Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass yesterday morning confronted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, Customs and Border Protection agents and military units deployed by President Trump who arrived and marched through MacArthur Park.
Video footage showed the agents carrying rifles and traveling across the grounds on foot, horseback and in armored vehicles.
Bass showed up in the middle of the operation to yell at the agents to get out of the park, slamming the demonstration as a “political stunt.”
Following the federal agents’ march through the park, Bass held a press conference with City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, responding to the federal activity.
“This morning, I went to MacArthur Park where I saw federal agents, military vehicles and federalized troops – another example of the administration ratcheting up the chaos by deploying what looked like a military operation in our American city. It is very important to me that the truth be told to the American people about what happened here: children were at summer camp when federal agents descended on the park. What I saw today looked like a city under siege and under occupation,” said Bass.
“To have armored vehicles deployed on the streets of our city, to federalize the National Guard, to have the U.S. Marines who are trained to kill abroad, deployed to our city – all of this is outrageous and it is un-American. It’s clear that this is all part of a political agenda to terrorize immigrants and signal that they need to stay at home when there are entire sectors of our economy that rely on immigrant workers.
Harris-Dawson said it is unclear why federal agents decided to march through the park.
“This morning looked like a staging for a TicTok video. They should have applied for a filming permit [with the city] like everybody else,” said Harris-Dawson, adding it scared many people and has no place in the city.
While the park continues to see issues with homelessness and drug addiction, Hernandez noted it is also a place where families gather, and kids have a summer camp.
“It’s considered the ‘Ellis Island’ of the West Coast,” Hernandez said.
Bass and the LA City Council members said the sweep disrupted a children’s summer camp, with the children corralled into a nearby basement while waiting for the agents to leave.
The city officials also said the raid pushed out members of the St. John’s Community Health Center who were conducting their daily check-ups with homeless individuals at the park.
It remains unclear if anyone was arrested during the sweep, as activists had gone around the park to warn people to leave before the officers marched through, the Los Angeles Times reported.
