Attorney

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from Libor Jany, giving you the latest on city and county government.

How do you spot a journalist?

The question lies at the center of a legal battle between Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto and the Los Angeles Press Club, as well as a political battle between Feldstein Soto and the City Council.

Two weeks ago council members called on her to give up her opposition to a federal judge’s order prohibiting LAPD officers from targeting journalists with crowd control weapons. According to the press club, dozens of journalists were excluded from public areas or attacked by police during chaotic summer protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Despite the slap down by the council, Feldstein Soto hopes to press forward. This week, in a confidential attorney-client memo shared with The Times by a source, she stressed to the council why she still wants to appeal the judge’s preliminary injunction, which she says makes virtually anyone a journalist.

In the injunction, U.S. District Judge Hernán Vera proposes “indicia” for LAPD officers to identify journalists, which include wearing distinctive clothing or carrying professional photographic equipment.

But the City Attorney’s Office, which is representing the city in the case, sees future issues.

“The problem with this vague definition is that anyone can claim they are a Journalist under the court’s definition,” Supervising Assistant City Atty. Shaun Dabby Jacobs wrote in the memo. “All a person needs to do is print out a badge that says ‘Press,’ or carry a camera … and they can go behind police line or into other restricted areas.”

The memo asks what clothing might identify a person as a journalist. “Is it simply that the person is wearing a suit or professional work dress? … It would be very easy for someone who is not a member of the media and is intent on causing trouble or harm to other peaceful protesters or to the LAPD, to pose as a journalist since they have some of these ‘indicia of being a Journalist.’”

Vera’s injunction imposes more onerous conditions on when police can use “less lethal” weapons than state law does, the memo also argued, allowing the “less lethal” force only when “danger has reached the point where deadly force is justified.”

The injunction also creates issues if the LAPD calls on mutual aid organizations, like the sheriff’s department or federal partners, since it applies only to the city’s police, the memo said. “The city could potentially be liable for our law enforcement partners’ actions if they act in a manner inconsistent with the terms of the injunction.”

All in all, the memo said, the judge’s injunction amounts to a “consent decree.”

With the nine-page memo in hand, Feldstein Soto headed to a closed session with the council Tuesday. Tempers flared when she and Chief Deputy City Atty. Denise Mills suggested that the press club’s lawyer, Carol Sobel, took on the case only to make money, according to two City Hall sources. (Feldstein Soto’s spokesperson, Karen Richardson, said the city attorney does not comment on closed session conversations but added that Feldstein Soto “absolutely did not say that.”)

Many council members, including Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, came to Sobel’s defense, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting.

“I’m trying to restrain myself right now,” Sobel said when she heard about the claim from Mills and the city attorney. “I’m really outraged. It is a baseless suggestion, and it doesn’t alter the fact that they’re shooting people in the head. Whether I get paid or not, they’re shooting people in the head.”

Sobel said she has taken on pro bono work frequently over her 40-year career and that when she is paid, it is partially to help fund future pro bono work.

Susan Seager, who also represents the press club in the case, took issue with Feldstein Soto’s continued pursuit of an appeal.

“She’s a cop wannabe,” Seager said. “She’s just a fake Democrat doing what [LAPD] Chief Jim McDonnell wants her to do.”

Richardson said Feldstein Soto has been a Democrat since 1976 and never worked with the police before she became the city attorney.

State of play

— FIRE BOMBSHELL: Los Angeles Fire Department firefighters told a battalion chief that parts of a New Year’s Day fire in Pacific Palisades still were smoldering the next day, according to text messages. Firefighters were told to leave anyway, and the blaze reignited on Jan. 7, killing 12 and burning thousands of homes. Interim LAFD Chief Ronnie Villanueva said the Palisades fire was not caused by “failed suppression” of the New Year’s blaze.

The story in The Times led to a tweet from sports critic Bill Simmons (bet you didn’t expect to see his name in bold in this newsletter!) blasting the city’s “indefensibly bad leadership,” which predictably led to a quote tweet from none other than Rick Caruso, who called Simmons’ tweet “spot on.” “The buck stops with Mayor Bass,” he added.

— TRASH ATTACK: Mayoral candidate Austin Beutner attacked Mayor Karen Bass over the rising cost of city services for Angelenos, calling out the City Council’s vote to increase trash collection fees. The mayor’s campaign responded that the hike was long overdue. “Nobody was willing to face the music and request the rate hikes,” said Doug Herman, spokesperson for Bass’ campaign.

— SAYONARA, SANITATION: The city’s top Bureau of Sanitation executive, Barbara Romero, stepped down this week. Romero, who was appointed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2021, touted the agency’s accomplishments, including increasing sewer fees and championing the construction of a water purification facility expected to recharge the San Fernando Valley groundwater aquifer.

— FREE(WAY) AT LAST: A judge agreed to place 29 protesters who shut down the southbound 110 Freeway in 2023 into a 12-month diversion program, which would require 20 hours of community service each. If the protesters, who were demonstrating against Israel’s war in Gaza, comply and don’t break other laws, they will have their criminal charges dropped.

— PHOTO BLOCK: L.A. County is trying to block a journalist from obtaining photographs of about 8,500 sheriff’s deputies and other sworn personnel in the department. The dispute centers on a public records request filed by journalist Cerise Castle in 2023 asking for the names and official headshots of all deputies not working undercover. An L.A. Superior Court judge ordered the release of the photos, but the county is appealing.

— A DOZEN BUSTED: Federal prosecutors announced charges against 12 people who allegedly assaulted law enforcement officers during the chaotic protests this summer against the Trump administration’s immigration raids. Many of the charges stem from demonstrators throwing items at police from a freeway overpass on June 8.

— CANDIDATE ALERT: A new candidate has thrown his hat in the ring to be the city’s next controller. Zach Sokoloff works for Hackman Capital Partners, serving as “Asset Manager of the firm’s Television City Studios and Radford Studio Center.” Sokoloff is running against incumbent Kenneth Mejia as well as veteran politician Isadore Hall.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? There were no Inside Safe operations this week. The mayor’s team held a virtual town hall with Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky to engage with residents near nine operations in the West L.A. area, according to the mayor’s office.
• On the docket next week: Councilmember Curren Price will be in Los Angeles Superior Court for the preliminary hearing in his criminal case. The hearing is expected to last about five days.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Oct. 29 (UPI) — A federal judge has disqualified President Donald Trump‘s top prosecutor in Los Angeles, ruling Bill Essayli has been unlawfully serving as interim U.S. attorney for the Central District of California since late July.

The order was issued Tuesday by Judge J. Michael Seabright of the Federal District Court in Hawaii, stating Essayli “is not lawfully serving as Acting United States Attorney for the Central District of California.”

The effect of the order, however, was unclear, as it states that though he may not continue in the role as interim U.S. attorney, he may continue to perform his duties as first assistant United States attorney.

“For those who didn’t read the entire order, nothing is changing,” Essayli said in a statement.

“I continue serving as the top federal prosecutor in the Central District of California.”

The ruling comes in response to motions filed by three defendants seeking to dismiss indictments brought against them and to disqualify Essayli as acting U.S. attorney.

Essayli, who was appointed by the Trump administration, was sworn in on April 2 to serve as the interim U.S. attorney for 120 days.

As his term was nearing its end on July 31, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Essayli as a special attorney, effective upon his resignation as interim U.S. attorney.

In his ruling Tuesday, Seabright, a President George W. Bush appointee, said that Essayli assumed the role of acting U.S. attorney in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which limits the amount of time prosecutors may fill federal positions without Senate approval.

“Simply stated: Essayli unlawfully assumed the role of Acting United States Attorney for the Central District of California. He has been unlawfully serving in that capacity since his resignation from the interim role on July 29, 2025,” he said.

“He is disqualified from serving in that role.”

Despite his ruling on Essayli, Seabright denied the three defendants’ request to dismiss their indictments, stating “the prosecutions remain valid.”

The ruling is the latest going against the Trump administration’s attempts to employ people in high-ranking positions without securing congressional approval.

In August, a federal judge ruled Alina Habba, a former personal Trump lawyer, was illegally serving as acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey after her 12-day interim term expired.

Last month, a federal judge ruled that Sigal Chattah had been unlawfully serving as Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada.

Both decisions are being appealed.

SACRAMENTO — Atty. General Rob Bonta said Monday that he anticipates the Trump administration, which last week announced plans to use federal election monitors in California, will use false reports of voting irregularities to challenge the results of the Nov. 4 special election.

Bonta, California’s top law enforcement officer, said on a call with reporters that he is “100%” concerned about false accusations of wrongdoing at the polling places.

Bonta said it would be “naive” to assume Trump would accept the results of the Nov. 4 election given his history of lying about election outcomes, including his loss to President Biden in 2020.

The attorney general also warned that Trump’s tactics may be a preview of what the country might see in the 2026 election, when control of the U.S. House of Representatives — and the fate of Trump’s controversial political agenda — will be at stake.

“All indications, all arrows, show that this is a tee-up for something more dangerous in the 2026, midterms and maybe beyond,” Bonta said.

The U.S. Department of Justice last week announced it would send election monitors to five California counties where voters are casting ballots in the Proposition 50 election to decide whether to redraw state’s congressional boundaries.

Federal election monitors will visit sites across Southern California and in the Central Valley, in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, the Justice Department said last week.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called the move an “intimidation tactic” aimed at suppressing support for Proposition 50 and inappropriate federal interference in a state election.

While federal monitoring is routine, particularly in federal elections, it recently has been viewed with heightened skepticism from both parties. When the Justice Department under President Biden announced monitoring in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states during last November’s presidential election, some Republican-led states balked and sought to block the effort.

Democrats have been highly suspect of the Trump administration’s plans for monitoring elections, in part because of Trump’s relentless denial of past election losses — including his own to Biden in 2020 — and his appointment of fellow election deniers to high-ranking positions in his administration, including in the Justice Department.

The California Republican Party requested the election monitors and cited several concerns about voting patterns and issues in several counties, according to a letter it sent to the Dept. of Justice.

Bonta, in his remarks Monday questioned the GOP claims, and denied the existence of any widespread fraud that would require federal election monitors. He compared the monitors to Trump’s decision to dispatch the National Guard to Democratic-led cities, despite an outcry from local politicians who said the troops were not necessary.

More broadly, Bonta told reporters that the Trump administration appears to be ready to fight the Nov. 4 results if Prop. 50 passes.

“People vote and you accept the will of the voters — that’s what democracy is. But that’s not what they’re teeing themselves up to do based on everything that we’ve seen, everything that’s been said,” said Bonta, describing Trump’s recent call on social media for Republicans to “wake up.”

Bonta also said that the state would dispatch observers — potentially from his office, the secretary of state and county registrars — to watch the federal monitors at polling places.

Early voting has already started in California, with voters deciding whether to temporarily reconfigure the state’s congressional district boundaries. The Democratic-led California Legislature placed the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot in an effort to increase their party’s numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives .

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other backers of the measure have said they generally support independent redistricting processes and will push for nonpartisan commissions nationwide, but argued that Democrats must fight back against Trump’s current efforts to have Republican states reconfigure their congressional districts to ensure the GOP retains control of Congress after the 2026 election.

Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the U.S. Dept. of Justice, declined to comment on Bonta’s remarks. Baldassarre also declined to say how many election monitors would work in California.

Federal election monitors observe polling places to ensure compliance with the federal voting rights laws, and are trained to observe and act as “flies on the wall,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, in an interview last week.

“Generally, what you do is walk inside, stay off to the side, well away from where any voters are, and take some notes,” said Becker, an attorney who formerly worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

CHICAGO — The detention by immigration authorities of a Chicago man whose 16-year-old daughter is undergoing treatment for advanced cancer is illegal, and he must be given a bond hearing by Oct. 31, a federal judge has ruled.

Attorneys for Ruben Torres Maldonado, 40, who was detained Oct. 18, have petitioned for his release as his deportation case goes through the system. While U.S. District Judge Jeremy Daniel said in an order Friday that Torres’ detention is illegal and violates his due process rights, he also said he could not order his immediate release.

“While sympathetic to the plight the petitioner’s daughter faces due to her health concerns, the court must act within the constraints of the relevant statutes, rules, and precedents,” the judge wrote Friday.

Torres’ attorney took the ruling as a win — for now.

“We’re pleased that the judge ruled in our favor in determining that ICE is illegally detaining Ruben. We will now turn the fight to immigration court so we can secure Ruben’s release on bond while he applies for permanent residence status,” his attorney, Kalman Resnick, said in a statement Friday night.

Torres, a painter and home renovator, was detained at a suburban Home Depot store. His daughter, Ofelia Torres, was diagnosed in December with a rare and aggressive form of soft-tissue cancer called metastatic alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma and has been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Torres entered the U.S. in 2003, according to his lawyers. He and his partner, Sandibell Hidalgo, also have a 4-year-old son. The children are both U.S. citizens, according to court records.

“My dad, like many other fathers, is a hardworking person who wakes up early in the morning and goes to work without complaining, thinking about his family,” Ofelia said in a video posted on a GoFundMe page set up for her family. “I find it so unfair that hardworking immigrant families are being targeted just because they were not born here.”

The Department of Homeland Security alleges that Torres has been living illegally in the U.S. for years and has a history of driving offenses, including speeding and driving without a valid license and insurance.

“This is nothing more than a desperate Hail Mary attempt to keep a criminal illegal alien in our country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “The Trump administration is fighting for the rule of law and the American people.”

At a hearing Thursday, which Ofelia attended in a wheelchair, the family’s attorneys told the judge that she was released from the hospital just a day before her father’s arrest so that she could see family and friends. But since his arrest, she had been unable to continue treatment “because of the stress and disruption,” they said.

Federal prosecutor Craig Oswald told the court that the government did not want to release Torres because he didn’t cooperate during his arrest,

Several elected officials held a news conference Wednesday to protest Torres’ arrest. The Chicago area has been at the center of a major immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” which began in early September.

In a rare public rebuke, the Los Angeles City Council pressed the city’s top lawyer to abandon her attempt to halt a federal judge’s order prohibiting LAPD officers from targeting journalists with crowd control weapons.

One day before “No Kings” demonstrations against the Trump administration were set to launch in L.A. and elsewhere, the council voted 12-0 to direct City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to withdraw her request to lift the order.

Hours later, Feldstein Soto’s legal team did just that, informing the judge it was pulling back its request — around the same time the judge rejected it.

Since June, the city has been hit with dozens of legal claims from protesters and journalists who reported that LAPD officers used excessive force against them during protests over Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The lawsuit that prompted the judge’s ban was brought by the Los Angeles Press Club and the news outlet Status Coup, who pointed to video evidence and testimonials suggesting that LAPD officers violated their own guidelines, as well as state law, by shooting journalists and others in sensitive parts of the body, such as the head, with weapons that launch projectiles the size of a mini soda can at speeds of more than 200 miles per hour.

“Journalism is under attack in this country — from the Trump Administration’s revocation of press access to the Pentagon to corporate consolidation of local newsrooms,” Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who introduced the motion opposing Feldstein Soto’s legal filing, said in a statement. “The answer cannot be for Los Angeles to join that assault by undermining court-ordered protections for journalists.”

In a motion filed Wednesday, Feldstein Soto’s legal team sought a temporary stay of the order issued by U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera. She reiterated her earlier argument that Vera’s ban was overly broad, extending protections to “any journalist covering a protest in [the City of] Los Angeles.”

The city’s lawyers also argued that the ban, which bars the LAPD from using so-called less lethal munitions against journalists and nonviolent protesters, creates “ambiguous mandates” that jeopardize “good-faith conduct” by officers and pose “immediate and concrete risk to officer and public safety.”

In addition to Feldstein Soto’s request for a temporary stay, the city has filed an appeal of Vera’s injunction. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is taking up the appeal, with a hearing tentatively set for mid-November.

Council members have become increasingly vocal about their frustrations with the city attorney’s office. Two months ago, they voiced alarm that an outside law firm billed the city $1.8 million in just two weeks — double the amount authorized by the council. They have also grown exasperated over the rising cost of legal payouts, which have consumed a steadily larger portion of the city budget.

After Feldstein Soto’s motion was reported by LAist, several city council members publicly distanced themselves from her and condemned her decision.

In a sternly worded statement before Friday’s vote, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez wrote that the city attorney’s “position does not speak for the full City Council.”

“The LAPD should NEVER be permitted to use force against journalists or anyone peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights,” said the statement from Soto-Martínez, who signed Hernandez’s proposal along with Councilmembers Ysabel Jurado and Monica Rodriguez.

On Friday, the council also asked the city attorney’s office to report back within 30 days on “all proactive litigation the Office has moved forward without explicit direction from the City Council or Mayor since July 1, 2024.”

Rodriguez said that Friday’s vote should send a message that the city council needs “to be consulted as a legislative body that is independently elected by the people.”

“What I hope is that this becomes a more permanent act of this body — to exercise its role in oversight,” she said.

Carol Sobel, the civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs, welcomed the council’s action. Still, she said Feldstein Soto’s filings in the case raise questions about whose interests the city attorney is representing.

“Sometimes you say ‘Mea culpa, we were wrong. We shouldn’t have shot people in the head, despite our policies,’” she said.

“Days of Our Lives” actor Arianne Zucker has reached a settlement with the producers of the show after her 2024 lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and discrimination on the set of the soap opera.

Notice of the settlement was filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. No further details about the settlement were included. Zucker’s attorney could not be immediately reached for comment.

Zucker had starred on “Days of Our Lives” since 1998, playing the character Nicole Walker. In her February 2024 lawsuit, she alleged that now-former executive producer Albert Alarr subjected her and other employees to “severe and pervasive harassment and discrimination, including sexual harassment, based upon their female gender.”

Zucker claimed that Alarr would grab and hug her, “purposely pushing her breasts onto his chest” while moaning sexually, according to the lawsuit. She also alleged that he would make “sexually charged comments” to her.

“Our client continues to deny the allegations set forth in the complaint,” Alarr’s attorney, Robert Barta, said in a statement. “However, in order to bring the litigation to the end, he has agreed to settle. This decision was made solely to end the dispute and move forward.”

Zucker’s lawsuit also named Corday Productions, which oversees the show, and its owner, Ken Corday, as defendants in the lawsuit, alleging retaliation. Zucker alleged that her pay was decreased and her travel stipend revoked after she voiced concerns. In June 2023, she said her character was written off the show after 20 years.

Several months later, Corday Productions offered to renew Zucker’s contract but allegedly did not negotiate with her representatives for higher pay, the lawsuit said.

Attorneys for Corday and Corday Productions did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Corday Productions previously told The Times in a statement that Zucker’s claims “are without merit” and that she was offered a pay increase upon an offer to renew her contract. The company said at the time that complaints about Alarr’s on-set behavior were “promptly investigated” and the company “fully cooperated with the impartial investigation and subsequently terminated Mr. Alarr.”

“Days of Our Lives” aired on Comcast-owned NBC from Nov. 8, 1965, to Sept. 9, 2022, before moving to the Comcast streaming platform Peacock in 2022.

The chief spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department has resigned amid accusations from the region’s top federal prosecutor that her office was leaking information, according to three sources familiar with the matter but not cleared to speak publicly.

Jennifer Forkish, the LAPD’s public information director, said she left the department Thursday at the request of Chief Jim McDonnell but vehemently denied making any unauthorized disclosures.

“Any suggestion that I have ever shared or leaked information to the media is categorically false,” she said in a statement. “No one in the Department, including the Chief has ever raised or discussed this baseless allegation with me, because it simply never happened. Anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”

The three law enforcement sources said the chief’s concerns about Forkish’s overall performance had been mounting, and that pressure Tuesday from acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli may have prompted her ouster.

The drama began the prior evening after a Times reporter reached out to an official at the U.S. Attorney’s office to inquire about plans to schedule a news conference related to the Palisades fire.

Flanked by McDonnell and other law enforcement leaders, Essayli announced at a briefing on Wednesday that authorities had arrested and charged a 29-year-old Uber driver with intentionally sparking one of the most destructive fires in California history.

Before the media event, according to the three sources who had been briefed on the matter, Essayli called LAPD senior staff and demanded to know who in the department had tipped the paper off to the news conference, which had not yet been officially scheduled when The Times asked about it.

It wasn’t immediately clear why Forkish was suspected of revealing details about the news conference, which federal authorities announced to members of the media via email at 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Forkish had already left work that afternoon when McDonnell summoned her back to his office at LAPD headquarters for a meeting with him and Assistant Chief Dominic Choi, she told The Times. McDonnell did not reference a call with Essayli during the meeting, telling Forkish only that he did not share her long-term vision for the department’s public relations strategy, she said.

She said the conversation revolved around the difference of opinion about the department’s overall media strategy, adding “there has never been any conversation with me regarding the possibility of a leak with anyone from the LAPD.”

Choi would not address any phone conversation between LAPD leadership and Essayli. He told The Times he could not discuss Forkish’s case due to confidentiality around personnel matters but confirmed she submitted her letter of resignation on Thursday morning.

“We don’t wish any ill will or anything for her,” he said in a brief telephone interview. “We thank her for her service and everything she’s done and for her time with the department.”

McDonnell did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment on Thursday. Inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s office and Mayor Karen Bass also went unreturned.

Forkish expressed gratitude for her time with the LAPD.

“After much thought, I’ve decided to step down from my role to pursue new opportunities,” she wrote in a statement. “I do so with immense pride in what my team and I accomplished together. We told the hard stories with honesty and balance, supported our officers and our city in moments of crisis, and built a foundation of professionalism that I’ll always be proud of.”

For months, word has circulated in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles that Essayli — a Trump appointee — is trying to root out leaks to the media. The LAPD has itself routinely opened investigations into employees who speak with journalists without authorization, and faced lawsuits from employees who claimed they were falsely accused of leaks.

Forkish began her career working for former Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine, who worked as an LAPD cop for more than three decades before going into politics. She later had stints at PR firms around town, including GCG Rose & Kindel, where she worked with Celine Cordero, the future mayor’s deputy chief of staff.

After working as a vice president of corporate communications for casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corp. in Las Vegas, Forkish served as a spokesperson for former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón for several months in 2024.

Eric Rose, a partner at the lobbying and crisis communication firm EKA, where he was once Forkish’s boss, said she has made a positive mark at every stop of her career.

“Jennifer is an accomplished public affairs professional with deep and diverse expertise, having worked with elected officials at the local, state and federal levels for more than two decades,” he said.

But Forkish’s appointment to the LAPD job was not without controversy. Multiple department sources not authorized to speak publicly said a dispute over Forkish’s salary demands created tension before she started on the job. Then, the sources, said there was a disagreement over strategy between Forkish and her predecessor, Capt. Kelly Muniz, which ended with Muniz’s transfer to another unit.

Some press advocates say McDonnell’s tenure has been marked by conflict with the local media. The department faces lawsuits for aggressive behavior by officers toward journalists who covered protests against the Trump administration over the summer, and a federal judge has barred police from targeting reporters with less-lethal projectiles during demonstrations.

Adam Rose, a deputy director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the department has in recent months been frustratingly unresponsive when confronted with reports of abuses by officers.

“While I often vehemently disagreed with past PIOs and past department leadership, at least they were responsive,” Rose said. “The fact that McDonnell and his staff are so recalcitrant — and are so reluctant — to do their jobs is shameful.”

In her statement, Forkish said she is proud of her time at the LAPD.

“I’ve always approached this work with transparency, respect, and accountability, and that will never change,” she said.

Times staff writers James Queally and Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

Democrats on the Senate panel grilled her over her leadership of the Justice Department. She hit back, with GOP support.

United States Attorney General Pam Bondi faced fierce questioning at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, as Democrats accused her of politicising the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Republicans rallied behind her pledge to restore law enforcement’s core mission.

In her first appearance before the Republican-controlled committee since the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, Bondi on Tuesday defended the department’s direction under her leadership, saying she came into office determined to end the “weaponisation of justice” and refocus on violent crime.

She said the DOJ was now “returning to our core mission of fighting real crime”, pointing to increased federal activity in Washington, DC; and Memphis, Tennessee.

Bondi also defended the deployment of National Guard troops to cities like Chicago and Portland, saying local governments failed to protect citizens. She tied challenges in enforcing public safety to the ongoing government shutdown, blaming Democrats for undermining law enforcement readiness.

One of the critical moments of the hearing came with Bondi’s justification for prosecuting Comey, a longtime critic of US President Donald Trump. Comey faces charges of false statements and obstruction of Congress related to his 2020 congressional testimony, and is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday. Democrats pressed whether the indictment followed from independent prosecutorial judgement or political pressure. Bondi declined to answer questions about private conversations with the White House, calling them “personnel matters”.

The Jeffrey Epstein files were another flashpoint in the hearing as Bondi repeatedly refused to explain her decision to reverse course on releasing documents. She instead accused Democratic senators of having accepted campaign donations from an affiliate of the late, convicted sex offender.

Democrats also quizzed her on allegations that Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover agents last year, before the current US administration came into office. Bondi said the decision to drop the inquiry preceded her tenure and declined to state whether the money had been recovered.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the panel, repeatedly accused Bondi of using her leadership to help weaponise the DOJ. “Our nation’s top law enforcement agency has become a shield for the president and his political allies when they engage in misconduct,” he said. The Illinois senator claimed Bondi “fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain on American history”.

“It will take decades to recover,” he added.

Under Bondi’s leadership, key divisions such as civil rights have seen mass departures, and career prosecutors tied to investigations into Trump or the January 6 attack on the US Capitol have been removed or reassigned.

A letter by nearly 300 former DOJ employees, released just before the hearing, warned that the administration was “taking a sledgehammer to other longstanding work” and urged a return to institutional norms.

Republicans on the committee largely defended her actions, echoing claims that the DOJ under the prior Biden administration — which brought two criminal cases against Trump — was the one that had been weaponised. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley commended Bondi for resetting priorities and asserted that law enforcement needed new direction.

The 69-year-old truck driver who got into a physical altercation with former USC quarterback Mark Sanchez over the weekend is out of the hospital and continuing his recovery at home, according to his attorneys.

Indiana resident Perry Tole suffered a laceration on his left cheek during an incident that occurred late Friday night and into early Saturday in an alley outside a downtown Indianapolis hotel.

“He’s been released from the hospital, recovering and hopeful that he’ll have regained function to — you know, his ability to speak,” Eric J. May, one of the attorneys representing Tole in a civil lawsuit against Sanchez, told TMZ on Monday.

“Right now he’s having a real difficult time communicating because of the large gash on his face. It affected his jaw, tongue and mouth.”

May added that Tole “can speak right now, but it’s just so slurred and so labored for him, just because of all the trauma to his mouth and cheek.”

Attorney Edward R. Reichert told TMZ that Tole won’t be able to attend his son’s wedding this weekend as a result of what he went through. May said he expects “further medical treatment and an ongoing treatment for him well into the future” and added that “psychological injuries” also are a concern.

“I think it’s too early to tell what his long term prognosis is going to be, but we’re hopeful,” May said. “He’s out right now, he’s back with his wife, and I think they’re just glad to be alive.”

Sanchez was pepper-sprayed in the face and stabbed multiple times by Tole during the scuffle, according to a probable-cause affidavit filed Saturday by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

As of Monday morning, Sanchez remained in the hospital and was listed in stable condition. His brother released a statement later in the day on behalf of the Sanchez family.

“This has been a deeply distressing time for everyone involved,” Nick Sanchez said. “Mark and our family are incredibly grateful for the concern, love, and support we’ve received over the past few days. Mark remains under medical care for the serious injuries he sustained and is focused on his recovery as the legal process continues.”

Sanchez is being charged with a level five felony of battery involving serious bodily injury and three misdemeanors — battery resulting in injury, unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle and public intoxication.

Marion County, Ind., prosecutor Ryan Mears said Monday that more charges are possible as the investigation continues.

Sanchez was in Indianapolis to call Sunday’s Raiders-Colts game for Fox Sports. Fellow Fox analyst Brady Quinn filled in for Sanchez on the broadcast.

According to the affidavit, which was based on hotel surveillance footage and a statement Tole gave to the police, Sanchez apparently objected to Toles backing his box truck onto the hotel’s loading dock while performing his job with a company that recycles and disposes of commercial cooking oil.

Sanchez smelled of alcohol at the time of the confrontation, the affidavit said.

Tole’s civil lawsuit, filed Monday in Marion County Superior Court, alleges that he suffered “severe permanent disfigurement, loss of function, other physical injuries, emotional distress, and other damages” as a result of Sanchez’s actions.

Sanchez’s employer, Fox Corp., is named as a co-defendent in the suit, in which Tole seeks compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at trial.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

It was late Sunday evening when President Trump got thumped with a court loss — again — by California.

No, a federal judge ruled, Trump cannot command the California National Guard to invade Portland, Ore. At the request of California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and others, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut broadened a temporary restraining order that had blocked Oregon’s National Guard from being used by the federal government. It now includes not just California’s troops but troops from any state. At least for the next two weeks.

It’s the kind of legal loss Trump should be used to it by now, especially when it comes to the Golden State. Since Trump 2.0 hit the White House this year with Project 2025 folded up in his back pocket, the state of California has sued the administration 42 times, literally about once a week.

While many of those cases are still pending, California is racking up a series of wins that restored more than $160 billion in funding and at least slowed down (and in some cases stopped) the steamrolling of civil rights on issues including birthright citizenship and immigration policy.

“We have won in 80% of the cases,” Bonta told me. “Whether it be a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order, and more and more now permanent final injunctions after the whole trial court case is done.”

I’ll take it. We all need some positive news. I don’t often write just about the good, but in these strange days, it’s helpful to have a reminder that the fight is always worth having when it comes to protecting our rights. And, despite the partisan Supreme Court, the reason that we are still holding on to democracy is because the system still works, albeit like a ’78 Chevy with the doors rusting off.

While Gov. Gavin Newsom has made himself the face of California’s fights against Trump, taking on a pugnacious and audacious attitude especially on social media, the day-in, day-out slugging in those battles is often done by Bonta and his team in courtrooms across the country.

It’s hard to recall, but months ago, Newsom called a special session of the Legislature to give Bonta a $25-million allowance to defend not just California but democracy. And in a moment when many of us fear that checks and balances promised in the Constitution have turned out to be little more than happy delusions, Bonta has a message: The courts are (mostly) holding and California’s lawyers aren’t just fighting, they’re winning.

“We can do things that governors can’t do,” Bonta said. “No role and no moment has been more important than this one.”

Bonta told me that he often hears that Trump is disregarding the courts, so “what’s the point of litigation at all? What’s the point of a court order at all? He’s just going to ignore them.”

But, he said, the administration has been following judges’ rulings — so far. While there have been instances, especially around deportations, that knock on the door of lawlessness, at least for California, Trump is “following all of our court orders,” Bonta said.

“We’re making a difference,” he said.

A few days ago, the U.S. Department of Education was forced to send out a final chunk of funds it had attempted to withhold from schools. Bonta, in a multistate lawsuit, successfully protected that money, which schools need this year to help migrant children and English learners, train teachers, buy new technology and pay for before- and after-school programs, among other uses.

That’s a permanent, final ruling — no appeals.

Another recent win saw California land a permanent injunction against the feds when it comes to stopping their payments for costs associated with state energy projects. That a win both for the climate and consumers, who benefit when we make energy more efficiently.

Last week, Bonta won another permanent injunction, blocking the Trump administration’s effort to tie grants related to homeland security to compliance with his immigration policies. Safety shouldn’t be tied to deportations, especially in California, where our immigrants are overwhelmingly law-abiding community members.

Those are just a few of Bonta’s victories. Of course, Trump and his minions aren’t happy about them. Stephen Miller, the shame of Santa Monica, seems to have especially lost his marbles over the National Guard ruling. On social media, Miller seems to be attacking the justice system, and attorneys general such as Bonta.

“There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country,” Miller wrote. “It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”

Never mind that the Oregon judge who issued the National Guard ruling is a Trump appointee.

“Their goal, I think, is to chill and pause and worry judges; to chill and pause and worry the press; to chill and pause and worry attorneys general who stand up for the rule of law and for democracy, who go to court and fight for what’s right and fight for the law,” Bonta said.

Bonta expects the administration, far from learning any lessons or harboring self-reflection during this mad dash toward autocracy, to continue full speed ahead.

“We’re going to see more, and we’re going to see it fast, and we’re going to see it escalate,” he said. “None of that is good, including putting military in American cities or, you know, Trump treating them like his royal guard instead of the National Guard.”

Even when the Trump administration loses, “they always have this like second move and maybe a third, where they are always trying to advance their agenda, even when they’ve been blocked by a court, even when they’ve been told that they’re acting unlawfully or unconstitutionally,” he said.

On Monday, Trump threatened to use the Insurrection Act to circumvent the court’s ruling on the National Guard, a massive escalation of his effort to militarize American cities.

But California remains on a winning streak, much to Trump’s dismay.

It’s my bet that as long as our judges continue to honor the rule of law, that streak will hold.

ORLANDO, Fla. — U.S. government lawyers say that detainees at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” probably include people who have never been in removal proceedings, which is a direct contradiction of what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been saying since it opened in July.

Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice made that admission Thursday in a court filing arguing that the detainees at the facility in the Everglades wilderness don’t have enough in common to be certified as a class in a lawsuit over whether they’re getting proper access to attorneys.

A removal proceeding is a legal process initiated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to determine if someone should be deported from the United States.

The Justice Department attorneys wrote that the detainees at the Everglades facility have too many immigration statuses to be considered a class.

“The proposed class includes all detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, a facility that houses detainees in all stages of immigration processing — presumably including those who have never been in removal proceedings, those who will be placed into removal proceedings, those who are already subject to final orders of removal, those subject to expedited removal, and those detained for the purpose of facilitation removal from the United States pursuant to a final order of removal,” they wrote.

Since the facility opened, DeSantis has been saying publicly that each detainee has gone through the process of determining that they can’t legally be in the United States.

During a July 25 news conference outside the detention center, DeSantis said, “Everybody here is already on a final removal order.”

“They have been ordered to be removed from the country,” he added.

At a July 29 speech before a conference of the Florida Sheriffs Assn., the Republican governor said, “The people that are going to the Alligator Alcatraz are illegally in the country. They’ve all already been given a final order of removal.”

He added, “So, if you have an order to be removed, what is the possible objection to the federal government enforcing that removal order?”

DeSantis’ press office didn’t respond Monday morning to an email seeking comment.

The court filing by the Justice Department attorneys was made in a lawsuit in which civil rights groups allege the facility’s detainees have been denied proper access to attorneys in violation of their constitutional rights. The civil rights groups on Thursday asked a federal judge in Fort Myers, Fla., for a preliminary injunction that would establish stronger protections for detainees to meet with attorneys privately and share documents confidentially.

The court case is one of three lawsuits filed by environmental and civil rights groups over the detention center, which was hastily built this summer by the state of Florida and operated by private contractors and state agencies.

A federal judge in Miami ordered in August that the facility must wind down operations within two months, agreeing with environmental groups that the remote airstrip site wasn’t given a proper environmental review before it was converted into an immigration detention center. But operations continued after the judge’s preliminary injunction was put on hold in early September by an appellate court panel. At one point, the facility held more than 900 detainees, but most of them were transferred after the initial injunction. It wasn’t clear on Monday how many detainees were at the center, which was built to hold 3,000 people.

President Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations. Federal officials on Friday confirmed that Florida has been approved for a $608-million reimbursement for the costs of building and running the immigration detention center.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

PROVO, Utah — An attorney for the 22-year-old man charged with killing Charlie Kirk asked a judge Monday for more time to review the large amount of evidence in the case before deciding if the defense will seek a preliminary hearing.

A preliminary hearing would determine if there is enough evidence against Tyler Robinson to go forward with a trial. Defendants can waive that step, but Robinson’s newly appointed attorney Kathryn Nester said her team did not intend to do so.

Utah prosecutors have charged Robinson with aggravated murder and plan to seek the death penalty.

Both the defense and prosecution acknowledged at a brief hearing Monday that the amount of evidence that prosecutors have is “voluminous.” Robinson was not present for the hearing and appeared via audio from jail at his defense team’s request.

Judge Tony Graf set the next hearing for Oct. 30.

Defense attorneys for Robinson and prosecutors with the Utah County attorney’s office declined to comment after Monday’s hearing. It took place in Provo, just a few miles from the Utah Valley University campus in Orem where many students are still processing trauma from the Sept. 10 shooting and the day-and-a-half search for the suspect.

Authorities arrested Robinson when he showed up with his parents at his hometown sheriff’s office in southwest Utah, more than a three-hour drive from the site of the shooting, to turn himself in. Prosecutors have since revealed text messages and DNA evidence that they say connect Robinson to the killing.

A note that Robinson left for his romantic partner before the shooting said he had the opportunity to kill one of the nation’s leading conservative voices, “and I’m going to take it,” Utah County Atty. Jeff Gray told reporters before the first hearing. Gray also said Robinson wrote in a text about Kirk to his partner: “I had enough of his hatred.”

The killing of Kirk, a close ally of President Trump who worked to steer young voters toward conservatism, has galvanized Republicans who have vowed to carry on Kirk’s mission of moving American politics further right.

Trump has declared Kirk a “martyr” for freedom and threatened to crack down on what he called the “radical left.”

Workers across the U.S. have been punished or fired for speaking out about Kirk‘s death, including teachers, public and private employees and media personalities — most notably Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night show was suspended then reinstated by ABC.

Kirk’s political organization, Arizona-based Turning Point USA, brought young, evangelical Christians into politics through his podcast, social media and campus events. Many prominent Republicans are filling in at the upcoming campus events Kirk planned to attend, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mike Lee at Utah State University on Tuesday.

Schoenbaum writes for the Associated Press.

NASHVILLE — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported from the United States to his native El Salvador and whose case became an intensely watched focus of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, has been moved from a Virginia detention center to a facility in Pennsylvania.

Court records show Immigration and Customs Enforcement notified Abrego Garcia’s lawyers Friday that he was transferred to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg. It said the location would make it easier for the attorneys to access him.

But his attorneys raised concerns about conditions at Moshannon, saying there have been recent reports of “assaults, inadequate medical care, and insufficient food,” according to a federal court filing.

The Trump administration has claimed that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, an allegation that he denies and for which he was not charged.

The administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. in June, but only to face human smuggling charges. His lawyers have called the case preposterous and vindictive.

The acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento has said she was fired after telling the Border Patrol chief in charge of immigration raids in California that his agents were not allowed to arrest people without probable cause in the Central Valley.

Michele Beckwith, a career prosecutor who was made the acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of California earlier this year, told the New York Times that she was let go after she warned Gregory Bovino, chief of the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, that a court injunction blocked him from carrying out indiscriminate immigration raids in Sacramento.

Beckwith did not respond to a request for comment from the L.A. Times, but told the New York Times that “we have to stand up and insist the laws be followed.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento declined to comment. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening.

Bovino presided over a series of raids in Los Angeles starting in June in which agents spent weeks pursuing Latino-looking workers outside of Home Depots, car washes, bus stops and other areas. The agents often wore masks and used unmarked vehicles.

But such indiscriminate tactics were not allowed in California’s Eastern District after the American Civil Liberties Union and United Farm Workers filed suit against the Border Patrol earlier in the year and won an injunction.

The suit followed a January operation in Kern County called “Operation Return to Sender,” in which agents swarmed a Home Depot and Latino market, among other areas frequented by laborers. In April, a federal district court judge ruled that the Border Patrol likely violated the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

As Beckwith described it to New York Times reporters, she received a phone call from Bovino on July 14 in which he said he was bringing agents to Sacramento.

She said she told him that the injunction filed after the Kern County raid meant he could not stop people indiscriminately in the Eastern District. The next day, she wrote him an email in which, as quoted in the New York Times, she stressed the need for “compliance with court orders and the Constitution.”

Shortly thereafter her work cell phone and her work computer stopped working. A bit before 5 p.m. she received an email informing her that her employment was being terminated effective immediately.

It was the end of a 15-year career in in the Department of Justice in which she had served as the office’s Criminal Division Chief and First Assistant and prosecuted members of the Aryan Brotherhood, suspected terrorists, and fentanyl traffickers.

Two days later on July 17, Bovino and his agents moved into Sacramento, conducting a raid at a Home Depot south of downtown.

In an interview with Fox News that day, Bovino said the raids were targeted and based on intelligence. “Everything we do is targeted,” he said. “We did have prior intelligence that there were targets that we were interested in and around that Home Depot, as well as other targeted enforcement packages in and around the Sacramento area.”

He also said that his operations would not slow down. “There is no sanctuary anywhere,” he said. “We’re here to stay. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to affect this mission and secure the homeland.”

Beckwith is one of a number of top prosecutors who have quit or been fired as the Trump administration pushes the Department of Justice to aggressively carry out his policies, including investigating people who have been the president’s political targets.

In March, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles was fired after lawyers for a fast-food executive he was prosecuting pushed officials in Washington to drop all charges against him, according to multiple sources.

In July, Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, was fired by the Trump administration, according to the New York Times.

And just last week, a U. S. attorney in Virginia was pushed out after he had determined there was insufficient evidence to prosecute James B. Comey. A new prosecutor this week won a grand jury indictment against Comey on one count of making a false statement and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

At 3:25 in the morning of July 24, Milagro Solis Portillo was woken up and booked out of B-18, ICE’s basement detention facility in the downtown L.A. courthouse. She was not told where she was headed as she was put onto a commercial flight along with two immigration officer escorts. A few hours later, she was booked into the Clark County Jail in Jefferson, Ind.

Ming Tanigawa-Lau, an attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Center representing Portillo, said her transfer was retaliatory, especially when there was open space at nearby facilities. The 36-year-old’s encounters with ICE had caused a local stir. She suffered a medical incident during her arrest outside her home in Sherman Oaks that required treatment at Glendale Memorial Hospital.

While at the hospital, she was monitored constantly by immigration officers. Local activists and representatives held events protesting her treatment. After two weeks, ICE forcibly removed her from the hospital against the advice of her medical team and sent her to B-18 and then across the country.

State Sen. Sasha Renée Perez (D-Alhambra) speaks at a news conference in front of Glendale Memorial Hospital where Milagro Solis Portillo was treated after being arrested by ICE on July 7.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Portillo isn’t the only detained immigrant flown across the country. The Times analyzed ICE data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Deportation Data Project and found that transfers between facilities in the first half of this year are happening faster and more frequently compared with the same period last year. The typical detainee is transferred at least once. From January through July, 12% of those detained have been transferred at least four times. In the first half of 2024, 6% of detainees were transferred 4 or more times.

Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, said transfers have been used as a retaliatory tactic for those who make requests, file complaints or stage protests such as hunger strikes. Transfers move people from places where they may already have an attorney or where there are established legal-services organizations to a place that is unfamiliar and where there may be fewer resources for detained migrants.

ICE moves people from temporary holding spaces to more long-term housing as they prepare detainees for deportation. But, as a result, they could be sent far from loved ones, professional organizations, church groups and other community networks. They miss out on in-person visits from family and instead have to pay for phone or video calls. Ghandehari said she believes this isolation is deliberate.

“Conditions are bad because it’s meant to be a deterrent,” Ghandehari said. “So it’s also part of the way the system is set up. And I think transfers play into that more than people realize.”

On July 18, a 20-year-old man was deported from the Alexandria Staging Facility to Honduras. Two months prior, on May 13, he was arrested outside of Orlando and then transferred 15 times back and forth across the country between facilities in Florida, California, Arizona, Hawaii and finally Louisiana.

He had no criminal history. Public ICE data do not show whether he had an attorney or was fighting his case to remain in the country.

15 transfers. 11 facilities. 4,800 miles.

A man first detained in Florida spent 30 days in a federal detention center in Hawaii.

Broward Transitional Center, Fla.

Alexandria Staging Facility, La.

Florence Staging Facility, Ariz.

Florence Service Processing Center, Ariz.

Golden State Annex, Calif.

Bakersfield hold room, Calif.

Honolulu Federal Detention Center, Hawaii

Arizona Removal Operations

Coordination Center, Ariz.

July 18 – Deported to Honduras

Arizona Removal Operations

Arizona Removal Operations

Facility placement is not to scale.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from the Deportation Data Project

LOS ANGELES TIMES

The journeys from one facility to another can be difficult. On Aug. 15, ICE moved Portillo from Clark County Jail to Louisiana through a flight out of Chicago. First, she spent about 12 hours in a holding room in the nearby Clay County Justice Center without access to communicate with anyone. Around 1:30 a.m. the next day, she and nine other women were put into a van headed to Chicago, five to a bench on either side.

“It was a very scary trip,” Portillo said, speaking with The Times through a translator. “We couldn’t be comfortable because our hands and feet were handcuffed. It was dangerous because it seemed like the officials driving were falling asleep. We could feel that the van would sway one way and another way at dawn.”

According to Tanigawa-Lau, it can take days after a transfer for family and legal representatives to find out that a person has been moved. The online system that is meant to show where detainees are located is not updated right away. The families of detainees typically find out where their loved one has been sent from the detained person — once they are able to place a phone call.

The abrupt relocations of her clients have led to missed appointments and court hearings, Tanigawa-Lau said. When a client is transferred, it becomes more difficult to mount a legal defense.

In the Los Angeles area, Tanigawa-Lau and her organization have knowledge of the judges and how to contact detention facilities to communicate with clients.

States such as Louisiana don’t have the same kind of immigration defense infrastructure. On the Immigration Advocates Network site, California has 205 resources listed to help migrants and their representatives find local legal services. Indiana has 16. Louisiana has 10. The Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana, which has deported the most immigrants this year, routinely limits access to attorneys, according to reporting by the Guardian.

Portillo recounted a comment made on the flight from California to Chicago by one of the ICE agents escorting her that it was thanks to the laws in California that she was being brought to Indiana. Indiana’s Republican Gov. Mike Braun is a strong supporter of the Trump administration’s immigration strategy.

ICE did not respond to questions about what considerations are made when transferring detainees or about why Portillo was sent to the Indiana facility.

Jason Houser, former ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration, said the goal of transfers is to optimize for removals, which typically happen from Louisiana and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

They also have to consider facility capacity. ICE is operating under a policy to fill all beds. Additionally, with bond hearings being denied, immigrants are stuck waiting for their cases to be resolved in detention. As many facilities reach, and even exceed, their bed capacity, Houser said this means that folks that need to get to Louisiana are stuck because there aren’t open beds along the way.

“If you fill every bed, can I move somebody from Northern Virginia through Tennessee to Louisiana? No, because the Tennessee field director will tell the Virginia field director, ‘I have no empty beds.’ Your person must just continue to sit there,” Houser said.

Most detention stays for those arrested in 2025 lasted about 24 days and resulted in removal. So far, 63% of those booked into a detention facility were deported. But some are held in detention much longer. More than a quarter of those booked into a detention center this year are still in custody. About 24% were held for more than two months. Nearly 9% for more than five months.

“If there is someone in an ICE bed that isn’t a convicted criminal and has no foreseeable way to be removed within 30 days, that isn’t a criminal, they should not be in a … bed,” Houser said. “They should be out at their job being a thriving member of the community until they’re humanly able to be removed. But that’s not what this administration is about.”

In the first half of 2024, more than 45,500 immigrants were released from detention on bond, through parole or under supervision while they went through immigration proceedings. This year, 13,800 received similar treatment. The vast majority have had to wait for their cases to conclude while in detention.

Portillo still gets emotional talking about her experience in ICE detention. She had been in California for 15 years. Her family was in Los Angeles. When she was transferred to Indiana, she lost all hope of winning her case and returning to them.

Upon arrival at the jail, it was clear to her that this was not a detention center. She was being held with people who had committed crimes. For weeks, as her mental health declined, she felt like she was being tortured.

Milagro Solis Portillo was transferred 2,000 miles away from her family and her attorney

Glendale Memorial Hospital, Calif.

Anaheim Global Medical Center, Calif.

Clay County Justice Center, Ind.

South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, La.

Aug. 29 – Deported to El Salvador

Clay County Justice Center

Glendale Memorial Hospital

Anaheim Global Medical Center

South Louisiana ICE Processing Center

Clay County Justice Center

Glendale Memorial Hospital

Anaheim Global Medical Center

South Louisiana ICE Processing Center

Facility placement is not to scale.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from the Deportation Data Project

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Ghandehari says that the transfers create an environment of “fear and anxiety” as a tactic to encourage people to self-deport. She says that it is an explicit strategy for this administration but it is not new. This year, however, the number of voluntary returns and departures more than doubled.

“It is about efficiency for ICE on their end, but with a total disregard for the people that they’re detaining and ripping apart from their loved ones,” Ghandehari said.

For Portillo, her treatment in detention became too much to endure.

“I decided to give up. We weren’t going to keep fighting … not because I didn’t want to stay but because of health reasons. … My mental health since being in Indiana started to suffer. When I was in L.A., it was one thing. I knew that my family was close and I had access to my attorney,” she said.

Ultimately, she decided it would be better to return to El Salvador.