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Tag: undocumented immigrant

  • The White House says California uses a ‘loophole’ to give undocumented immigrants Medicaid. Experts disagree

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    Of all the finger-pointing and recriminations that come with the current federal government shutdown, one of the most striking elements is that the Trump administration blames it on Democratic support for granting taxpayer-funded healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants. The White House has called out California specifically, saying the state exploits a legal “loophole” to pay for that coverage with federal dollars, and other states have followed suit.

    “California utilized an egregious loophole — since employed by several other states — to draw down federal matching funds used to provide Medicaid benefits for illegal immigrants,” the White House said in a policy memo released Wednesday as a budget stalemate forced a shutdown of the U.S. government.

    The administration said that the Working Families Tax Cut Act, which goes into effect in October 2026, closes the loophole by prohibiting the use of taxpayer money to provide healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants and other noncitizens.

    In the memo, the White House accused congressional Democrats of wanting to repeal those policy reforms as a condition to keep the government running.

    Izzy Gardon, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said there’s nothing to the administration’s underlying assertion that California and other states have found some sort of loophole that enables them to funnel Medicaid money to noncitizens.

    “This is false — CA does not do this,” Gardon said in a one-line email to the L.A. Times.

    Healthcare policy experts agree. California is not exploiting a “loophole,” said Adriana Ramos-Yamamoto, a senior policy analyst at the California Budget & Policy Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that studies inequality.

    “The state is making lawful, transparent budget choices to invest in health coverage with its own dollars,” Ramos-Yamamoto said in a statement to The Times. “These investments improve health outcomes, strengthen communities, and lower health care costs in the long run.”

    At issue is Section 71117 of the Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which imposes nearly $1 trillion in reductions to federal Medicaid healthcare spending for low-income Americans over the next 10 years. The provision allows states “to finance the non-federal share of Medicaid spending through multiple sources, including state general funds, healthcare related taxes (or ‘provider taxes’), and local government funds,” as long as taxes on healthcare providers are imposed uniformly so as not to unfairly burden providers of Medicaid services.

    The bottom line, analysts said, is the administration is citing a problem with the law that doesn’t seem to exist, at least not in California.

    “The so-called California loophole references a provision in the law that ends a waiver of the uniformity requirements for provider taxes — this provision has nothing to do with using federal funds to pay for care for undocumented immigrants,” said Jennifer Tolbert, a healthcare expert at the nonprofit healthcare research, polling and news organization KFF.

    “But the White House makes the claim that California uses the money they get from the provider tax to pay for care for undocumented immigrants,” Tolbert said.

    Fact-checking the administration’s claim is all the more difficult because there are no official data on how states spend money collected from provider taxes, Alice Burns, another KFF analyst, added. What’s more, California is among several states that offer some level of Medicaid coverage to all immigrants regardless of status. And because California cannot be federally reimbursed for healthcare spending on people who are not in the country legally, those expenses must be covered at the state level.

    The White House memo goes on to claim that if Democrats were to succeed at repealing the provisions in the Working Families Tax Act, the federal government would have to spend an additional $34.6 billion in taxpayer money “that would continue to primarily be abused by California to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants.”

    This assertion also misconstrues the facts, according to KFF.

    “What we do know is that the $35 billion in savings that is referenced in the White House Fact Sheet refers to the federal government’s estimated savings … resulting from states making changes to their provider tax systems,” KFF spokesperson Tammie Smith said. That is, the projected savings aren’t connected to healthcare for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

    Political squabbling aside, California’s approach to medical coverage for low-income, undocumented immigrants is set to undergo a major shift thanks to provisions in the 2025-26 state budget that the Democrat-led legislature and Newsom approved in June.

    Starting on Jan. 1, adults “who do not have Satisfactory Immigration Status (SIS)” will no longer be able to enroll in Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, according to the state’s Department of Health Care Services webpage. Those who already have this coverage can keep it and continue to renew their enrollment. And starting on July 1, Medi-Cal enrollees who are age 19-59, undocumented and not pregnant will have to pay a $30 monthly premium to keep their coverage.

    The changes, which Newsom called for in the spring to offset a ballooning Medi-Cal budget deficit, drew criticism from some immigrant rights groups, with the California Immigrant Policy Center describing the moves as “discriminatory.”

    “In light of the militarized mass immigration raids and arrests causing fear and chaos across California, we are disappointed that the governor and the leadership in the Legislature chose to adopt a state budget that makes our communities even more vulnerable,” Masih Fouladi, the center’s executive director said at the time.

    Everyone in California who qualifies for Medi-Cal will still be eligible to receive emergency medical and dental care, no matter their immigration status.

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    Tyrone Beason

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  • Protester found not guilty of assault despite top Border Patrol official’s testimony

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    U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino — the brash agent who led a phalanx of military personnel into MacArthur Park this summer — was called as a witness Wednesday in a federal misdemeanor assault case against a protester, who allegedly struck a federal agent.

    Bovino, one of the faces of President Trump’s immigration crackdown that began in Los Angeles and is now underway in Chicago, took the stand to testify that he witnessed an assault committed by Brayan Ramos-Brito in Paramount on June 7.

    But a jury acquitted the defendant early Wednesday afternoon after a little over an hour of deliberations. The not guilty verdict came shortly after Bovino was questioned by the defense about previous comments he made referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum.”

    During the two-day trial a number of videos were displayed showing a Border Patrol agent shove Ramos-Brito, but none clearly illustrated his alleged attack on the agent.

    Outfitted in his green Border Patrol uniform, Bovino was the lone Border Patrol agent to testify that he witnessed Ramos-Brito drag his arm back and strike an agent with an open palm in the chest.

    Ramos-Brito and his attorneys declined to comment after the verdict, but were seen celebrating the acquittal in the downtown federal courthouse. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

    The case could prove to be an ominous bellwether for embattled U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, who has struggled to win indictments against those charged with committing crimes while protesting the president’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Southern California.

    Prosecutors originally brought felony charges against Ramos-Brito, which were reduced to misdemeanors. Charges against a man arrested alongside him were dismissed earlier this year.

    The incident that ended in Ramos-Brito’s arrest occurred during a skirmish between federal law enforcement agents and locals frustrated by Trump’s immigration policies.

    On a cross-examination, federal public defender Cuauhtemoc Ortega questioned Bovino about being the subject of a misconduct investigation a few years ago and receiving a reprimand for referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum, filth and trash.”

    Bovino denied referring to undocumented immigrants that way and said he was referring to “a specific criminal illegal alien” — a Honduran national who he said had raped a child and reentered the United States and had been caught at or near the Baton Rouge Border Patrol station.

    “I said that about a specific individual, not about undocumented peoples, that’s not correct,” he said.

    Ortega pushed back, reading from the reprimand, which Bovino signed, stating that he was describing “illegal aliens.”

    “They did not say one illegal alien,” Ortega said. “They said you describing illegal aliens, and or criminals, as scum, trash and filth is misconduct. Isn’t that correct?”

    “The report states that,” Bovino said.

    Ortega said that Bovino was warned if he committed any instance of misconduct again, “you could be fired.”

    Since June, more than 40 people have been charged with a range of federal offenses, including assaulting officers and interfering with immigration enforcement, at either downtown protests or the scene of immigration raids throughout the region this summer, the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. said this week.

    Ramos-Brito’s case was the first to go to trial.

    In closing arguments, Ortega accused the Border Patrol agent at the center of the case of lying and Bovino of “trying to cover up for him.” He cited Bovino’s past reprimand as evidence that he harbors bias.

    But prosecutors pushed back on that, with Asst. U.S. Atty. Patrick Kibbe arguing that the defense “wants you to believe that there’s some grand conspiracy against the defendant Mr. Ramos Britos. These officers don’t know him.”

    Kibbe acknowledged that Bovino’s prior statements were unprofessional.

    “Does it have anything to do with what he saw on June 7? No,” Kibbe said. “This is not about immigration enforcement… it’s about whether the defendant struck Agent Morales.”

    The case centers around a protest outside the Paramount Business Center, across the street from Home Depot.

    Already tensions were high, with federal officials raiding a retail and distribution warehouse in downtown L.A. in early June, arresting dozens of workers and a top union official.

    At the Paramount complex, which houses Homeland Security Investigation offices, protesters began arriving around 10 a.m on June 7. Among them was Ramos-Brito.

    Several videos played in court Tuesday showed Ramos-Brito and another man cursing at Border Patrol agents and stepping inches from their faces with balled fists. At one point, Ramos-Brito approached multiple Border Patrol agents who appeared to be Latino and said “you’re a f—ing disgrace if you’re Mexican.”

    Kibbe said that while many protesters were “passionately” demonstrating, Ramos-Brito crossed a line by striking U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jonathan Morales.

    “There’s a constitutional right to protest peacefully. It is a crime to hit a federal officer,” Kibbe said.

    Federal public defender M. Bo Griffith, however, said Ramos-Brito was the victim of an assault, not the other way around.

    Both social media and body-worn camera footage played in court clearly show Morales shove Ramos-Brito first, sending him flying backward into the busy intersection of Alondra Blvd. While footage shows Ramos-Brito marching back toward the agent with his fists balled, no angle clearly captures the alleged assault.

    Aside from Morales, three other agents took the stand Tuesday, but none said they saw Ramos-Brito hit Morales. None of the agents who testified were outfitted with body-worn cameras that day, according to Border Patrol Asst. Chief Jorge Rivera-Navarro, who serves as chief of staff for “Operation At Large” in Los Angeles.

    Some of the Border Patrol agents swarming L.A. in recent months come from stations that don’t normally wear body-worn cameras, according to Navarro. He testified that he has since issued an order that led to cameras being distributed to agents working in L.A.

    The clash that led to the assault charge started when Ramos-Brito stepped to U.S. Border Patrol Agent Eduardo Mejorado, who said he repeatedly asked Ramos-Brito to move to the sidewalk as the protest was blocking traffic. Video shows Mejorado place his hand on Ramos-Brito’s shoulder twice, and the defendant swatting it away.

    At that point, Morales, a 24-year veteran of the Border Patrol, said he thought he needed to step in and de-escalate the situation between his fellow agent and Ramos-Brito. He did so by shoving Ramos-Brito backward into the intersection, according to video played in court. Morales said Ramos-Brito then charged at him while cursing and threw a punch at the upper part of his chest and throat.

    On cross-examination, Griffith confronted Morales and Mejorado with inconsistencies between descriptions of the event they previously gave to a Homeland Security Investigations officer and their testimony in court. It was not the first time such a discrepancy affected the case.

    Federal prosecutors previously dropped charges against Jose Mojica, the other protester who was arrested alongside Ramos-Brito, after video footage called into question the testimony of an immigration enforcement agent.

    According to an investigation summary of Mojica’s arrest previously reviewed by The Times, Mejorado claimed a man was screaming in his face that he was going to “shoot him,” then punched him at the Paramount protest. The officer said he and other agents started chasing the man, but were “stopped by two other males,” later identified as Mojica and Ramos-Brito.

    Video played in court Tuesday and previously reported by The Times shows that sequence of events did not happen. Ramos-Brito and Mojica were arrested in a dogpile of agents after Ramos-Brito allegedly struck Mojica. There was no chase.

    Questioned about Mojica’s case in July, a Homeland Security spokesperson said they were unable to comment on cases “under active litigation.”

    Defense attorneys said Ramos-Brito sustained multiple contusions on his face, neck and back and had cuts and scrapes on his body from being dragged across the pavement later.

    According to his attorneys, Ramos-Brito’s only prior interaction with law enforcement was for driving without a license.

    On Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson had to remove 21 potential jurors from the pool, several of whom said they could not be impartial due to their views on immigration policy.

    Many of the potential jurors said they were first or second generation immigrants from the Philippines, Colombia, Bulgaria, Jamaica and Canada.

    “I believe that immigrants are part of this country and I’m kind of partial with the defendant,” said one man, a landscaper from Lancaster.

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    Brittny Mejia, James Queally

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  • California providers see ‘chilling effect’ if Trump ban on immigrant benefits is upheld

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    If the Trump administration succeeds in barring undocumented immigrants from federally funded “public benefit” programs, vulnerable children and families across California would suffer greatly, losing access to emergency shelters, vital healthcare, early education and life-saving nutritional support, according to state and local officials who filed their opposition to the changes in federal court.

    The new restrictions would harm undocumented immigrants but also U.S. citizens — including the U.S.-born children of immigrants and people suffering from mental illness and homelessness who lack documentation — and put intense stress on the state’s emergency healthcare system, the officials said.

    Head Start, which provides tens of thousands of children in the state with early education, healthcare and nutritional support, may have to shutter some of its programs if the new rules barring immigrants withstand a lawsuit filed by California and other liberal-led states, officials said.

    In a declaration filed as part of that litigation, Maria Guadalupe Jaime-Milehan, deputy director of the child care and developmental division of the California Department of Social Services, wrote that the restrictions would have an immediate “chilling effect” on immigrant and mixed-status families seeking support, but also cause broader “ripple effects” — especially in rural California communities that rely on such programs as “a critical safety net” for vulnerable residents, but also as major employers.

    “Children would lose educational, nutritional, and healthcare services. Parents or guardians may be forced to cut spending on other critical needs to fill the gaps, and some may even be forced out of work so they can care for their children,” Jaime-Milehan said.

    Rural communities would see programs shutter, and family providers lose their jobs, she wrote.

    Tony Thurmond, California’s superintendent of public instruction, warned in a declaration that the “chilling effect” from such rules could potentially drive away talented educators who disagree with such policies and decide to “seek other employment that does not discriminate against children and families.”

    Thurmond and Jaime-Milehan were among dozens of officials in 20 states and the District of Columbia who submitted declarations in support of those states’ lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s new rules. Six other officials from California also submitted declarations.

    The lawsuit followed announcements last month from various federal agencies — including Health and Human Services, Labor, Education and Agriculture — that funding recipients would be required to begin screening out undocumented immigrants.

    The announcements followed an executive order issued by President Trump in which he said his administration would “uphold the rule of law, defend against the waste of hard-earned taxpayer resources, and protect benefits for American citizens in need, including individuals with disabilities and veterans.”

    Trump’s order cited the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, commonly known as welfare reform, as barring noncitizens from participating in federally funded benefits programs, and criticized past administrations for providing exemptions to that law for certain “life or safety” programs — including those now being targeted for new restrictions.

    The order mandated that federal agencies restrict access to benefits programs for undocumented immigrants, in part to “prevent taxpayer resources from acting as a magnet and fueling illegal immigration to the United States.”

    California and the other states sued July 21, alleging the new restrictions target working mothers and their children in violation of federal law.

    “We’re not talking about waste, fraud, and abuse, we’re talking about programs that deliver essential childcare, healthcare, nutrition, and education assistance, programs that have for decades been open to all,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said.

    In addition to programs like Head Start, Bonta said the new restrictions threatened access to short-term shelters for homeless people, survivors of domestic violence and at-risk youth; emergency shelters for people during extreme weather; soup kitchens, community food banks and food support services for the elderly; and healthcare for people with mental illness and substance abuse issues.

    The declarations are part of a motion asking the federal judge overseeing the case to issue a preliminary injunction barring the changes from taking effect while the litigation plays out.

    Beth Neary, assistant director of HIV health services at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, wrote in her declaration that the new restrictions would impede healthcare services for an array of San Francisco residents experiencing homelessness — including undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens.

    “Individuals experiencing homelessness periodically lack identity and other documents that would be needed to verify their citizenship or immigration status due to frequent moves and greater risk of theft of their belongings,” she wrote.

    Colleen Chawla, chief of San Mateo County Health, wrote that her organization — the county’s “safety-net” care provider — has worked for years to build up trust in immigrant communities.

    “But if our clients worry that they will not be able to qualify for the care they need, or that they or members of their family face a risk of detention or deportation if they seek care, they will stop coming,” Chawla wrote. “This will exacerbate their health conditions.”

    Greta S. Hansen, chief operating officer of Santa Clara County, wrote that more than 40% of her county’s residents are foreign-born and more than 60% of the county’s children have at least one foreign-born parent — among the highest rates anywhere in the country.

    The administration’s changes would threaten all of them, but also everyone else in the county, she wrote.

    “The cumulative effect of patients not receiving preventive care and necessary medications would likely be a strain on Santa Clara’s emergency services, which would result in increased costs to Santa Clara and could also lead to decreased capacity for emergency care across the community,” Hansen wrote.

    The Trump administration has defended the new rules, including in court.

    In response to the states’ motion for preliminary injunction, attorneys for the administration argued that the rule changes are squarely in line with the 1996 welfare reform law and the rights of federal agencies to enforce it.

    They wrote that the notices announcing the new rules that were sent out by federal agencies “merely recognize that the breadth of benefits available to unqualified aliens is narrower than the agencies previously interpreted,” and “restore compliance with federal law and ensure that taxpayer-funded programs intended for the American people are not diverted to subsidize unqualified aliens.”

    The judge presiding over the case has yet to rule on the preliminary injunction.

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    Kevin Rector

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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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  • Plummeting ICE arrests in L.A. raise questions about Trump’s immigration agenda

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    Arrests of undocumented immigrants have dropped significantly across the Los Angeles region two months after the Trump administration launched its aggressive mass deportation operation, according to new figures released Wednesday by Homeland Security.

    Federal authorities told The Times on July 8 that federal agents had arrested 2,792 undocumented immigrants in the seven counties in and around L.A. since June 6. Homeland Security updated that number Wednesday, indicating that fewer than 1,400 immigrants have been arrested in the region in the last month.

    “Since June 6, 2025, ICE and CBP have made a total of 4,163 arrests in the Los Angeles area,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement provided to The Times.

    While 1,371 arrests across the L.A. region since July 8 is still a much higher figure than any recent month before June, it represents a notable drop from the 2,792 arrests during the previous month.

    The new figures confirm what many immigration experts suspected: The Trump administration’s immigration agenda in L.A. has faltered since federal courts blocked federal agents from arresting people without probable cause to believe they are in the U.S. illegally.

    McLaughlin said Wednesday that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s agenda remained the same.

    “Secretary Noem unleashed ICE and CBP to arrest criminal illegal aliens including terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and sexual predators,” McLaughlin said in a statement Wednesday. “We will continue to enforce the law and remove the worst of the worst.”

    Trump administration officials have long maintained they are focused on criminals. But a few days after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller announced in late May he had set a new goal of arresting 3,000 undocumented migrants across the country a day, federal agents fanned out across L.A. to snatch people off the streets and from their workplaces.

    White House top border policy advisor Tom Homan suggested federal officials adopted the strategy of raiding streets and workplaces to get around “sanctuary” jurisdictions, such as Los Angeles, that bar municipal resources and personnel from being used for immigration enforcement.

    “If we can’t arrest them in jail, we’ll go out to the communities,” Homan told CBS News.

    But after local protesters rallied to resist and Trump deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city, the administration’s ability to ramp up deportations across L.A. was dealt a blow in the federal courts.

    On July 11, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, issued a temporary restraining order that blocks federal agents in southern and central California from targeting people based on their race, language, vocation or location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

    That decision was upheld last Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court.

    “If, as Defendants suggest, they are not conducting stops that lack reasonable suspicion,” the panel wrote, “they can hardly claim to be irreparably harmed by an injunction aimed at preventing a subset of stops not supported by reasonable suspicion.”

    It’s hard to know whether July numbers signal a permanent change in tactics.

    On Tuesday, Border Patrol agent carried out a raid at the Home Depot in Westlake, arresting 16 people.

    “For those who thought Immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again,” acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted on X shortly after the raid. “The enforcement of federal law is not negotiable and there are no sanctuaries from the reach of the federal government.”

    Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said her office was looking into the matter but added: “From the video and from the stills, it looks like the exact same thing that we were seeing before.”

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    Jenny Jarvie

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  • Md. AG Brown joins lawsuit in support of policy on undocumented spouses, stepchildren – WTOP News

    Md. AG Brown joins lawsuit in support of policy on undocumented spouses, stepchildren – WTOP News

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    Maryland AG Anthony Brown (D) joined 19 other attorneys general Tuesday in support of a Biden administration plan that would let undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens apply for permanent residency without first having to leave the country.

    This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.

    Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) joined 19 other attorneys general Tuesday in support of a Biden administration plan that would let undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens apply for permanent residency without first having to leave the country.

    The amicus brief, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, supports the Department of Homeland Security’s “Keeping Families Together” program. The program would allow U.S. citizens’ family members to “parole in place” — remain in the U.S. while they apply for a green card. Without the policy, family members would have to leave the U.S. and apply to get back in.

    The program was announced Aug. 19 and quickly challenged by a coalition of Republican-led states. A federal judge in the case ruled Oct. 4 that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services can continue to accept applications, but cannot approve any cases before Nov. 8.

    “Our country’s immigration policy should not split families apart but aspire to keep them together,” Brown said in a statement. “Immigrants are an essential part of our State, and those with family members who are citizens should be allowed to remain in the country as they pursue their own path to permanent residency.”

    The coalition supporting the program note it includes specific requirements for applicants: undocumented spouses have to have be in the country for at least 10 consecutive years; a parent had to have entered into a legal marriage by June 17 of this year, and before a child’s 18th birthday; applicants can have no disqualifying criminal history and must “submit biometrics and pass national security and public safety vetting.”

    The brief claims more than 325,000 undocumented spouses work in “labor-short” industries such as construction, food and accommodation services and at-home health care.

    “Historically, immigrants often fill important jobs that may otherwise be difficult to fill …” according to the brief.

    Brown and the other attorneys general request the court to reject a request from 16 states, led by Texas, that filed a complaint to block the program from being implemented in those states.

    The Texas complaint says at least 433,000 people are married to U.S. citizens in 13 of the 16 states — it did not include estimated numbers of undocumented spouses in North Dakota, South Dakota or Wyoming — and would be eligible for the program.

    Officials from the Republican-led states claim not only would those undocumented take jobs from residents in their states, but would also “incur considerable financial injuries on education, healthcare, and law-enforcement costs.”

    A hearing, and if necessary, a bench trial would begin Nov. 5 in Tyler, Texas.

    Brown and the other attorneys general wrote in their brief filed Tuesday if the court agrees to any injunctive relief, it “should, at a minimum, be tailored to the specific plaintiffs in this case.”

    Besides Maryland, other attorneys general that joined the brief are from Washington, D.C., and the states of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

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    Will Vitka

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  • Undocumented immigrants in California could have a new path to homeownership

    Undocumented immigrants in California could have a new path to homeownership

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    Undocumented immigrants could have a new pathway to the American dream of owning a home.

    Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno) introduced Assembly Bill 1840 last month to expand the eligibility requirement for a state loan program to clarify that loans for first-time buyers are available to undocumented immigrants.

    The California Dream for All Shared Appreciation Loans program that launched last March by the California Housing Finance Agency offered qualified first-time home buyers with a loan worth up to 20% of the purchase price of a house or condominium. The loans don’t accrue interest or require monthly payments. Instead, when the mortgage is refinanced or the house is sold again, the borrower pays back the original amount of the loan plus 20% of the increase in the home’s value.

    The original program was established in an effort to help low- and middle-income individuals buy a home, but the program doesn’t address eligibility based on immigration status, Arambula said.

    “It’s that ambiguity for undocumented individuals, despite the fact that they’ve qualified under existing criteria, such as having a qualified mortgage,” he said in an interview. “Underscores the pressing need for us to introduce legislation.”

    If Assembly Bill 1840 is passed, it would broaden the definition of “first-time home buyer” to include undocumented immigrants.

    Without the explicit status, undocumented individuals may be discouraged or left out of the opportunity to participate, Arambula said.

    “Homeownership has historically been the primary means of accumulating generational wealth in the United States,” he said. “The social and economic benefits of homeownership should be available to everyone.”

    The California Dream for All Shared Appreciation Loans program hit its applications limit of about 2,300 applicants in 11 days last year and the program was halted.

    This year, the program will replace its first-come, first-serve basis with a lottery. Interested people can submit their application now, with the lottery taking place in April.

    Another change to the program is its income eligibility threshold, which was 150% of a county’s median area and has been dropped to 120%. That means applicants must earn less than the threshold annually to be eligible. In Los Angeles County, the income threshold is $155,000.

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    Karen Garcia

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