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Tag: federal immigration agent

  • California congressman among those speaking out against ICE at the Super Bowl

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    U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna stood outside of Levi’s Stadium on Sunday as thousands of football fans streamed inside the Santa Clara venue.

    The congressman wasn’t there to cheer on his favorite team. He had stopped by to send a message: Federal immigration agents were not welcome at the Super Bowl.

    “This is my district and this is a time for elected leaders to be outside with people,” said Khanna (D-Fremont). “I’ve communicated to the NFL and to the administration to keep ICE out, but I think physically being here in the community makes a big difference.”

    At a news conference earlier this month, NFL chief security officer Cathy Lanier said she was confident that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would not conduct operations at the Super Bowl. But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem previously confirmed that ICE would be present.

    “We’ll be all over that place,” she told Benny Johnson, a right-wing podcaster, in October. “We’re going to enforce the law.”

    Khanna said his office had been flooded with calls and emails as the mixed messaging left many local residents fearful. He kept his district office open Sunday in case constituents had run-ins with ICE and needed assistance.

    As of 2 p.m., there hadn’t been any reports.

    Khanna was among 21 Democrats in Congress, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who sent a joint letter to Noem last week voicing opposition to immigration raids at the Super Bowl.

    “This should be a moment of celebration, unity, and economic opportunity, not a flashpoint for fear, polarization, and violence,” the lawmakers wrote. “Having ICE at the Super Bowl would undermine public safety, disrupt communities, and threaten the peaceful enjoyment this event should bring to the region and the nation.”

    Khanna wasn’t the only one speaking out against ICE on Sunday.

    Around 5:30 p.m. about two dozen anti-ICE and anti-Trump protesters gathered across the street from the stadium and unfurled a large yellow banner with the words “Trump must go now.” They chanted a profane slogan and “Trump is on the Epstein list.”

    One woman, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, held a poster that said “Murder Is Murder Stop ICE.” Another carried a sign with photos of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two U.S. citizens fatally shot by federal agents in Minnesota.

    Before the game, activists Shasti Conrad and Michael Ceraso passed out rally towels with the words “ICE OUT” emblazoned on one side and a picture of a rabbit kicking a football enclosed in an ice cube on the other. The rabbit was inspired by halftime performer Bad Bunny, who has spoken out about the administration’s immigration raids, including at the Grammy Awards. Trump has called Bad Bunny “a terrible choice” for halftime performer.

    “My heart told me to do it,” said Ceraso, explaining that he felt called to speak up for others living in fear.

    Conrad wasn’t sure how football fans would react but said most people eagerly accepted a towel. “We have had overwhelming support,” she said, adding that thousands of towels were gone by the early afternoon.

    Others used music to get their message across. At one point, a song disparaging Noem and serving as an anti-ICE anthem that’s been widely circulated on social media could be heard coming from a crowd gathered outside the stadium.

    The Trump administration’s immigration raids, often conducted by masked agents in unmarked cars, have come under fire due to aggressive, and some argue unconstitutional, tactics — such as allegedly using children as bait or forcibly entering homes without a judicial warrant. The killings of Good and Pretti sparked further fear and backlash.

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    Katie King

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  • Shutdown nears as lawmakers brace for next round of ICE negotiations

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    WASHINGTON — A budget impasse in Congress is poised to halt large swaths of federal operations early Saturday as lawmakers in Capitol Hill turn to the next flashpoint in negotiations to reopen the government: whether to impose new limits on federal immigration authorities carrying out President Trump’s deportation campaign.

    Over the next two weeks, Democrats and Republicans will weigh competing demands on how the Department of Homeland Security should carry out arrests, detention and deportations after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents this month in Minnesota.

    Seeking to rein in the federal agency, Senate Democrats late on Thursday were able to strike a deal with the White House that would temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security but fund the Pentagon, the State Department, as well as the health, education, labor and transportation agencies through Sept. 30.

    The agreement is intended to give lawmakers more time to address Democratic demands to curb ICE tactics while averting a partial government shutdown.

    The Senate finalized the deal Friday evening on a 71-29 vote, hours before a midnight deadline to avert a government shutdown. Passage of the deal was delayed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who objected to parts of the package.

    The House expected to take up the legislation as early as Monday. The partial government shutdown will occur until the measure clears the House and Trump signs it into law.

    The president supports the deal, which came after Senate Democrats said they would not vote to fund Homeland Security unless reforms for the agency were approved. Among the demands: banning federal agents from wearing masks, requiring use of body cameras and requiring use of judicial warrants prior to searching homes and making arrests.

    Democrats have also demanded that local and state law enforcement officials be given the ability to conduct independent investigations in cases where federal agents are accused of wrongdoing.

    The deal, however, does not include any of those reforms; it includes only the promise of more time to negotiate with no guarantee that the new restrictions will be agreed to.

    Both of California’s Democratic senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, voted against the Senate deal. They both opposed giving more funding to Homeland Security without reforms in a vote Thursday.

    Schiff voted no because he said he promised to not “give another dime for ICE until we saw real reforms — and not just promised reforms but statutory requirements.”

    “I want to see those reforms before I am prepared to support any more funding for these agencies,” Schiff said in a video message posted on X, and added that he did not see the White House acting in “good faith. “I want it in writing and statute.”

    After voting against the measure, Padilla said in a statement: “I’ve been clear from the beginning: No more money for ICE and CBP without real oversight and accountability.”

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters Friday morning that Democrats will find out whether two weeks is enough time to reach a compromise.

    “We will evaluate whether that is sufficient time,” Jeffries said. “But there is urgency to dealing with this issue because ICE as we have seen is out of control.”

    Meanwhile, the absence of reforms in the Senate deal has already drawn concerns from some progressives, who argue the deal falls short of what is needed to rein in federal immigration enforcement.

    “First of all, I’m actually disappointed that Senate leadership is not right now demanding more,” Rep. Robert Garcia, a top-ranking House Democrat from Long Beach, told reporters Friday. “This idea that we’re somehow going to continue to fund this agency and somehow just extend the pain, I think is absolutely wrong.”

    Garcia said it was “outrageous” that the Senate deal would extend funding for Homeland Security for two weeks without any new requirements.

    “This idea that we’re somehow not demanding immediately the removal of masks and body cameras and all the other reforms while eliminating this agency that’s causing harm, I think, is outrageous,” Garcia said.

    Democratic Rep. Judy Chu of Pasadena said in a statement that she had not yet decided whether to support the Senate deal once it reaches the House floor.

    But, Chu added: “I cannot support legislation that increases funding to this agency while delivering no accountability measures.”

    Rep. Kevin Calvert (R-Corona) said in a statement that it is “critical” for lawmakers to pass the bipartisan spending package, in part because it included funding for the U.S. military.

    “As Chairman of the [House] Defense Appropriation Subcommittee, I’m especially concerned about the negative impacts of a shutdown at a time when we have a buildup of American military assets in the Middle East,” Calvert said.

    Calvert added that Homeland Security operations will continue even in the shutdown because lawmakers provided an influx of funding for the agency in last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” But he said he worried that any lapse in funding would affect other operations by the agency, including disaster funding and security assistance for major events, such as the upcoming World Cup.

    “We need to get these priorities funded,” he said.

    Other Republican lawmakers have already signaled the possible hurdles Democrats will face as they try to rein in ICE.

    Graham held up consideration of the Senate deal, in part because he wanted the Senate to vote to criminalize local and state officials in sanctuary cities — a term that has no strict definition but that generally describes local jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

    “You can convince me that ICE can be better, but I don’t think I will ever convince you to abandon sanctuary cities because you’re wedded to it on the Democratic side,” Graham said.

    Graham also delayed passage of the deal because it included a repeal of a law that would have allowed senators — including himself — to sue the government if federal investigators gained access to their phones without notifying them. The law required senators to be notified if that were to happen and sue for up to $50,000 in damages per incident.

    “We’ll fix the $500,000 — count me in — but you took the notification out,” Graham said. “I am demanding a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”

    Other Senate Republicans also expressed concern with Democrats’ demands, even as Trump seemed to try appease them.

    Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said the demand for federal agents to remove their masks during operations was a “clear and obvious attempt to intimidate and put our federal agents in harm’s way.”

    “When enforcement becomes dangerous for enforcers, enforcement does not survive,” Schmitt said in a Senate floor speech. “What emerges is not reform, it is amnesty by default.”

    Despite the GOP opposition, most Senate Republicans were poised to join Democrats on Friday and vote for the deal. But there is no certainty that they will join the minority party when negotiations resume in the coming weeks.

    Recent history suggests that bipartisan support at the outset does not guarantee a lasting deal, particularly when unresolved policy disputes remain. The last government shutdown tied to a debate over healthcare exposed how quickly negotiations can collapse when no agreement is reached.

    In November, a small group of Democrats voted with Republicans to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history with the promise of negotiating an extension to healthcare tax credits that were set to expire in the new year.

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Franciso), a former House speaker, reminded the public on Friday that Democrats were unable to get Republican support for extending the tax credits, resulting in increasing healthcare costs for millions of Americans.

    “House Democrats passed a bipartisan fix, yet Senate Republicans continue to block this critical relief for millions of Americans,” Pelosi wrote in a post on X.

    Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

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    Ana Ceballos

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  • Supreme Court rules against Trump, bars National Guard deployment in Chicago

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    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled against President Trump on Tuesday and said he did not have legal authority to deploy the National Guard in Chicago to protect federal immigration agents.

    Acting on a 6-3 vote, the justices denied Trump’s appeal and upheld orders from a federal district judge and the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that said the president had exaggerated the threat and overstepped his authority.

    The decision is a major defeat for Trump and his broad claim that he had the power to deploy militia troops in U.S. cities.

    In an unsigned order, the court said the Militia Act allows the president to deploy the National Guard only if the regular U.S. armed forces were unable to quell violence.

    The law dating to 1903 says the president may call up and deploy the National Guard if he faces the threat of an invasion or a rebellion or is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

    That phrase turned out to be crucial.

    Trump’s lawyers assumed it referred to the police and federal agents. But after taking a close look, the justices concluded it referred to the regular U.S. military, not civilian law enforcement or the National Guard.

    “To call the Guard into active federal service under the [Militia Act], the President must be ‘unable’ with the regular military ‘to execute the laws of the United States,’” the court said in Trump vs. Illinois.

    That standard will rarely be met, the court added.

    “Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is prohibited from execut[ing] the laws except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress,” the court said. “So before the President can federalize the Guard … he likely must have statutory or constitutional authority to execute the laws with the regular military and must be ‘unable’ with those forces to perform that function.

    “At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the court said.

    Although the court was acting on an emergency appeal, its decision is a significant defeat for Trump and is not likely to be reversed on appeal. Often, the court issues one-sentence emergency orders. But in this case, the justices wrote a three-page opinion to spell out the law and limit the president’s authority.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who oversees appeals from Illinois, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cast the deciding votes. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh agreed with the outcome, but said he preferred a narrow and more limited ruling.

    Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented.

    Alito, in dissent, said the “court fails to explain why the President’s inherent constitutional authority to protect federal officers and property is not sufficient to justify the use of National Guard members in the relevant area for precisely that purpose.”

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a brief in the Chicago case that warned of the danger of the president using the military in American cities.

    “Today, Americans can breathe a huge sigh of relief,” Bonta said Tuesday. “While this is not necessarily the end of the road, it is a significant, deeply gratifying step in the right direction. We plan to ask the lower courts to reach the same result in our cases — and we are hopeful they will do so quickly.”

    The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had allowed the deployments in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., after ruling that judges must defer to the president.

    But U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled Dec. 10 that the federalized National Guard troops in Los Angeles must be returned to Newsom’s control.

    Trump’s lawyers had not claimed in their appeal that the president had the authority to deploy the military for ordinary law enforcement in the city. Instead, they said the Guard troops would be deployed “to protect federal officers and federal property.”

    The two sides in the Chicago case, like in Portland, told dramatically different stories about the circumstances leading to Trump’s order.

    Democratic officials in Illinois said small groups of protesters objected to the aggressive enforcement tactics used by federal immigration agents. They said police were able to contain the protests, clear the entrances and prevent violence.

    By contrast, administration officials described repeated instances of disruption, confrontation and violence in Chicago. They said immigration agents were harassed and blocked from doing their jobs, and they needed the protection the National Guard could supply.

    Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said the president had the authority to deploy the Guard if agents could not enforce the immigration laws.

    “Confronted with intolerable risks of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law,” Trump called up the National Guard “to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence,” Sauer told the court in an emergency appeal filed in mid-October.

    Illinois state lawyers disputed the administration’s account.

    “The evidence shows that federal facilities in Illinois remain open, the individuals who have violated the law by attacking federal authorities have been arrested, and enforcement of immigration law in Illinois has only increased in recent weeks,” state Solicitor Gen. Jane Elinor Notz said in response to the administration’s appeal.

    The Constitution gives Congress the power “to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.”

    But on Oct. 29, the justices asked both sides to explain what the law meant when it referred to the “regular forces.”

    Until then, both sides had assumed it referred to federal agents and police, not the standing U.S. armed forces.

    A few days before, Georgetown law professor and former Justice Department lawyer Martin Lederman had filed a friend-of-the-court brief asserting that the “regular forces” cited in the 1903 law were the standing U.S. Army.

    His brief prompted the court to ask both sides to explain their view of the disputed provision.

    Trump’s lawyers stuck to their position. They said the law referred to the “civilian forces that regularly execute the laws,” not the standing army.

    If those civilians cannot enforce the law, “there is a strong tradition in this country of favoring the use” of the National Guard, not the standing military, to quell domestic disturbances, they said.

    State attorneys for Illinois said the “regular forces” are the “full-time, professional military.” And they said the president could not “even plausibly argue” that the U.S. Guard members were needed to enforce the law in Chicago.

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    David G. Savage

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  • Justice Department sues to block laws restricting masked, unidentified law enforcement officers in California

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    SACRAMENTO — The U.S. Department of Justice sued California on Monday to block newly passed laws that prohibit law enforcement officials, including federal immigration agents, from wearing masks and that require them to identify themselves.

    The laws, passed by the California Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, came in the wake of the Trump administration’s immigration raids in California, when masked, unidentified federal officers jumped out of vehicles this summer as part of the president’s mass deportation program.

    Atty. Gen. Pamela Bondi said the laws were unconsitutional and endanger federal officers.

    “California’s anti-law enforcement policies discriminate against the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents,” Bondi said in a statement. “These laws cannot stand.”

    The governor recently signed Senate Bill 627, which bans federal officers from wearing masks during enforcement duties, and Senate Bill 805, which requires federal officers without a uniform to visibly display their name or badge number during operations. Both measures were introduced as a response to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids that are often conducted by masked agents in plainclothes and unmarked cars.

    The lawsuit, which names the state of California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta as defendants, asserts the laws are unconstitutional as only the federal government has the authority to control its agents and any requirements about their uniforms. It further argued that federal agents need to conceal their identities at times due to the nature of their work.

    “Given the personal threats and violence that agents face, federal law enforcement agencies allow their officers to choose whether to wear masks to protect their identities and provide an extra layer of security,” the lawsuit states. “Denying federal agencies and officers that choice would chill federal law enforcement and deter applicants for law enforcement positions.”

    Federal agents will not comply with either law, the lawsuit states.

    “The Federal Government would be harmed if forced to comply with either Act, and also faces harm from the real threat of criminal liability for noncompliance,” the lawsuit states. “Accordingly, the challenged laws are invalid under the Supremacy Clause and their application to the Federal Government should be preliminarily and permanently enjoined.”

    Newsom previously said it was unacceptable for “secret police” to grab people off the streets, and that the new laws were needed to help the public differentiate between imposters and legitimate federal law officers.

    The governor, however, acknowledged the legislation could use more clarifications about safety gear and other exemptions. He directed lawmakers to work on a follow-up bill next year.

    In a Monday statement, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who introduced SB 627, said the FBI recently warned that “secret police tactics” are undermining public safety.

    “Despite what these would-be authoritarians claim, no one is above the law,” said Wiener. “We’ll see you in court.”

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    Katie King

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  • Federal immigration enforcement surge is now paused in East Bay too, Oakland mayor says

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    A planned increase in federal immigration enforcement in the Bay Area is now on pause throughout the region and in major East Bay cities, not just in San Francisco, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said Friday.

    Lee said in a statement that Alameda County Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez had “confirmed through her communications” with federal immigration officials that the planned operations were “cancelled for the greater Bay Area — which includes Oakland — at this time.”

    The announcement followed lingering concerns about ramped up immigration enforcement among East Bay leaders after President Trump and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced Thursday that a planned “surge” had been called off in San Francisco.

    Trump and Lurie had very specifically addressed San Francisco, even as additional Border Patrol agents were being staged across the bay on Coast Guard Island, which is in the waters between Alameda and Oakland.

    At a press conference following Trump’s annoucement about San Francisco, Lee had said the situation remained “fluid,” that she had received no such assurances about the East Bay and that Oakland was continuing to prepare for enhanced immigration enforcement in the region.

    Alameda County Dist. Atty. Ursula Jones Dickson had previously warned that the announced stand down in San Francisco could be a sign the administration was looking to focus on Oakland instead — and make an example of it.

    “We know that they’re baiting Oakland, and that’s why San Francisco, all of a sudden, is off the table,” Jones Dickson said Thursday morning. “So I’m not going to be quiet about what we know is coming. We know that their expectation is that Oakland is going to do something to cause them to make us the example.”

    The White House on Friday directed questions about the scope of the pause in operations and whether it applied to the East Bay to the Department of Homeland Security, which referred The Times back to Trump’s statement about San Francisco on Friday — despite its making no mention of the East Bay or Oakland.

    In that statement, posted to his Truth Social platform, Trump had written that a “surge” had been planned for San Francisco starting Saturday, but that he had called it off after speaking to Lurie.

    Trump said Lurie had asked “very nicely” that Trump “give him a chance to see if he can turn it around” in the city, and that business leaders — including Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Marc Benioff of Salesforce — had expressed confidence in Lurie.

    Trump said he told Lurie that it would be “easier” to make San Francisco safer if federal forces were sent in, but told him, “let’s see how you do.”

    Lurie in recent days has touted falling crime rates and numbers of homeless encampments in the city, and said in his own announcement of the stand down that he had told Trump that San Francisco was “on the rise” and that “having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery.”

    In California and elsewhere, the Trump administration has aggressively sought to expand the reach and authority of the Border Patrol and federal immigration agents. Last month, the DOJ fired its top prosecutor in Sacramento after she told Gregory Bovino, chief of the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, that he could not carry out indiscriminate immigration raids around Sacramento this summer.

    In Oakland on Thursday, the planned surge in enforcement had sparked protests near the entrance to Coast Guard Island, and drew widespread condemnation from local liberal officials and immigrant advocacy organizations.

    On Thursday night, security officers at the base opened fire on the driver of a U-Haul truck who was reversing the truck toward them, wounding the driver and a civilian nearby. The FBI is investigating that incident.

    Some liberal officials had warned that federal agents who violated the rights of Californians could face consequences — even possible arrest — from local law enforcement, which drew condemnation from federal officials.

    Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche responded with a scathing letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and others on Thursday in which he wrote that any attempt by local law enforcement to arrest federal officers doing their jobs would be viewed by the Justice Department as “both illegal and futile” and as part of a “criminal conspiracy.”

    Blanche wrote that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution precludes any federal law enforcement official to be “held on a state criminal charge where the alleged crime arose during the performance of his federal duties,” and that the Justice Department would pursue legal action against any state officials who advocate for such enforcement.

    “In the meantime, federal agents and officers will continue to enforce federal law and will not be deterred by the threat of arrest by California authorities who have abdicated their duty to protect their constituents,” Blanche wrote.

    The threat of arrest for federal officers had originated in part with San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins, who had written on social media that if federal agents “come to San Francisco and illegally harass our residents … I will not hesitate to do my job and hold you accountable just like I do other violators of the law every single day.”

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    Kevin Rector

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  • ‘They smashed into me’: Activist says video shows ICE rammed his truck. Agents claim the opposite

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    Video footage that appears to show federal immigration agents using their vehicle to ram into the truck of an immigrant rights activist has sparked controversy and public outrage in the city of Oxnard, an agricultural town that has been the frequent target of immigration raids.

    At the center of the controversy is a claim by federal agents that the activist was the aggressor, ramming into the agents’ vehicle.

    The incident began shortly before 8 a.m. Thursday when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents notified the Oxnard Police Department that their vehicle had been rammed by a civilian’s vehicle near the intersection of 8th and A streets, according to Sgt. Martin Cook.

    “We responded, and ICE agents detained an individual, and a crowd started to gather,” Cook said. “We were there to keep the peace and prevent any type of altercation with ICE or any other federal agency.”

    Cook said that federal agencies took control of the investigation. He did not know if the person arrested by agents requested a police report and referred all questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees several agencies including ICE and Customs and Border Protection.

    VC Defensa, an immigrant rights group that has been documenting immigration raids in the region, said on Instagram that one of its volunteers, whom the group identified as Leo Martinez, had been arrested.

    The group also released video footage taken by eyewitnesses that they said showed that the allegation by federal agents against Martinez was false.

    “ICE intentionally struck Leo’s truck and blocked his exit while Leo was exercising his right to observe ICE activity,” the group stated in one of its Instagram posts.

    The video starts with a Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows tailing a dark gray truck before ramming into the passenger door on the driver’s side. The driver of the truck then pulls into a dirt lot, where the group says Martinez was arrested.

    “This shameful escalation by ICE is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate those of conscience who are standing up against Trump’s assault on immigrants,” the group said on Instagram. “We will not be deterred, and we will continue to keep our communities safe.”

    The incident is the latest controversy involving federal immigration agents that has not only sparked outrage among activists and residents but also raised questions about some of the claims agents previously have made.

    Two months ago, federal immigration officers stopped Francisco Longoria in San Bernardino. During the encounter, Longoria, who was in his truck with his 18-year-old son and 23-year-old son-in-law, said he feared for their safety after masked officers shattered his car window, then he drove off and an officer fired several rounds at the truck.

    Department of Homeland Security officials have said officers were injured during the encounter when Longoria tried to “run them down,” prompting one officer to “discharge his firearm in self-defense.”

    Attorneys for Longoria dispute that their client injured the officers or attempted to hit them and have called for an investigation of the shooting.

    In June, Arturo Hermosillo was accused of ramming his van against a federal agent’s vehicle when he was instructed by the agents to move his van back to make room for an ambulance for a woman who had been injured during an immigration sweep.

    Hermosillo was reversing when he said a federal agent standing near the vehicle pushed in his side view mirror, blocking his view; Hermosillo subsequently bumped into a vehicle behind him. Shortly after, agents pulled him out of the van.

    Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin told The Times in an email at the time that a person “rammed his vehicle into a law enforcement vehicle” during the June 19 operation

    “CBP Agents were also assaulted during the operation and verbally harassed,” she said.

    Videos of that day did not capture any assaults; they showed residents yelling at agents.

    The incident in Oxnard mirrors a level of aggression by federal agents seen on the streets of Chicago.

    A Chicago-area mayor said ICE agents used excessive force when making arrests at a cemetery. A pastor who was protesting at a detention center was shot in the head with a pepper ball. Troubled by the clashes between agents and the public, one federal judge is considering ordering agents to wear body cameras.

    The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment from The Times. In a statement to CNN, however, DHS said that claims that agency is using “harsher approaches” are “smearing” federal agents who “put their lives on the line every day to enforce the law.”

    In downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, just outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center where a crowd had gathered with “Free Leo Now!” and “ICE out of L.A.” signs, they listened to Martinez as he thanked them for their support and their work.

    “I knew I didn’ t do anything f— wrong; that’s why they released me with pending charges,” he told the crowd. “That’s what they do with pretty much a lot of our volunteers cause we didn’t do s— wrong.

    “They smashed into me,” he continued as people clapped. “And then they tried to accuse me of assaulting them, what kind of bulls— is that?”

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    Ruben Vives

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  • New California law banning officers, agents from covering their faces sparks enforcement debate

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    California has become the first state to ban most law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from covering their faces while on duty.Governor Gavin Newsom signed what sponsors have called the “No Secret Police Act” into law on Saturday.The law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2026, makes exceptions for the use of motorcycle or other safety helmets, sunglasses, or other standard law enforcement gear not designed with the purpose of hiding anyone’s identity. The California Highway Patrol is also exempt. Officers who violate the law could face charges or lose their qualified immunity.The bill was a direct response to recent immigration raids in California, where federal agents wore masks while making arrests.”ICE. Unmask. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? You’re going to go out and you’re going to do enforcement. Provide an ID,” Newsom said Saturday at a news conference in Los Angeles.Right now, it’s not clear how or if state can enforce the ban on federal agents.Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli posted on X Saturday saying California has no jurisdiction over the federal government. “I’ve directed our federal agencies that the law signed today has no effect on our operations. Our agents will continue to protect their identities,” he said in a post to X. As for local jurisdictions, Sgt. Amar Gandhi with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said lawmakers are creating a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”This will have no consequence to quite literally anybody. They have no jurisdiction over federal authorities. When is the last time you walked outside and saw a patrolman in a mask? It doesn’t happen,” he said. “It’s absolutely stupid and useless. This doesn’t affect anybody it’s intended to effect.”Advocacy groups like NorCal Resist said they are looking forward to learning about how the new law will be enforced. They sent a statement reading in part, “We are encouraged to see steps being taken to end these disturbing, secret police tactics that have created terror in our immigrant communities.”The White House also sent a statement to KCRA 3. It reads in part, “ICE officers wear masks to protect themselves and their families from being doxed. ICE officers act heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities with the utmost professionalism. Anyone pointing the finger at law enforcement officers instead of the criminals are simply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens.”Newsom signed the bill along with several others aimed at protecting California’s immigrant communities.The package of legislation would require that families be notified when immigration agents come on school campuses and require a judicial warrant or court order before giving student information or classroom access to ICE.The new legislation would also require a warrant or court order before allowing agents access to emergency rooms and other nonpublic areas of a hospital. And it would clarify that immigration information collected by a health care provider is medical information.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    California has become the first state to ban most law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from covering their faces while on duty.

    Governor Gavin Newsom signed what sponsors have called the “No Secret Police Act” into law on Saturday.

    The law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2026, makes exceptions for the use of motorcycle or other safety helmets, sunglasses, or other standard law enforcement gear not designed with the purpose of hiding anyone’s identity. The California Highway Patrol is also exempt.

    Officers who violate the law could face charges or lose their qualified immunity.

    The bill was a direct response to recent immigration raids in California, where federal agents wore masks while making arrests.

    “ICE. Unmask. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? You’re going to go out and you’re going to do enforcement. Provide an ID,” Newsom said Saturday at a news conference in Los Angeles.

    Right now, it’s not clear how or if state can enforce the ban on federal agents.

    Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli posted on X Saturday saying California has no jurisdiction over the federal government.

    “I’ve directed our federal agencies that the law signed today has no effect on our operations. Our agents will continue to protect their identities,” he said in a post to X.

    As for local jurisdictions, Sgt. Amar Gandhi with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said lawmakers are creating a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

    “This will have no consequence to quite literally anybody. They have no jurisdiction over federal authorities. When is the last time you walked outside and saw a patrolman in a mask? It doesn’t happen,” he said. “It’s absolutely stupid and useless. This doesn’t affect anybody it’s intended to effect.”

    Advocacy groups like NorCal Resist said they are looking forward to learning about how the new law will be enforced. They sent a statement reading in part, “We are encouraged to see steps being taken to end these disturbing, secret police tactics that have created terror in our immigrant communities.”

    The White House also sent a statement to KCRA 3. It reads in part, “ICE officers wear masks to protect themselves and their families from being doxed. ICE officers act heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities with the utmost professionalism. Anyone pointing the finger at law enforcement officers instead of the criminals are simply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens.”

    Newsom signed the bill along with several others aimed at protecting California’s immigrant communities.

    The package of legislation would require that families be notified when immigration agents come on school campuses and require a judicial warrant or court order before giving student information or classroom access to ICE.

    The new legislation would also require a warrant or court order before allowing agents access to emergency rooms and other nonpublic areas of a hospital. And it would clarify that immigration information collected by a health care provider is medical information.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • L.A. congressional Democrats demand answers on Border Patrol force outside Newsom event

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    Two weeks ago, scores of masked, gun-toting federal immigration agents assembled in front of the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles.

    Inside the museum, Gov. Gavin Newsom was surrounded by nearly every powerful Democrat in California, preparing to announce that he would take on President Trump’s redistricting plans with a special election campaign. Outside, Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino was flanked by dozens of agents who looked ready for battle.

    Now, a number of Southern California members of Congress are demanding answers about the enforcement action outside Newsom’s news conference — and the decision-making process behind it — in a letter sent Tuesday to Department of Homeland Security leaders.

    “We just wanted to get some questions answered,” said Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), who spearheaded the letter. “I was at Newsom’s press conference. It was really shocking to have as many as a hundred federal officers in tactical gear just appear.”

    The letter was sent to Bovino, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons and White House border advisor Tom Homan. It was signed by at least 12 other congressional Democrats, including Sen. Alex Padilla and Reps. Judy Chu (Monterey Park), Gil Cisneros (Covina), Robert Garcia (Long Beach), Luz Rivas (North Hollywood), Ted Lieu (Torrance), Nanette Diaz Barragán (San Pedro) and Brad Sherman (Sherman Oaks).

    The letter requests that answers to a number of questions be provided in writing by Sept. 4.

    The group asked who originally made the request to deploy agents outside the Japanese American National Museum on Aug. 14; whether the subject matter of Newsom’s news conference was a consideration in the decision to deploy federal agents; and whether the size of the force was standard; and what operational criteria were used to determine the size and composition of the force deployed.

    As the agents massed outside the building, Newsom was announcing a plan to counter a Republican-led redistricting push by redrawing California’s own congressional districts to favor Democrats. Last week, the California Legislature approved a November special election where voters will decide the fate of the measure.

    The letter also asks for details about the two arrests made during the Little Tokyo operation and whether Homeland Security knew those individuals would be present when it decided to conduct its immigration enforcement action. One of the individuals arrested happened to be delivering strawberries as the agents convened at the museum. He now faces deportation to Mexico.

    “It was outrageous that Trump and his supporters called ICE on us as we were conducting our redistricting press conference,” Chu said. “It was clearly an attempt to intimidate us and to send a political message that he would use his law enforcement capabilities to make us feel afraid.”

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    Julia Wick

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  • Home Depots across L.A. become tense battleground in new phase of ICE raids

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    While the number of immigration raids in Southern California have slowed in recent weeks, the focus on Home Depots appears to have intensified.

    Parking lots at those stores have become a key new battleground in the federal government’s evolving strategy of immigration enforcement.

    “Home Depot, whether they like it or not, they are the epicenter of raids,” said Pablo Alvarado, the co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a group that represents the tens of thousands of day laborers working in L.A.

    On Thursday, agents moved on a Home Depot parking lot in Monrovia, sending laborers running, including a man who jumped a wall and onto the 210 Freeway, where he was fatally struck. A day prior, fear of a possible raid at a Ladera Ranch location sparked warnings across social media.

    Since a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting federal agents from targeting people solely based on their race, language, vocation, or location, the number of arrests in Southern California declined in July.

    But over the last two weeks, some higher-profile raids have returned, often taking place at Home Depot locations, where immigrant laborers congregate looking for work.

    The renewed burst of raids outside neighborhood Home Depots began Aug. 6, when a man drove a Penske moving truck to a Home Depot in Westlake and began soliciting day laborers when, all of a sudden, Border Patrol agents jumped out of the back of the vehicle and began to chase people down. Sixteen people were arrested.

    The raid — branded “Operation Trojan House” by the Trump administration — was showcased by government officials with footage from an embedded Fox News TV crew. “For those who thought Immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again,” acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted on X.

    The next day, federal agents raided a Home Depot in San Bernardino. Then, on Aug. 8, they conducted two raids outside a Home Depot in Van Nuys in what DHS described as a “targeted immigration raid” that resulted in the arrest of seven undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

    Over the weekend, activists say, a Home Depot was targeted in Cypress Park and word spread that federal agents were at a Home Depot in Marina del Rey. On Monday, day laborers were nabbed outside a Home Depot in North Hollywood, and on Tuesday more were arrested at a Home Depot in Inglewood.

    “And it’s not just day laborers they are taking,” Alvarado added, noting that when federal agents descend on the hardware store’s parking lots, they question anyone who looks Latino or appears to be an immigrant and ask them about their papers. “They also get customers of Home Depot who look like day laborers, who speak Spanish.”

    The national hardware chain — whose parking lots have for decades been an unofficial gathering point for undocumented laborers hoping to get hired for a day of home repair or construction work — was one of the first sites of the L.A. raids in June that kicked off the Trump administration’s intense immigration enforcement across Southern California.

    Nearly 3,000 people across seven counties in L.A. were arrested in June as masked federal agents conducted roving patrols, carrying out a chaotic series of sweeps of street corners, bus stops, warehouses, farms, car washes and Home Depots. But the number of raids and arrests plummeted dramatically across L.A. in mid-July after the court order blocked federal agents across the region from targeting people unless they had reasonable suspicion they entered the country illegally.

    On Aug. 1, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a Trump administration request to lift the restraining order prohibiting roving raids. But within just a few days, federal agents were back, raiding the Westlake Home Depot.

    “Even though we’ve had two successful court decisions, the administration continues with their unconstitutional behavior coming and going to Home Depot stores,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference Thursday. “They are violating” the temporary restraining order, she added.

    Advocates for undocumented immigrants question the legality of federal agents’ practices. In many cases, they say, agents are failing to show judicial warrants. They argue that the way agents are targeting day laborers and other brown-skinned people is illegal.

    “It’s clear racial profiling,” said Alvarado.

    The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions from The Times about how many people have been arrested over the last week at Home Depots across L.A. or explain what why the agency has resumed raids outside hardware stores.

    After last Friday’s raids on Van Nuys, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said four of the seven individuals arrested had criminal records, including driving under the influence of alcohol, disorderly conduct and failing to adhere to previous removal orders. She dismissed activists’ claims that the Trump administration was violating the temporary restraining order.

    “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — not their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” McLaughlin said. “America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists — truly the worst of the worst from Golden State communities.”

    Activists say that federal agents are targeting Home Depots because they are hubs for a constant flow of day laborers — mostly Latino and many of whom are undocumented.

    “They know that at the Home Depot there will always be people who are day laborers, many of them undocumented,” said Ron Gochez, a member of the Unión del Barrio, a group that patrols neighborhoods to alert residents of immigration sweeps. “And so they figured it would be a much easier, faster and more effective way for them to kidnap people — just to go to the Home Depot.”

    Another reason the hardware store parking lots had become a focal point, Gochez said, is that they present a wide, open space to hunt people down.

    “There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Gochez said. “And when some of the day laborers started running inside of the Home Depot stores, the agents literally have chased them down the aisles of the store.”

    In Los Angeles, pressure is mounting on Home Depot to speak out against the targeting of people outside their stores.

    “They haven’t spoken out; their customers are being taken away and they are not saying anything,” Alvarado said. “They haven’t issued a public condemnation of the fact that their customers have been abducted in their premises.”

    This is not the first time Home Depot has found itself in the center of a political firestorm.

    In 2019, the Atlanta-based company faced boycott campaigns after its co-founder Bernie Marcus, a Republican megadonor, announced his support for Trump’s reelection campaign. Back then, the chain tried to distance itself from its founder, noting that Marcus retired from the company in 2002 and did not speak on its behalf.

    But in a global city like L.A., where civic and political leaders are rallying against the raids and public schools have developed policies blocking federal agents from entering their premises, there are growing calls for the national hardware chain to develop consistent policies on raids, such as demanding federal agents have judicial warrants before descending on their lots.

    On Tuesday, a coalition of advocacy groups led a protest in MacArthur Park and urged Angelenos to support a 24-hour boycott of Home Depot and other businesses that they say have not stopped federal immigration agents from conducting raids in their parking lots or chasing people down in their stores.

    “We call them an accomplice to these raids, because there is no other location that’s been hit as much as they have,” Gochez said. “We think that Home Depot is being complicit. They’re actually, we think, in some way collaborating, whether directly or not.”

    Home Depot denies that it is working with federal agents or has advance notice of federal immigration enforcement activities.

    “That’s not true,” George Lane, manager of corporate communications for Home Depot, said in an email to The Times. “We aren’t notified that these activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations. We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate.”

    Lane said Home Depot asked associates to report any suspected immigration enforcement operations immediately and not to engage for their own safety.

    “If associates feel uncomfortable after witnessing ICE activity,” he added, “we offer them the flexibility they need to take care of themselves and their families.”

    The targeting of day laborers outside L.A. Home Depots is particularly contentious because day laborers, primarily Latino men, have for decades represented an integral part of the Los Angeles labor force.

    Since the 1960s, day laborers have formed an informal labor market that has boosted this sprawling city, helping it expand, and in recent months they have played a pivotal role in rebuilding L.A. after the January firestorms tore through Pacific Palisades and Altadena destroying thousands of homes.

    “It appears they’re targeting and taking the very people rebuilding our cities,” Alvarado said. “Without migrant labor, both documented and undocumented, it’s impossible to try to rebuild Los Angeles.”

    In many L.A. neighborhoods, day laborers are such a constant, ingrained presence at Home Depots that the city’s Economic and Workforce Development Department sets up its resource centers for day laborers next to the stores.

    Day laborers are also a reason many customers come to Home Depot.

    “Day laborers are a part of their business model,” Alvarado said. “You come in, you get your materials, and then you get your helper.”

    Alvaro M. Huerta, the Director of Litigation and Advocacy of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, part of a coalition of groups suing Homeland Security over immigration raids in L.A., said the growing number of raids at Home Depot parking lots was “deeply troubling” and raised serious concerns that the federal government was continuing to violate the July temporary restraining order.

    “This looks a lot like it did before a temporary restraining order was in place,” Huerta said. “My sense is they feel they can justify raids at Home Depots more than roving raids.”

    Lawyers, Huerta said, were investigating the raids and asking some of the people taken into custody a series of questions: Did agents ever present a warrant? What kinds of questions did they ask? Did you feel like you were able to leave?

    “One of the things we’ve been arguing is that some of these situations are coercive,” Huerta said. “The government is saying, ‘No, we’re allowed to ask questions, and people can volunteer answers.’ But we’ve argued that in many of these cases, people don’t feel like they cannot speak.”

    Attorneys will likely present information about the arrests to court at a preliminary injunction hearing in September, Huerta said, as they press Trump administration attorneys for evidence that the arrests are targeted.

    Huerta said some of the people caught up in recent Home Depot raids were not even looking for work at the parking lot.

    One man, a 22-year-old who was getting gas across the street from a Home Depot last week, Huerta said, was detained even though he had special immigrant juvenile status as he was brought to the U.S. as a teen. The man had an asylum application pending, work authorization and no criminal history — and yet a week after he was arrested he was confined in Adelanto Detention Center.

    Times staff writer Julia Wick contributed to this report.

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    Jenny Jarvie

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  • Texas, Florida hit with far more ICE arrests than California. But that’s not the whole story

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    Ever since federal immigration raids ramped up across California, triggering fierce protests that prompted President Trump to deploy troops to Los Angeles, the state has emerged as the symbolic battleground of the administration’s deportation campaign.

    But even as arrests soared, California was not the epicenter of Trump’s anti-immigrant project.

    In the first five months of Trump’s second term, California lagged behind the staunchly red states of Texas and Florida in the total arrests. According to a Los Angeles Times analysis of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from the Deportation Data Project, Texas reported 26,341 arrests — nearly a quarter of all ICE arrests nationally — followed by 12,982 in Florida and 8,460 in California.

    Even in June, when masked federal immigration agents swept through L.A., jumping out of vehicles to snatch people from bus stops, car washes and parking lots, California saw 3,391 undocumented immigrants arrested — more than Florida, but still only about half as many as Texas.

    When factoring in population, California drops to 27th in the nation, with 217 arrests per million residents — about a quarter of Texas’ 864 arrests per million and less than half of a whole slew of states including Florida, Arkansas, Utah, Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Nevada.

    The data, released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the government, excludes arrests made after June 26 and lacks identifying state details in 5% of cases. Nevertheless, it provides the most detailed look yet of national ICE operations.

    Immigration experts say it is not surprising that California — home to the largest number of undocumented immigrants in the nation and the birthplace of the Chicano movement — lags behind Republican states in the total number of arrests or arrests as a percentage of the population.

    “The numbers are secondary to the performative politics of the moment,” said Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University who specializes in immigration enforcement.

    Part of the reason Republican-dominated states have higher arrest numbers — particularly when measured against population — is they have a longer history of working directly with ICE, and a stronger interest in collaboration. In red states from Texas to Mississippi, local law enforcement officers routinely cooperate with federal agents, either by taking on ICE duties through so-called 287(g) agreements or by identifying undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated and letting ICE into their jails and prisons.

    Indeed, data show that just 7% of ICE arrests made this year in California were made through the Criminal Alien Program, an initiative that requests that local law enforcement identify undocumented immigrants in federal, state and local prisons and jails.

    That’s significantly lower than the 55% of arrests in Texas and 46% in Florida made through prisons or jails. And other conservative states with smaller populations relied on the program even more heavily: 75% of ICE arrests in Alabama and 71% in Indiana took place via prisons and jails.

    “State cooperation has been an important buffer in ICE arrests and ICE operations in general for years,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a Sacramento-based senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “We’ve seen that states are not only willing to cooperate with ICE, but are proactively now establishing 287(g) agreements with their local law enforcement, are naturally going to cast a wider net of enforcement in the boundaries of that state.”

    While California considers only some criminal offenses, such as serious felonies, significant enough to share information with ICE; Texas and Florida are more likely to report offenses that may not be as severe, such as minor traffic infractions.

    Still, even if fewer people were arrested in California than other states, it also witnessed one of the most dramatic increases in arrests in the country.

    California ranked 30th in ICE arrests per million in February. By June, the state had climbed to 10th place.

    ICE arrested around 8,460 immigrants across California between Jan. 20 and June 26, a 212% increase compared with the five months before Trump took office. That contrasts with a 159% increase nationally for the same period.

    Much of ICE’s activity in California was hyper-focused on Greater Los Angeles: About 60% of ICE arrests in the state took place in the seven counties in and around L.A. during Trump’s first five months in office. The number of arrests in the Los Angeles area soared from 463 in January to 2,185 in June — a 372% spike, second only to New York’s 432% increase.

    Even if California is not seeing the largest numbers of arrests, experts say, the dramatic increase in captures stands out from other places because of the lack of official cooperation and public hostility toward immigration agents.

    “A smaller increase in a place that has very little cooperation is, in a way, more significant than seeing an increase in areas that have lots and lots of cooperation,” Kocher said.

    ICE agents, Kocher said, have to work much harder to arrest immigrants in places like L.A. or California that define themselves as “sanctuary” jurisdictions and limit their cooperation with federal immigration agents.

    “They really had to go out of their way,” he said.

    Trump administration officials have long argued that sanctuary jurisdictions give them no choice but to round up people on the streets.

    Not long after Trump won the 2024 election and the L.A. City Council voted unanimously to block any city resources from being used for immigration enforcement, incoming border enforcement advisor Tom Homan threatened an onslaught.

    “If I’ve got to send twice as many officers to L.A. because we’re not getting any assistance, then that’s what we’re going to do,” Homan told Newsmax.

    With limited cooperation from California jails, ICE agents went out into communities, rounding up people they suspected of being undocumented on street corners and at factories and farms.

    That shift in tactics meant that immigrants with criminal convictions no longer made up the bulk of California ICE arrests. While about 66% of immigrants arrested in the first four months of the year had criminal convictions, that percentage fell to 30% in June.

    The sweeping nature of the arrests drew immediate criticism as racial profiling and spawned robust community condemnation.

    Some immigration experts and community activists cite the organized resistance in L.A. as another reason the numbers of ICE arrests were lower in California than in Texas and even lower than dozens of states by percentage of population.

    “The reason is the resistance, organized resistance: the people who literally went to war with them in Paramount, in Compton, in Bell and Huntington Park,” said Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio Los Angeles, an independent political group that patrols neighborhoods to alert residents of immigration sweeps.

    “They’ve been chased out in the different neighborhoods where we organize,” he said. “We’ve been able to mobilize the community to surround the agents when they come to kidnap people.”

    In L.A., activists patrolled the streets from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week, Gochez said. They faced off with ICE agents in Home Depot parking lots and at warehouses and farms.

    “We were doing everything that we could to try to keep up with the intensity of the military assault,” Gochez said. “The resistance was strong. … We’ve been able, on numerous occasions, to successfully defend the communities and drive them out of our community.”

    The protests prompted Trump to deploy the National Guard and Marines in June, with the stated purpose of protecting federal buildings and personnel. But the administration’s ability to ratchet up arrests hit a roadblock on July 11. That’s when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking immigration agents in Southern and Central California from targeting people based on race, language, vocation or location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

    That decision was upheld last week by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But on Thursday, the Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court to lift the temporary ban on its patrols, arguing that it “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”

    The order led to a significant drop in arrests across Los Angeles last month. But this week, federal agents carried out a series of raids at Home Depots from Westlake to Van Nuys.

    Trump administration officials have indicated that the July ruling and arrest slowdown do not signal a permanent change in tactics.

    “Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want: more agents in the communities and more work site enforcement,” Homan told reporters two weeks after the court blocked roving patrols. “Why is that? Because they won’t let one agent arrest one bad guy in the jail.”

    U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, who has been leading operations in California, posted a fast-moving video on X that spliced L.A. Mayor Karen Bass telling reporters that “this experiment that was practiced on the city of Los Angeles failed” with video showing him grinning. Then, as a frenetic drum and bass mix kicked in, federal agents jump out of a van and chase people.

    “When you’re faced with opposition to law and order, what do you do?” Bovino wrote. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!”

    Clearly, the Trump administration is willing to expend significant resources to make California a political battleground and test case, Ruiz Soto said. The question is, at what economic and political cost?

    “If they really wanted to scale up and ramp up their deportations,” Ruiz Soto said, “they could go to other places, do it more more safely, more quickly and more efficiently.”

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    Jenny Jarvie, Gabrielle LaMarr LeMee

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