Federal agents carried out a major immigration raid in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, despite objections from Mayor Karen Bass, who appeared at the scene in protest.
“We are with hundreds of federal agents and military as a massive federal immigration enforcement operation is underway in the MacArthur Park area of the sanctuary city of Los Angeles, an area with heavy MS-13 influence,” Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin noted on the X platform.
“Mayor Bass has demanded raids stop, Feds respond with one of the largest yet, including Border Patrol agents on horseback. Protesters already showing up,” he added.
Melugin also shared a video of Bass speaking with a Border Patrol agent, who seemed to call someone and then handed the phone to her.
Local Fox affiliate KTTV-TV reported that the Democratic mayor could be heard saying on the phone, “They have completed their mission here,” and “What’s the timeframe before they leave?”
Asked by a reporter if she wanted to make a statement, Bass responded: “They need to leave and they need to leave right now, because this is unacceptable!”
Monday’s raid followed a wave of anti-ICE protests and riots in Los Angeles last month in response to ongoing immigration enforcement. Tensions escalated further last month, when U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, was forcibly removed from a news conference in L.A. led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
She said that immigration enforcement operations would be ongoing in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
“We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and mayor have placed on this country and what they’ve tried to insert in this city,” she said.
At that moment, Padilla abruptly interrupted Noem’s remarks, walking toward her and speaking loudly over her. Most people in the room had no idea who he was until security officers stepped in and escorted him out.
Later, Noem, said, “I had a conversation with the senator after this. We sat down for 10 to 15 minutes and talked about the fact that nobody knew who he was. He didn’t say who he was until he … already had been lunging forward, and people were trying to detain him for quite a period of time.”
Border czar Tom Homan on Monday vowed to continue immigration enforcement operations in New York City and other sanctuary cities, even as the Trump administration prepares legal action against Los Angeles and other jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities.
“We’re going to be in New York City and President Trump said it two weeks ago,” Homan told reporters. “We’re going to double down and triple down on sanctuary cities. Why? Not because they’re a blue city or a blue state… because we know that’s where the problem is.”
“They’re releasing public safety threats and national security threats to the streets every day,” he said. “We know that. We don’t have that problem in Florida, where every sheriff in the state is working with us. I’ve said it before, we’ll flood the zone on sanctuary cities.”
“I’ve said it before, we’ll flood the zone with sanctuary cities. If they don’t let us arrest a bad guy in the county jail, they’re going to arrest them in the community, we’re going to arrest them at a work site,” he added.
“We’re going to get the bad guys, so if they don’t want to help, get out of the way, we’re coming to do it.”
