit employees can discuss “what the tenants’ options are and what the tenants are willing to do.”

Legal aid organizations like Inner City Law Center can help tenants file lawsuits against landlords, Smith added. If tenants do not want to do so for fear of having their identities exposed in a public document, Smith said that lawyers can file these lawsuits as a non-profit and also conceal tenants’ names, although the non-profits have to prove that they were harmed by the landlord’s actions in order to have standing to file such a lawsuit. This makes it more difficult, Smith said, but not impossible for a non-profit to file complaints on tenants’ behalf.

Kyle Nelson, from SAJE, said that while these laws allow tenants to raise their concerns in court, “ it’s not gonna help folks that are being actively intimidated, kidnapped and deported.”

Nelson thinks it’s helpful to remind people that these disclosures are illegal, but said that if a landlord is determined, they might disclose people’s status anyway, since they are in a position to do so. “Landlords have way too much information about their tenants, especially the ones that do fairly invasive screening processes,” he said. “You get a politically conservative landlord who thinks that contemporary immigration policy is a great thing, and they could put their tenants in serious jeopardy.”

Documenting any tenant harassment related to immigration status with the LA Housing Department is important, according to Kenia Alcocer, a member and organizer with Unión De Vecinos, the East Side local chapter of the Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU), which organizes tenants in apartments across the city of LA.

But the most important thing a tenant can do is organize with their neighbors, instead of trying to fight alone, she said, to at least have some protection from deportation. This is also an opportunity for people who are less vulnerable to deportation to support others, she said.

When it comes to fighting harassment, if the majority of an apartment building works together, then the landlord is less likely to target one tenant who is working alone. The landlord might even have to deal with multiple lawsuits or criminal charges. “ If landlords start losing those cases and they start getting punished for doing so, then maybe that will deter them from actually doing that, at least here in California,” Alcocer said.

Alcocer added that elected officials such as the LA city councilmembers and the city attorney need to explain how they plan to protect tenants from having their landlords disclose their immigration status, including informing landlords about complying with laws that prohibit them from disclosing immigration status or harassing tenants based on that.

Advocates push LA County Supervisors to address protections for immigrant tenants

On Tuesday, members of LATU protested at the LA County Board of Supervisors meeting, and called for an eviction moratorium, arguing that many tenants were afraid to leave their homes because of ICE and therefore might fall behind on rent.

LA Public Press asked all five county supervisors about their position on an eviction moratorium and tenants’ fears of ICE. “We are exploring all options to protect immigrant tenants during this unprecedented overreach by ICE agents and the federal government,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn in a written statement. “However, I worry that an eviction moratorium would have the opposite effect and could incentivize landlords to give their tenant’s information to ICE so that they can raise the rent on a vacant unit if their tenant is deported.”

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s office did not provide a statement regarding a potential eviction moratorium, but recommended that tenants in unincorporated LA County whose landlords threatened to call ICE should seek assistance from the county Department of Consumer and Business Affairs and Stay Housed LA, which provides legal information and help to LA County residents about their tenant rights.

In a written statement, Supervisor Hilda Solis said, “As a longtime advocate for immigrants and tenant protections, I am deeply concerned about any attempt to use a person’s immigration status as a tool of intimidation or displacement. No one should live in fear of losing their housing or being targeted by ICE simply because they rent.”

While Solis didn’t explicitly say she supported an eviction moratorium this time around, she said, “I strongly support efforts to strengthen eviction protections and prevent landlords from exploiting or threatening tenants based on immigration status. These protections are about more than housing stability — they are about dignity, safety and justice.”

Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Holly Mitchell didn’t respond to requests for comment.

LATU organizer Kenia Alcocer argued that an eviction moratorium would also make tenants less vulnerable to landlord harassment related to threats to disclose their immigration status.

“ We heard [ICE was] gonna be here for a month, then they said 60 days, now they’re saying six months … So who knows when [ICE is] gonna be leaving,” she said. “So we’re gonna have to make sure that there are protections that are keeping families housed and keeping families together.”