As Gov. Gavin Newsom ready to announce that he would tackle President Trump’s redistricting plans on behalf of California, scores of federal immigration brokers massed exterior the venue Thursday.
Newsom was set to talk on the Japanese American Nationwide Museum in downtown Los Angeles, when Border Patrol Sector Chief Greg Bovino, who has been main the immigration operations in California, arrived in Little Tokyo, flanked by brokers in helmets, camouflage, masks and holding weapons.
“We’re right here making Los Angeles a safer place since we received’t have politicians that’ll try this, we try this ourselves,” Bovino advised a Fox 11 reporter in Little Tokyo. “We’re glad to be right here, we’re not going anyplace.”
When the reporter famous that Newsom was close by, Bovino responded, “I don’t know the place he’s at.”
Newsom’s workplace took to X to share that brokers had been exterior, posting: “BORDER PATROL HAS SHOWED UP AT OUR BIG BEAUTIFUL PRESS CONFERENCE! WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED!”
The obvious raid Thursday, throughout which one individual was detained, comes amid calls from elected officers for an finish to renewed immigration operations throughout the L.A. space. Federal brokers have carried out a string of raids over the previous week, arresting a number of individuals at automotive washes and Dwelling Depot shops.
Immigrant advocates and metropolis leaders had hoped such sweeps had stopped with a federal choose’s July order, affirmed by a U.S. ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals panel on Aug. 1. The courts dominated that immigration officers can’t racially profile individuals or use roving patrols to focus on immigrants.
In a press convention exterior of the museum following the operation, Mayor Karen Bass mentioned, “there’s no means this was a coincidence.”
“This was broadly publicized that the governor and plenty of of our different elected officers had been having a press convention to speak about redistricting, they usually determined they had been going to return and thumb their nostril in entrance of the governor’s face. Why would you try this? That’s unbelievably disrespectful, it’s a provocative act,” Bass mentioned.
“They’re speaking about dysfunction in Los Angeles,” the mayor mentioned, “and they’re the supply of the dysfunction in Los Angeles proper now.”
In an emailed response, Division of Homeland Safety Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin mentioned Bass, “have to be misinformed.”
“Our legislation enforcement operations are about implementing the legislation — not about Gavin Newsom,” she mentioned. McLaughlin added that U.S. Customs and Border Safety “patrols all areas of Los Angeles day-after-day with over 40 groups on the bottom to make LA secure.”
Newsom and Democratic allies, together with organized labor, had been on the Democracy Middle on the Japanese American Nationwide Museum to announce the launch of a marketing campaign for a poll measure which, if accepted by voters, would redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor Democrats earlier than the 2026 midterms.
William T. Fujioka, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Japanese American Nationwide Museum, was attending the Newsom press convention when federal brokers jumped out of SUVs simply toes away from him in entrance of the museum.
Video captured of the scene confirmed federal brokers on both aspect of a person, in a pink shirt and denims, whose fingers had been cuffed behind his again. As a passerby shouted that they had been “cowards,” Bovino mentioned “nicely achieved.”
Carlos Franco mentioned he works with Angel, the person who was arrested by federal brokers, and mentioned Angel was in Little Tokyo delivering strawberries. His supply van was nonetheless parked exterior the museum greater than an hour after he was arrested, Franco mentioned. Franco got here straight to the scene after he obtained calls that his coworker had been arrested.
“He was simply doing his regular supply to the courthouse,” Franco mentioned. “It’s fairly unhappy, as a result of I’ve bought to go to work tomorrow, and Angel isn’t going to be there.”
Saying he was shaken by his buddy’s apprehension, Franco suggested everybody to “watch out normally, whether or not you’re undocumented or not.”
DHS didn’t instantly reply to questions concerning the arrest.
Fujioka mentioned the brokers’ look in Little Tokyo “is a parallel of what occurred in 1942,” and noting that the museum was constructed on the situation the place L.A. residents of Japanese descent “had been advised to return right here and placed on buses and despatched to camps.”
At 73, Fujioka is a third-generation Japanese American. He mentioned about 20 individuals had been arrested throughout ICE raids two weeks in the past at space eating places and companies in and close to Little Tokyo Village Plaza.
“What’s taking place proper now could be reprehensible,” he mentioned. “One of many fallacies is that that is solely focusing on Latinos. For those who have a look at the Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Chinese language, even Japanese communities, they’re being picked up proper in courtroom.”
Talking with neighborhood leaders on L.A.’s Westside early Thursday morning, Bass condemned the continued raids and mentioned she believed they violated the non permanent restraining order upheld by the ninth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals earlier this month.
“Regardless that we’ve had two profitable courtroom choices, the administration continues with their unconstitutional habits. Coming and going to Dwelling Depot shops, persevering with to chase individuals via parking heaps, detaining them for no explicit motive underneath the auspices that they could possibly be criminals, [it] comes down to 1 factor — and that’s racial profiling,” Bass mentioned.
The Trump administration final week petitioned the Supreme Court docket to permit mass deportation efforts throughout Southern California, in search of to raise a ban on “roving patrols” applied after a decrease courtroom discovered such ways possible violate the 4th Modification.
“We all know the following step is to go to the Supreme Court docket, and we hope that we’ll have a great determination there,” Bass mentioned. “However the query looms earlier than us, even when we do have a optimistic courtroom determination: ‘Will the administration observe the rule of legislation?’”
Occasions employees author Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.
