enforcement

WASHINGTON — The government took the first historic step toward painful enforcement of the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law today, estimating that $11.7 billion must be cut by March 1 in almost everything from the Pentagon to the Postal Service.

The overall military budget will be reduced $5.8 billion, under the estimates from the Administration’s Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. The other half of the cuts will come from the rest of government, with the notable exception of Social Security and a number of programs for the poor.

The two budget agencies estimated that the deficit for fiscal 1986, which began last October, will be $220 billion if no cuts are made. That is higher than previous estimates and more than enough to trigger the cuts under the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law.

That statute, passed in the waning days of Congress’ 1985 session, requires the deficit to be reduced in steps until it is eliminated in 1991. Under a special provision, the maximum that can be cut this fiscal year is $11.7 billion.

4.9% Cut in Military

The fiscal 1986 cuts call for a 4.3% reduction in most agencies and a 4.9% cut in the military.

Salaries of federal employees will not be cut, but the operating budgets of their agencies will fall under the knife. Budget Director James C. Miller III said there will probably not be any layoffs of federal workers, though there could be a hiring freeze.

The CBO and OMB figures showed a $62-million cut in Congress’ own budget, a $4-million slash at the office of the President, $665,000 from the CBO itself and $1.5 million from the OMB.

The across-the-board nature of the cuts means that even agencies that raise money, like the Internal Revenue Service, will be cut. The IRS will lose $140 million from its $3.2-billion budget.

In Agriculture, the required $1.3-billion cut will mean smaller payments to farmers and a reduction of the number of inspectors at meat-processing plants, officials said.

Cut in Student Aid

The OMB-CBO report estimates a $168-million cut in spending authority for the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor, a $229.7-million cut in student aid and a $40.4- million cut in the federal vocational and adult education program.

Funds for the National Endowment for the Arts will be cut by $7.1 million and by $6 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Spending authority for the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be cut $645 million under the Gramm-Rudman formula.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WASHINGTON — President Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served prison time for failing to stop criminals from using the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism.

The pardon caps a monthslong effort by Zhao, a billionaire commonly known as CZ in the crypto world and one of the biggest names in the industry. He and Binance have been key supporters of some of the Trump family’s crypto enterprises.

“Deeply grateful for today’s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice,” Zhao said on social media Thursday.

Zhao’s pardon is the last move by a president who has flexed his executive power to bestow clemency on political allies, prominent public figures and others convicted of crimes.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the pardon in a statement and later told reporters in a briefing that the White House counsel’s office “thoroughly reviewed” the request. She said the administration of Democratic President Biden pursued “an egregious oversentencing” in the case, was “very hostile to the cryptocurrency industry” and Trump “wants to correct this overreach.”

The crypto industry has also long complained it was subject to a “regulation by enforcement” ethos under the Biden administration. Trump’s pardon of Zhao fits into a broad pattern of his taking a hands-off approach to an industry that spent heavily to help him win the election in 2024. His administration has dropped several enforcement actions against crypto companies that began during Biden’s term and disbanded the crypto-related enforcement team at the Justice Department.

Former federal prosecutor Mark Bini said Zhao went to prison for what “sounds like a regulatory offense, or at worst its kissing cousin.”

“So this pardon, while it involves the biggest name in crypto, is not very surprising,” said Bini, a white collar defense lawyer who handles crypto issues at Reed Smith.

Zhao was released from prison last year after receiving a four-month sentence for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. He was the first person ever sentenced to prison time for such violations of that law, which requires U.S. financial institutions to know who their customers are, to monitor transactions and to file reports of suspicious activity. Prosecutors said no one had ever violated the regulations to the extent Zhao did.

The judge in the case said he was troubled by Zhao’s decision to ignore U.S. banking requirements that would have slowed the company’s explosive growth.

“Better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” was what Zhao told his employees about the company’s approach to U.S. law, prosecutors said. Binance allowed more than 1.5 million virtual currency trades, totaling nearly $900 million, that violated U.S. sanctions, including ones involving Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, Al Qaeda and Iran, prosecutors said.

“I failed here,” Zhao told the court last year during sentencing. “I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”

Zhao had a remarkable path to becoming a crypto billionaire. He grew up in rural China and his family immigrated to Canada after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. As a teenager, he worked at a McDonald’s and became enamored with the tech industry in college. He founded Binance in 2017.

In addition to taking pro-crypto enforcement and regulatory positions, the president and his family have plunged headfirst into making money in crypto.

A stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial, a crypto project founded by Trump and sons Donald Jr. and Eric, received early support and credibility thanks to an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates using $2-billion worth of World Liberty’s stablecoin to purchase a stake in Binance. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency typically tied to the value of the U.S. dollar.

A separate World Liberty Financial token saw a huge spike in price Thursday shortly after news of the pardon was made public, with gains that far outpaced any other major cryptocurrency, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Zhao said earlier this year that his lawyers had requested a pardon.

It is not immediately clear what effect Trump’s pardon of Zhao may have for operations at Binance and Binance.US, a separate arm of the main exchange offering more limited trading options to U.S. residents.

Weissert and Suderman write for the Associated Press. Suderman reported from Richmond, Va.

A proposal to explore removing Los Angeles police officers from traffic enforcement is stuck in gridlock. Again.

The initiative to take the job of pulling over bad drivers away from cops is months behind schedule, frustrating reform advocates and some city leaders who argue that Los Angeles is missing an on-ramp toward the future of road safety.

Local officials first raised the prospect during the national reckoning on racial injustice that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, but the plan has progressed in sluggish fits and starts since then. Backers thought that they had scored an important victory with the release in May 2023 of a long-promised study mapping out how most enforcement could be done by unarmed civilian workers.

Last summer, the City Council requested follow-up reports from various city departments to figure out how to do that and gave a three-month deadline. But more than year later, most of the promised feasibility studies have yet to materialize.

“I’m very upset about the delay,” said Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, one of the proposal’s early champions. “Generally speaking, when you try to do a big reform like this, at least some portion of the people who want to do the work are very motivated to change the status quo — and I don’t think we have that here.”

He said there was blame to go around for the continued delays, but that he’s encouraged by his conversations with officials from the involved departments that studies will be completed — a precursor to legislation that would allow for re-imagining traffic safety.

At the same time, he said that he still saw a role for armed police in certain traffic situations.

“I don’t even think we need to be pulling people over at all for vehicle violations, especially for those that don’t pose any public safety risks,” he said, before adding: “If somebody’s going 90 miles an hour down Crenshaw Boulevard, that person does need to be stopped immediately and they do need to be stopped by somebody with a gun.”

In a unanimous vote in June 2024, the council directed city transportation staff and other departments to come back within 90 days with feasibility reports about the cost and logistics of numerous proposals, including creating unarmed civilian teams to respond to certain traffic issues and investigate accidents. Also under exploration were ideas to limit fines in poorer communities and end stops for minor infractions, such as expired tags or air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror.

Of the dozen or so requests made by the council, only two reports by the city’s transportation department have been completed so far, officials said.

Both of the studies — one assessing parking and traffic fines, and the other looking at how so-called “self-enforcing infrastructure” such as adding more speed bumps, roundabouts and other street modifications could help reduce speeding and unsafe driving — are “pending” before an ad hoc council committee focused on unarmed alternatives to police, according to an LADOT spokesman. The committee will need to approve the reports before they can be acted on by the full council, he said in a brief statement.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, the council’s top policy advisor, said she understands frustration over the delays. She said the protracted timeline was also at least partly caused by difficulties in obtaining reliable data from some of the participating departments, but declined to point any fingers. Two additional reports are in the final stages of being finalized and should be released by the end of the year, she said.

Although top LAPD officials have in the past signaled a willingness to relinquish certain traffic duties, others inside the department have dismissed similar proposals as fanciful and argued the city needs to crack down harder on reckless driving at a time when traffic fatalities have outpaced homicides citywide.

Privately, some police supervisors and officers complain about what they see as left-leaning politicians and activists taking away an effective tool for helping to get guns and drugs off the streets. They argue that traffic stops — if conducted properly and constitutionally — are also a deterrent for erratic driving.

A recently passed state law allowed the use of use of automated speeding cameras on a pilot basis in L.A. and a handful of other California cities.

Some advocates, however, are leery of relying on technology and punitive fines that can continue historical harms, particularly for communities of color.

“It’s been just a big bureaucratic slog,” said Chauncee Smith, of Catalyst California, which is part of a broader coalition of reform advocacy groups pushing for an end to all equipment and moving violation stops.

While L.A. has spent more than a year finishing a “study of a study,” he said, places such as Virginia, Connecticut and Philadelphia have taken meaningful action to transform traffic enforcement by passing bans on certain types of low-level police stops.

He cited mounting research in other cities that showed road improvements along high-injury street corridors were more effective at changing driver behaviors, ultimately reducing the number of traffic-related deaths and serious injuries more than the threat of being ticketed. But he also acknowledged the difficulty of making such changes in L.A.’s notoriously fragmented approach to planning and delivering infrastructure projects.

Smith and other advocates have also argued for an outright ban on so-called pretextual stops, in which police use a minor violation as justification to stop someone in order to investigate whether a more serious crime has occurred.

The LAPD has reined in the practice in recent years under intense public pressure but never abandoned it. Further changes could require legislation and are likely to face stiff opposition from police unions such as the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which has been highly vocal in its criticism of the pretext policy change.

Leslie Johnson, chief culture officer for Community Coalition, a South L.A.-based nonprofit , said that despite the delays the organization plans to press ahead with efforts to reimagine public safety and to keep pressure on public officials to ensure the study results don’t get buried like past efforts. She said that there is renewed urgency to push through the changes after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that critics says has opened the door to widespread racial profiling.

“Even though we’re a sanctuary city, we’re concerned that these prextexual stops could be leveraged” by federal immigration authorities, she said.

The California Legislature on Thursday passed a pair of bills to prohibit on-duty law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from masking their faces and to require them to identify themselves.

Senate Bill 627, written by Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), includes exceptions for SWAT teams and others. The measure was introduced after the Trump administration ordered immigration raids throughout the Los Angeles area earlier this year.

Federal officers in army-green neck gaiters or other face coverings have jumped out of vans and cars to detain individuals across California this summer as part of President Trump’s mass deportation program, prompting a wave of criticism from Democratic leaders.

Representatives for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security defend the face coverings, arguing that identifying officers subjects to them to retaliation and violence.

If supported by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the law would apply to local and federal officers, but not state officers such as California Highway Patrol officers. Wiener, when asked about that exemption on the Senate floor, declined to elaborate.

Leaders in Los Angeles County are exploring a similar measure to ban masks despite some legal experts’ view that the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution dictates that federal law takes precedence over state law.

The bill’s backers argue that permitting officers to disguise themselves creates scenarios where impostors may stop and detain migrants, which undermines public trust and ultimately hinders legitimate law enforcement operations.

“The idea that in California we would have law enforcement officers running around with ski masks is terrifying,” Wiener said in a brief interview. “It destroys confidence in law enforcement.”

Wiener’s bill allows exceptions for masks, including for undercover officers. Medical coverings are also allowed. .

Senate Bill 805, a measure by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra) that targets immigration officers who are in plainclothes but don’t identify themselves, also passed the state Legislature on Thursday.

Her bill requires law enforcement officers in plain clothes to display their agency, as well as either a badge number or name, with some exemptions.

WASHINGTON — The street, normally quiet, was abuzz. The block lit up with flashing police cruisers and officers in tactical vests. Some had covered their faces. Neighbors came out of homes. Some hurled insults at the police, telling them to leave — or worse. Dozens joined in a chant: “Shame on you.”

Aaron Goldstein approached two officers. “Can you tell me why you couldn’t do this at 10:30 or 9:30, and why you had to terrorize the children in our neighborhood?” the man asked the officers as they turned their gazes away from him. Both wore dark sunglasses against the morning sun.

They said nothing.

The arrest shattered the routine of the neighborhood around Bancroft Elementary School, a public school where more than 60% of students are Latino. It came on the third day of a new school year, and immigration fears had already left the neighborhood on edge. Groups of residents had started escorting students to school from two nearby apartment complexes.

It was just another morning in Washington, D.C., in Summer 2025 — the summer of President Trump’s federal law-enforcement intervention in the nation’s capital.

A confrontation that was one among many

Some interludes unfold calmly. During others, nothing happens at all. But the boil-over Wednesday morning was one among many that have erupted across the city since Trump’s police takeover, offering a glimpse into daily life in a city where emotions have been pulled taut. Sightings of police activity spread quickly, attracting residents who say the federal infusion is unwelcome.

Families and children had been making their way toward a bilingual elementary school in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood when federal and local police officers descended on an apartment building just blocks from the school. Neighbors had been on high alert amid fears of increased immigration enforcement.

Now officers were flooding the street, some in plainclothes and face coverings. Some carried rifles or riot shields. Neighbors gathered outside and began yelling at the police to leave. Blocks away, as word spread, an assistant principal waiting to greet students sprinted to the scene.

In an interview, Goldstein, the Mount Pleasant resident, said it felt like a violation of the neighborhood, which he described as a “peaceful mix of white professionals and migrant neighbors, with a lot of love in it.”

“People are on Signal chats and they’re absolutely terrified, and everyone is following this,” said Goldstein, 55, who had just dropped off his third-grade daughter at Bancroft. “It’s distressful. We feel invaded, and it’s really terrible.”

The standoff continued after police arrested a man who they said is accused of drug and firearm crimes. Dozens of residents trailed officers down a side street and continued the jeers. “Quit your jobs.” “Nobody wants you here.” “You’re ruining the country.”

Asked about the episode later at a news conference, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said it attracted “a significant number of protesters” but “we were able to maintain calm.” Said Bowser: “I know there’s a lot of anxiety in the District.”

One officer, in the middle of it all, tries to talk

The conflict was punctuated by a remarkably candid conversation led by a Metropolitan Police Department sergeant who took questions from neighbors in what he described as “not an official press conference.”

“This is just me talking to community members,” Sgt. Michael Millsaps said, leaning back against the rear bumper of a cruiser.

Millsaps said the city’s police department was carrying out a planned arrest of a “suspected drug dealer” with support from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The suspect was taken into custody and a search of his apartment uncovered narcotics and an illegal firearm, Millsaps said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers joined only as a distraction to prevent protesters from disrupting the operation, he said.

“The immigration folks were parked over there to get y’all to leave us alone,” he said. ICE officials did not immediately comment.

Residents told Millsaps that their trust of the city’s police had been broken. They said they felt less safe amid Trump’s crackdown. Millsaps said he was sorry to hear it. “I hear your frustrations. My job is to take it.”

Still, he described a different response from residents east of the Anacostia River, in some of the city’s highest crime areas. “I go on the other side of the river now, it’s the opposite. People come outside and thank us,” he said.

Mount Pleasant resident Nancy Petrovic was among those yelling at city and ATF officers after the arrest. Petrovic, a lifelong resident of the area, rushed out of her home when she heard yelling shortly after 8 a.m. She counted at least 10 police cars lined up across the block.

“Kids are going to school, they’re walking to school, and it’s frightening to them and their parents,” said Petrovic, who said the street is usually quiet and has no need for more police. “We want them to go away.”

Asked about the timing of the arrest, Millsaps said it was a planned operation similar to countless others.

“I’ve been doing this for 14 years, serving these warrants at the same time of day,” he said. “The only difference is you’ve got a big crowd here, which added even more police presence. But this was just a normal police operation.”

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

Most California voters strongly disapprove of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies and believe that raids in the state have unfairly targeted Latinos, according to a new poll.

The findings, released Sunday, reflected striking emotional reactions to immigration enforcement. When voters were asked to describe their feelings about news reports or videos of immigration raids, 64% chose rage or sadness “because what is happening is unfair.”

Among Democrats, 91% felt enraged or sad. Conversely, 65% of Republicans felt hopeful, “like justice is finally being served.”

Such divisions were consistent across 11 questions about the administration’s overall immigration strategy and specific aspects of the way enforcement is playing out in the state, with divisions along partisan lines. The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll was conducted for the Los Angeles Times.

Democrats almost unanimously oppose President Trump’s tactics on immigration, the poll showed. Most Republicans support the president, though they are not as united as Democrats in their approval.

“It was essential to show the strength of feelings because Democrats are strongly on the negative side of each of these policies,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “That struck me. I don’t usually see that kind of extreme fervor on a poll response.”

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The poll found that 69% of respondents disapprove of the way immigration enforcement is being carried out in the state.

Among Democrats, 95% disapprove, as well as 72% of voters with no party preference or others not affiliated with the two major parties, whereas 79% of Republicans approve.

The poll was completed online in English and Spanish from Aug. 11-17 by 4,950 registered voters in California.

A question that showed the least unified support among Republican voters asked respondents whether they agree or disagree that federal agents should be required to show clear identification when carrying out their work. The question comes as immigration agents have carried out raids using face coverings, unmarked cars and while wearing casual clothing.

Some 50% of Republicans agreed that agents should have to identify themselves, while 92% of Democrats agreed.

G. Cristina Mora, IGS co-director and a sociology professor at UC Berkeley who studies race and immigration, helped develop the poll questions. She said the poll shows that Republican voters are much more nuanced than Democrats. They also split on questions about due process, birthright citizenship and immigration enforcement in sensitive locations.

“Republicans are much more fractured in their thinking about immigration across the state,” Mora said.

Mora said she developed the question about agent identification in response to the recent bill led by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) that would require immigration officers to display their agency and name or badge number during public-facing enforcement actions, similar to police and other local law enforcement.

Padilla also spearheaded a letter last month to Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons seeking information about the agency’s policies regarding the identification of agents while on duty. ICE has justified the tactics by stating that agents are at risk of doxxing and have faced increased assault on the job.

“The public has a right to know which officials are exercising police power, and anonymous enforcement undermines both constitutional norms and democratic oversight,” Padilla and 13 other Democrats wrote in the letter.

Another poll question that garnered mixed support of Republicans asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement, “ICE agents should expand immigration enforcement into schools, hospitals, parks and other public locations.”

Among Republicans, 53% agreed with that statement, though fewer than 1 in 3 agree strongly. Meanwhile, 94% of Democrats disagreed.

Shortly after Trump took office, his administration rescinded a 2011 memo that restricted immigration agents from making arrests in sensitive locations, such as churches, schools and hospitals. Since then, agents have been filmed entering locations that were previously considered off limits, putting immigrant communities on edge.

Schools in Los Angeles reopened this month with “safe zones” in heavily Latino neighborhoods and changed bus routes with less exposure to immigration agents. An 18-year-old high school senior, Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, was walking his family’s dog in Van Nuys when he was taken into federal immigration custody.

Mora said the varied responses illustrate how California Republicans view the Trump administration’s immigration tactics with “degrees of acceptability.” They might feel strongly that immigrants with violent criminal histories should be deported, she said, but the takeover of MacArthur Park, when a convoy of immigration agents in armored vehicles descended there in a show of force, or the enforcement actions outside of public schools “might have been a step too far.”

Mike Madrid, a GOP political consultant who wrote a book about how Latinos have transformed democracy, said the split among Republicans is consistent with national polling. The trend is problematic for Trump, he said, because it means he is losing big swaths of his base.

“This is becoming viewed as overreach more than it is immigration control,” he said. “The idea sets a frame for it, but the actual implementation is widely unpopular.”

Republicans were largely united in response to other questions. Asked about the Trump administration’s proposal to do away with birthright citizenship — which confers citizenship to all children born in the U.S. regardless of their parent’s legal status — 67% of GOP respondents approved, and most of them strongly approved. By contrast, 92% of Democrats disapproved, and as did seven in 10 respondents overall.

Mora said she was surprised by the fact that Latinos didn’t stand out as substantially more opposed to Trump’s actions than voters of other racial and ethnic groups. For example, 69% of Latino voters said ICE raids have unfairly targeted Latinos, just five percentage points higher than the 64% of white non-Latino voters who agreed.

“You would imagine Latinos would be through the roof here, but they’re not,” Mora said. She said this reminded her of research around the tendency for Latinos to individualize their experiences instead of seeing them as racially unjust.

Broadly, 72% of Latinos disagree with the way the Trump administration is enforcing immigration laws in California, while 25% approve and 3% have no strong opinion.

Among Latino voter subgroups, older men and third-generation (or beyond) women are the more likely to support the way immigration enforcement is being handled in California, with 38% of Latino men over age 40 in agreement compared to 11% of Latinas ages 18-39, although among both groups majorities disapprove.

Madrid said that’s consistent with national polling showing a decrease in support for Republicans among Latinos after record gains in the last presidential election. The question, he said, is whether Trump’s approval ratings among Latinos could regress substantially enough to flip control of Congress in the midterms.

“We’re not there yet,” he said.

Aug. 23 (UPI) — The Trump administration is deploying up to 1,700 National Guard troops to 19 states to assist with Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities.

The troops will assist with logistical support, transportation, case management and clerical services at facilities that are processing “illegal migrants,” the Defense Department told Fox News.

“The in-and-out processing may include personal data collection, fingerprinting, DNA swabbing and photographing of personnel in ICE custody,” a Pentagon spokesperson said in a prepared statement.

The troops will be deployed from August through mid-November amid a surge in ICE enforcement activities as the Trump administration works to meet its goal of at least 30,000 monthly deportations.

A July status change of Marine Corps personnel to National Guard status will support the 19-state deployment, which will not include law enforcement activities, according to News Nation.

The deployments will occur in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, SouthCarolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming, according to the Defense Department.

Unrelated to anti-violent crime deployments

The pending deployments are not related to the use of National Guard troops to quell violent crime in the nation’s capital or other cities, such as Chicago, according to the White House.

President Donald Trump has said the National Guard could be deployed to Chicago, New York and other cities to address violent crime after calling the Washington deployment a success.

The president deployed about 2,000 National Guard troops to the capital earlier this month, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week authorized them to carry weapons.

The U.S. Marshals Service will approve the troops carrying sidearms, which will be 9mm Sig Sauer M17 pistols for personal protection.

New Mexico National Guard deployed to address crime

Also deploying National Guard troops to quell crime is New Mexico Gov. Michelle Grisham.

Grisham, a Democrat, recently announced a state of emergency due to crime in parts of the state and already deployed up to 70 National Guard troops in Albuquerque.

She also has issued states of emergency in Rio Arriba County, the city of Espanola and pueblos in the area after being asked to do so by respective local governments, CNN reported.

Grisham cited a fentanyl epidemic and violent crime among juveniles as “requiring immediate intervention” and in a news release said Rio Arriba County has the state’s highest rate of overdose deaths.

Local law enforcement and other resources are overwhelmed by a surge in drug trafficking, violent crime and other threats to public safety, she said.

As the Trump administration continues to ramp up immigration enforcement actions, a group of lawmakers is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement for placing restrictions on detention center visits — obstructing Congress’ role in overseeing government functions.

Twelve House Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging new guidelines that require advance notice for oversight visits and render certain facilities off-limits. “No child should be sleeping on concrete, and no sick person should be denied care,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). “Yet that’s exactly what we keep hearing is happening inside Trump’s detention centers.”

These lawmakers are right to seek access to detention facilities. Detention centers have long been plagued by poor conditions, so the need for oversight is urgent. With record numbers of migrants being detained, the public has a right to know how people in the government’s custody are being treated.

The U.S. operates the world’s largest immigration detention system, at a cost of $3 billion a year. This money is appropriated by Congress — and comes with conditions.

Under existing law, none of the funds given to Homeland Security may be used to prevent members of Congress from conducting oversight visits of “any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.” In addition, the law states that members of Congress are not required to “provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility.” So ICE’s attempt to place limits on oversight appears to be illegal.

The restrictions are also problematic because they claim to exempt the agency’s field offices from oversight. However, migrants are being locked up in such offices, including at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, and 26 Federal Plaza in New York City. In the former, one detainee reported being fed only once a day, at 3 a.m. In the latter, as many as 80 detainees have been crammed into a single room amid sweltering summer temperatures. These offices were never set up to house people overnight or for days or weeks. If they are functioning as de facto detention centers, then they must be subject to inspections.

Congressional oversight of immigration detention is vital right now. The current capacity for U.S. detention facilities is 41,000. Yet the government was holding nearly 57,000 people as of July 27. That means facilities are far over capacity, in a system that the Vera Institute of Justice describes as “plagued by abuse and neglect.”

No matter who is president, conditions in immigrant detention are generally abysmal. Migrant detention centers have been cited for their lack of medical care, poor treatment of detainees, and physical and sexual violence. In 2019, the federal government itself reported that conditions in detention were inhumane. At least 11 people have died in detention since January. This reality cries out for more transparency and accountability — especially because Homeland Security laid off most of its internal watchdogs earlier this year.

The ranks of detainees include asylum-seekers, teenagers, DACA recipients, pregnant women, journalists and even U.S. citizens. Most of the detainees arrested lately have no criminal convictions. These folks are often arrested and moved thousands of miles away from home, complicating their access to legal representation and family visits. A visit by a congressional delegation may be the only way to ensure that they are being treated properly.

In response to the lawsuit by House Democrats, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for Homeland Security, said: “These members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour. Instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails.” She added that ICE was imposing the new limits, in part, because of “obstructions to enforcement, including by politicians themselves.”

McLaughlin might have been referring to a May scuffle outside a Newark, N.J., detention center that led to charges being filed against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) and the arrest of the city’s mayor. But this incident would not have occurred if immigration officials had followed the law and allowed lawmakers inside to survey the facility’s conditions.

Indeed, the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, told a congressional hearing in May that he recognized the right of members to visit detention facilities, even with no notice. And the notion that any government agency can unilaterally regulate Congress runs afoul of the Constitution. The legislative branch has the right and obligation to supervise the executive branch. Simply put, ICE cannot tell members of Congress what they can or cannot do.

The need for oversight in detention facilities will only become greater in the future, as Congress just approved $45 billion for the expansion of immigrant detention centers. This could result in the daily detention of at least 116,000 people. Meanwhile, 55% of Americans, according to the Pew Center, disapprove of building more facilities to hold immigrants.

ICE’s new policies violate federal law. No agency is above oversight — and members of Congress must be allowed full access to detention facilities.

Raul A. Reyes is an immigration attorney and contributor to NBC Latino and CNN Opinion. X: @RaulAReyes; Instagram: @raulareyes1

WASHINGTON — A dozen Democratic House members — including four from California — sued the Trump administration Wednesday after lawmakers were repeatedly denied access to immigrant detention facilities where they sought to conduct oversight visits.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Washington, says each plaintiff has attempted to visit a detention facility, either by showing up in person or by giving Homeland Security Department officials advanced notice, and been unlawfully blocked from entering.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for Homeland Security, said in a statement that visit requests should be made with enough time to prevent interference with the president’s authority to oversee executive department functions, and must be approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. McLaughlin said a week’s notice suffices.

“These Members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour; instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails,” she wrote.

Among the plaintiffs are California Reps. Norma Torres of Pomona, Robert Garcia of Long Beach, who is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles, and Lou Correa of Santa Ana, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement.

Also included are Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York, who is the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee; and Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, who is the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

In an interview with The Times, Gomez said there was always an understanding between the executive and legislative branches about the importance of oversight. Under the Trump administration, that has changed, he said.

“We believe this administration, unless they’re faced with a lawsuit, they don’t comply with the law,” he said. “This administration believes it has no obligation to Congress, even if it’s printed in black and white. That’s what makes this administration dangerous.”

In a statement, Correa said that, as a longtime member of the House Homeland Security Committee, his job has always been to oversee Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Until this summer, he said, he fulfilled that role with no issues.

Reports from immigrant detention facilities in recent months have included issues such as overcrowding, food shortages and a lack of medical care. U.S. citizens have in some cases been unlawfully detained by immigration agents.

The lawsuit demands that the Trump administration comply with federal law, which guarantees members of Congress the right to conduct oversight visits anywhere that immigrants are detained pending deportation proceedings. The lawmakers are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation and American Oversight.

ICE published new guidelines last month for members of Congress and their staff, requesting at least 72 hours notice from lawmakers and requiring at least 24 hours notice from staff before an oversight visit. The guidelines, which have since been taken down from ICE’s website, also claimed that field offices, such as the facility at the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, “are not detention facilities” and fall outside the scope of the oversight law.

The agency says it has discretion to deny or reschedule a visit if an emergency arises or the safety of the facility is jeopardized, though such contingencies are not mentioned in federal law.

The lawsuit calls ICE’s new policy unlawful.

A federal statute, detailed in yearly appropriations packages since 2020, states that funds may not be used to prevent a member of Congress “from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.”

Under the statute, federal officials may require at least 24 hours’ notice for a visit by congressional staff — but not members themselves.

The lawmakers say congressional oversight is needed now more than ever, with ICE holding more than 56,800 people in detention as of July 13, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization.

Ten people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office. Earlier this year, the administration moved to close three internal oversight bodies at Homeland Security, but revived them with minimal staff after civil rights groups sued.

Gomez said members of Congress have a duty to determine whether the administration is fulfilling its obligations to taxpayers under the law. The administration’s position that holding facilities inside ICE offices are not subject to oversight is a slippery slope, he said.

“What happens if they set up a camp and they say ‘This is not a detention facility but a holding center?’ For us it’s that, if they are willing to violate the law for these facilities, the potential for the future becomes more problematic,” he said.

July 29 (UPI) — In a time when many Americans disapprove of current U.S. immigration efforts, officials at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Tuesday pointed out that CBP does more than protect Americans from illegal activity at the nation’s borders.

Since 2010, the New York office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection has partnered with the nonprofit Global Medical Relief Fund to provide assistance in a series of humanitarian acts and medical relief to children in over 64 nations.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is responsible for protecting the country,” Frank Russo, field director of the CBP’s New York office, noted in a statement.

But border agency officials spoke of a “commitment” to “balancing enforcement with empathy.”

On Tuesday, the federal government revealed that last year in June three young adult victims of violent attacks in Tanzania linked to tribal and ritualistic beliefs “were able to receive urgent medical care and prosthetics in the United States” due to CBP and GMRF working hand-in-hand.

The three young African natives born albino were, according to officials, “targeted and mutilated due to superstitions that their body parts bring good luck.”

They were lifted to the United States and stayed on Staten Island at GMRF’s Dare to Dream House in New York for children getting medical treatment.

The Staten Island-based GMF sees support from a network of international embassies and medical entities such as Shriners Children’s in Philadelphia.

Officials noted that whole the three albino survivors had since aged out of pediatric care, private medical company Med East had stepped-up to provide new prosthetics for the Tanzanian natives at no cost.

Russo reportedly visited the group. On Tuesday he called the CBP job “incredibly challenging.”

GMRF claims 500 children in 59 countries have been helped by their work with at 1 million “lives changed.”

However, the “commitment” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to balance empathy and enforcement arrived as other federal law enforcement agencies, particularly U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has seen a barrage of criticism.

ICE has faced waves of public backlash and negative media attention, including recent attempts on the lives of ICE agents in the Trump administration’s bid to curtail illegal immigration due to what many say has been unprofessional behavior and other questionable acts.

But Russo says efforts like CBP’s work with Global Medical Relief Fund are “immensely rewarding and demonstrate the humanitarian side of what we do.”

Meanwhile, the two entities on August 17 are set to welcome others via Dubai in the Middle East on a flight that will bring medical care and critical supplies in the area of prosthetic body parts.

As a Christian who smuggled Bibles into my home country of Iran, I became a target of the country’s Islamist regime, which imprisons and sometimes kills those who invite Muslims to convert. After living under house arrest for two years, I fled as a refugee and was ultimately resettled to the United States.

I experienced true religious freedom for the first time in my life in this country, of which I am now a proud, grateful citizen — and that’s why I am shocked by the ways that my government is now treating my Iranian congregants, who have been detained by masked officers, separated from their families and threatened with deportation to a country that would kill them for their Christian faith. What I have witnessed gives me flashbacks to Tehran, and I believe that America must be better.

Two families who are a part of the Farsi-speaking evangelical congregation that I pastor in Los Angeles have been detained in recent weeks. First, a couple and their 3-year-old daughter, who are in the process of seeking asylum because they fear persecution if they were returned to Iran. They were detained at their court hearing in downtown Los Angeles on June 23. The entire family is now being held in South Texas.

The next day, I received a call from a woman in my church. Like me, she had been forced to flee Iran for Turkey when her involvement in Iran’s underground churches was exposed.

When the woman and her husband found themselves in a desperate situation in Turkey last year, they were not offered the option to fly to the U.S. as resettled refugees as I had been in 2010. Instead, they flew to South America, made a treacherous journey north and waited in Mexico for an appointment they reserved on a U.S. government app, CBP One, to be able to explain their situation to officers of the U.S. government.

Once lawfully allowed in with provisional humanitarian status, they found our church — where they could be baptized and publicly profess their faith in Jesus — and legal help to begin their asylum request. They received their work authorization documents and found jobs. Their first asylum hearing in immigration court was scheduled for this September.

When President Trump returned to office, however, his administration both suspended all refugee resettlement and canceled humanitarian parole for those who had been allowed to enter via the CBP One app. Many parolees received menacing letters instructing them to self-deport or face prosecution, fines or deportation. But these letters also noted that these instructions did not apply to those who had “otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain,” such as a pending asylum application.

That’s why I was so shocked to receive a call from the woman in my congregation informing me that her husband had been detained by masked immigration officers on the street, just a few blocks from our church. I rushed over and began to film the shocking scene: First he was detained by masked officers, and then she was. I asked if they had a judicial warrant, but if they did, they would not show me. The woman experienced a panic attack and was taken to a hospital but discharged into ICE custody; she is now hours away in a detention center in California. Her husband is in a detention center in Texas.

It’s not just these two families who are affected. My community of Iranian Christians is terrified of being detained and deported back to Iran, where they fear being killed for their faith. Some have lost jobs because they fear leaving their homes. Others lost jobs because their work authorization, tied to humanitarian parole, was abruptly terminated.

I believe that America is better than this. This behavior reminds me disturbingly of what I fled in Iran. But I know that most Americans do not support this, nor do most fellow evangelical Christians: Many evangelicals voted for Trump because he pledged to protect persecuted Christians — not to deport them. While most evangelicals want those convicted of violent crimes detained, one-quarter or less of us say that about other immigrants, and 7 in 10 believe the U.S. has a moral responsibility to receive refugees. I have been overwhelmed by the support of English- and Spanish-speaking sister congregations of our church, by the outreach of Christians from across the country and by a recent biblically rooted statement of many California evangelical leaders.

Now, Congress has passed legislation to exponentially increase the funding for detaining and deporting immigrants. Trump’s administration has been clear that anyone in the country unlawfully — including more than a million who were here lawfully until his administration abruptly canceled their status — is at risk of deportation. According to a recent study by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 80% of those vulnerable to deportation are Christians; some, like those in my church, would likely face death if deported to their home countries.

I hope and pray Trump will reverse course on these policies, going after those who genuinely present a public safety threat but having mercy on others, especially those who fled persecution on account of their faith. And until he does make that policy shift, I plead with Congress to pass real immigration reforms that would halt these horrifying detentions and deportations.

Ara Torosian is a pastor at Cornerstone West Los Angeles.

Published on
03/07/2025 – 7:20 GMT+2

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The majority of French, Spanish, and German citizens want stricter EU enforcement of Big Tech, according to a new YouGov survey.

Almost two-thirds in France (63%), 59% in Germany, and 49% in Spain said EU enforcement of laws addressing Big Tech’s influence and power is too relaxed, when asked to choose between too relaxed, too strict, or about right.

Only 7% of respondents in France, 8% in Germany, and 9% in Spain felt the enforcement was too strict.

The survey, commissioned by two NGOs—People vs Big Tech and WeMove Europe—follows the EU’s 2022 adoption of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), aimed at regulating tech giants’ impact on users and the marketplace.

Both regulations are caught up in the trade dispute between the EU and the US, in which the US has described the DSA and DMA as unjustified non-tariff barriers.

EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera told Euronews last week that the EU would not give in to US pressure on the issue.

“We are going to defend our sovereignty,” Ribera said, adding: “We will defend the way we implement our rules, we will defend a well functioning market and we will not allow anyone to tell us what to do.”

Surprisingly, the survey results also show that the survey participants believed Big Tech holds more power than the EU itself.

Half of French respondents (50%), 48% in Germany, and a majority in Spain (55%) believe that Big Tech companies are “more powerful” or “slightly more powerful” than the EU. In contrast, only 9% in France, 12% in Germany, and 15% in Spain think tech giants are “slightly less powerful” or “much less powerful.”

The survey was conducted on a sample of 2,070 respondents in France, 2,323 in Germany, and 2,077 in Spain.

June 20 (UPI) — A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump‘s attempt to make federal transportation funding contingent on state compliance with his immigration policies.

In his ruling Thursday, Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Providence, R.I., said not only does the Department of Transportation lack the authority to tie grant funding to immigration enforcement, but the directive also usurps Congress’ power of the purse while being “arbitrary and capricious.”

“Congress did not authorize or grant authority to the Secretary of Transportation to impose immigration enforcement conditions on federal dollars specifically appropriated for transportation purposes,” the President Barack Obama appointee said in his brief ruling.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by 20 state attorneys general challenging an April 24 directive sent to all Department of Transportation funding receipts, stating they must comply with an Immigration Enforcement Condition when applying for future grants.

The letter specifies that as recipients, they have “entered into legally enforceable agreements with the United States Government and are obligated to comply fully with all applicable Federal laws and regulations,” particularly those relating to immigration enforcement and diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

“Adherence to your legal obligations is a prerequisite for receipt of DOT financial assistance,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s letter states.

“Noncompliance with applicable Federal laws, or failure to cooperate generally with Federal authorities in the enforcement of Federal law, will jeopardize your continued receipt of Federal financial assistance from DOT and could lead to a loss of Federal funding from DOT.”

The 20 Democrat-led states filed their lawsuit against the directive in May, arguing the Department of Transportation has no authority to tie grants to federal civil immigration enforcement, as the two are unrelated.

In his ruling, McConnell agreed with the plaintiffs.

“The IEC, backed by the Duffy Directive, is arbitrary and capricious in its scope and lacks specificity in how the States are to cooperate on immigration enforcement in exchange for Congressionally appropriated transportation dollars — grant money that the States rely on to keep their residents safely and efficiently on the road, in the sky and on the rails,” he said.

“[T]he IEC is not at all reasonably related to the transportation funding program grants.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta applauded the ruling while chastising Trump for “threatening to withhold critical transportation funds unless states agree to carry out his inhumane and illogical immigration agenda.

“It’s immoral — and more importantly, illegal,” the Democrat said. “I’m glad the District Court agrees, blocking the President’s latest attempt to circumvent the Constitution and coerce state and local governments into doing his bidding while we continue to make our case in court.”

Since returning to the White House, Trump has led a crackdown on immigration, with many of his policies being challenged in court.

Late Thursday, an appeals court handed Trump a victory in the battle, permitting California National Guard troops to remain deployed on Los Angeles streets amid protests against his immigration policies.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to continue to fight what he called “President Trump’s authoritarian use of U.S. military soldiers.”

SACRAMENTO — In response to immigration raids by masked federal officers in Los Angeles and across the nation, two California lawmakers on Monday proposed a new state law to ban members of law enforcement from concealing their faces while on the job.

The bill would make it a misdemeanor for local, state and federal law enforcement officers to cover their faces with some exceptions, and also encourage them to wear a form of identification on their uniform.

“We’re really at risk of having, effectively, secret police in this country,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), co-author of the bill.

During a news conference in San Francisco announcing the legislation, Wiener criticized the Trump administration for targeting illegal immigrants without criminal records and alleged that current tactics allow ICE agents to make themselves appear to be local police in some cases. Under the proposal, law enforcement officials would be exempted from the mask ban if they serve on a SWAT team or if a mask is necessary for medical or health reasons, including to prevent smoke inhalation.

Recent immigration enforcement sweeps have left communities throughout California and the country frightened and unsure if federal officials are legitimate because of their shrouded faces and lack of identification, said Sen. Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), co-author and chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee. He said the bill would provide transparency and discourage impersonators.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agencies, called the proposal “despicable,” saying it posed a threat to law enforcement officers by identifying them and subjecting them to retaliation.

“We will prosecute those who dox ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law. The men and women of ICE put their lives on the line every day to arrest violent criminal illegal aliens to protect and defend the lives of American citizens,” the department said in a post on the social media site X. “Make no mistake, this type of rhetoric is contributing to the surge in assaults of ICE officers through their repeated vilification and demonization of ICE.”

Wiener, however, said members of law enforcement are public servants and people need to see their faces so they can be held accountable for their actions.

He likened ICE officials to Stormtroopers, fictional helmeted soldiers from the movie “Star Wars,” and said masking the faces and concealing the names of law enforcement officials shields them from public scrutiny and from the communities they are meant to serve.

“We don’t want to move towards that kind of model where law enforcement becomes almost like an occupying army, disconnected from the community, and that’s what it is when you start hiding their face, hiding the identity,” he said.

California law already bans wearing a mask or other disguise, including a fake mustache, wig or beard to hide your identity and evade law enforcement while committing a crime, but there are no current laws about what police can or cannot wear. It was unclear whether the proposal would affect undercover or plainclothes police officers, or if a state law could apply to federal police forces.

The proposal is being offered as an amendment to Senate Bill 627, a housing measure that would essentially be eviscerated.

The bill also includes an intent clause, which is not legally binding, that says the legislature would work to require all law enforcement within the state to display their name on their uniforms.

“Finding a balance between public transparency and trust, along with officer safety, is critical when we’re talking about creating state laws that change the rules for officers that are being placed into conflict situations,” Jason Salazar, president of the California Police Chief Assn., said in a statement. “We have been in touch with Senator Wiener, who reached out ahead of the introduction of this bill, and we will engage in discussions with him and his office to share our concerns so that we ensure the safety of law enforcement first responders is a top priority.”

Wiener said the new measure would make it clearer who is a police officer and who is not, which would be essential in the wake of the politically motivated killing of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, and the attempted killing of another politician and his wife. The suspect, Vance Boelter, is accused of knocking on the doors of the lawmakers in the middle of the night and announcing himself as a police officer to get them to open up, authorities said.

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), wrote in an X post that the bill would endanger ICE agents.

“Do not forget — targeted attacks on ICE agents are up 413%. This is yet another shameless attempt to put them in harm’s way,” she said.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration directed immigration officers to pause arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels after the president expressed alarm about the impact of his aggressive enforcement, an official said Saturday.

The move marks a remarkable turnabout in Trump’s immigration crackdown since he took office in January. It follows weeks of increased enforcement since Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.

Tatum King, an official with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, wrote regional leaders on Thursday to halt investigations of the agricultural industry, including meatpackers, restaurants and hotels, according to the New York Times.

A U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to the Associated Press the contents of the directive. The Homeland Security Department did not dispute it.

“We will follow the president’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokesperson, said when asked to confirm the directive.

The shift suggests Trump’s promise of mass deportations has limits if it threatens industries that rely on workers in the country illegally. Trump posted on his Truth Social site Thursday that he disapproved of how farmers and hotels were being affected.

“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” he wrote. “In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”

While ICE’s presence in Los Angeles has captured public attention and prompted Trump to deploy the California National Guard and Marines, immigration authorities have also been a growing presence at farms and factories across the country.

Farm bureaus in California say raids at packinghouses and fields are threatening businesses that supply much of the country’s food. Dozens of farmworkers were arrested after uniformed agents fanned out on farms northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, which is known for growing strawberries, lemons and avocados. Others are skipping work as fear spreads.

ICE made more than 70 arrests Tuesday at a food packaging company in Omaha. The owner of Glenn Valley Foods said the company was enrolled in a voluntary program to verify workers’ immigration status and that it was operating at 30% capacity as it scrambled to find replacements.

Tom Homan, the White House border advisor, has repeatedly said ICE will send officers into communities and workplaces, particularly in “sanctuary” jurisdictions that limit the agency’s access to local jails.

Sanctuary cities “will get exactly what they don’t want, more officers in the communities and more officers at the work sites,” Homan said Monday on Fox News Channel. “We can’t arrest them in the jail, we’ll arrest them in the community. If we can’t arrest them in the community, we’re going to increase work-site enforcement operation. We’re going to flood the zone.”

Madhani and Spagat write for the Associated Press.

BATON ROUGE, La. — As protests erupt across the country over aggressive immigration enforcement tactics, Louisiana lawmakers approved a package of legislation this week that’ll aid the ongoing federal crackdown on deportation.

Amid growing national tensions, Louisiana is the latest red state that expanded its immigration enforcement role — crafting a legislative promise to cooperate with federal agencies.

Law enforcement agents and public officials could face jail time if they purposefully obstruct, delay or ignore federal immigration enforcement efforts, under one Louisiana bill. Another measure requires state agencies — including the departments of Health, Education, Corrections, Children & Family Services, and Motor Vehicles — to verify, track and report anyone illegally in the U.S. who is receiving state services.

The bills head to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a tough-on-crime conservative and staunch ally of President Trump, who is likely to sign them into law.

Penalizing officials who obstruct immigration enforcement efforts

Following Trump’s pledge to remove millions of people who are in the country illegally, immigration raids have ramped up from coast to coast. Federal agencies have sought to enlist state and local help, alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding them until federal agents take custody.

Louisiana’s GOP-dominated Legislature passed a bill to ensure just that.

The measure expands the crime of malfeasance in office, which is punishable with up to 10 years in jail. Essentially, it would make it a crime for a public official or employee to refuse to comply with requests from agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It also prohibits public officials, including police and judges, from knowingly releasing a person who “illegally entered or unlawfully remained” in the U.S. from their custody without providing advance notice to ICE.

“This is one of those bills that says it’s against the law not to enforce the law,” said Republican state Sen. Jay Morris.

Additionally, the bill expands the crime of obstruction of justice to include any act “intended to hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart federal immigration enforcement efforts,” including civil immigration proceedings.

Tia Fields, an advocate for the Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants, said she fears the measures will have a “chilling effect” and could potentially criminalize “ordinary acts of assistance or advice” by advocates, religious leaders, attorneys or organizations.

Louisiana, which does not share a border with a foreign country, is one of several states attempting to penalize local officials who don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Most recently, under a new law in Tennessee, local officials who vote to adopt sanctuary policies could face up to six years in prison. Other states allow residents or the local attorney general to sue officials and state governments if they limit or refuse to comply with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

But threats of repercussions have gone beyond the creation of legislation. Most recently, as the National Guard was deployed to protests in Los Angeles, Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “ border czar,” hinted that elected officials could face arrest if they interfere with agents on the ground.

State agencies tasked with tracking immigrants

Amid growing tensions over immigration enforcement, Louisiana has made national headlines for its role.

Nearly 7,000 people are being held in the state’s nine immigration detention centers. Among them is Mahmoud Khalil, a student and legal U.S. resident whom the Trump administration jailed over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University.

With a spotlight on Louisiana, bills and policies targeting migrants suspected of entering the country illegally were pushed to the forefront by Landry and legislators. Ranging from banning sanctuary city policies to sending Louisiana National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border.

One measure, passed this week, codifies an executive order of Landry. It requires state agencies to verify the citizenship of people attempting to receive or use state services and benefits. The agencies would collect and track such data, submitting an annual report to the governor, attorney general and Legislature, in addition to posting it publicly online.

Any agency that does not comply risks having its funding withheld.

Republican state Sen. Blake Miguez, who authored the legislation, said it was crafted so officials and residents know how much money and what “services or benefits have been afforded” to immigrants who are in the country illegally.

But another bill goes a step further — requiring state agencies to refer the applicant’s information, “including unsatisfactory immigration status,” to ICE.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat who opposed the bill, asked Miguez if the measure could result in families being separated.

Miguez said that while that’s “a bit of a stretch,” ultimately it is up to federal authorities and what they do with the information.

Cline writes for the Associated Press.

While publicly chastising groups protesting immigration raids, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell has offered support to officers in his Latino-majority department who may have mixed feelings about the Trump administration‘s crackdown.

In a department-wide missive sent out earlier this week as protests ramped up, McDonnell acknowledged some officers were “facing criticism from the community or wrestling with the personal impact,” of recent events and needed support.

“When federal immigration enforcement actions take place in communities that may reflect your own heritage, neighborhoods, or even your family’s story, it can create a deep and painful conflict,” he wrote. “You may be wearing the uniform and fulfilling your duty, but inside, you’re asked to hold a complex mix of emotions.”

It was an unusual display of solidarity for a chief who has rarely waded into the contentious immigration debate. McDonnell has bristled over criticism about his relationship with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while serving as Los Angeles County Sheriff during Trump’s first term.

In interviews and public comments since becoming chief McDonnell has sought to distance himself from a policy as sheriff that allowed federal immigration authorities to operate freely, targeting people for deportation in the nation’s largest jail system.

Both McDonnell and current L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna have stressed that their departments do not cooperate with federal authorities solely for immigration purposes — polices adopted long ago to help build trust within the city’s diverse communities.

In his own message to his department this week, Luna thanked deputies for their “professionalism, resolve, and unwavering dedication” — but only briefly alluded to the immigration debate.

“Despite the complexity of this situation — made even more challenging by the heightened political environment — I trust and fully expect that you will continue to demonstrate the same level of excellence, thoughtfulness, and integrity that have brought us this far,” Luna said.

Critics of local law enforcement actions in recent days note that racial bias also remains a contentious issue, with LAPD officers pulling over and shooting Latino Angelenos at a higher rate than their share of the overall population.

Jim McDonnell was introduced by Mayor Karen Bass to serve as the new Chief LAPD during a press conference at City Hall on Oct. 4, 2024.

(Ringo Chiu/For The Times)

When asked about how he is working to keep the city’s immigrant population safe, McDonnell often cites Special Order 40, the landmark policy adopted in 1979 that forbids LAPD officers from stopping people to inquire about their citizenship status.

But Trump’s actions have put the chief and other local leaders in the awkward position of having to defend federal officers and property — while also trying to communicate that they are not on the side of immigration agents.

In his recent message to department employees, McDonnell said he recognized they “may feel loyalty, frustration, fear, or sometimes even shame as the community mistakenly views you as part of something that you are not.” The public may not “see the nuance,” of the LAPD’s postion, he said, because “simply being present can make it seem like you support an action you may not agree with, or that you’re complicit in pain affecting your own community.”

Publicly, though, the chief has struck a different, sometimes defensive tone, often focusing his remarks on destruction caused by some protesters.

At a City Council hearing Tuesday, he sparred with city leaders who challenged the department’s relationship with federal authorities.

In one exchange, City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said he disagreed with the chief on referring to agencies such as ICE as “law enforcement partners.”

“I don’t care what badge they have on or whose orders they’re under. They’re not our partners,” Harris-Dawson said.

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, who sits on the Council’s public safety committee and represents an Echo Park-to-Hollywood district, said in a statement to The Times that he wasn’t surprised that Latino police officers may be feeling conflicted.

“Families are being ripped apart, and I’d bet nearly every one of them has a parent or relative who’s undocumented, or were even undocumented themselves at some point,” said Soto-Martinez.

Art Placencia, a retired LAPD detective, recalled being a young cop on the job in the years when cops would arrest Latinos simply because they believed that they might be in the country illegally and deliver them into federal custody.

The LAPD of today is vastly different than when he was on the job, he said. Prodded by lawsuits and consent decrees, the once-mostly white department has grown to become more than half Latino, which more or less mirrors the city’s demographics. And while Latino officials are under-represented in the LAPD’s upper echelons, they wield more political clout than ever, Placencia said.

Placencia, the former president of an prominent association for Latino officers that once sued the LAPD for discrimination in promotion decisions, said McDonnell is caught in a bind of having to navigate the city’s left-leaning politics while also backing up his rank-and-file officers on the front lines against hostile crowds.

“He’s gotta show that he’s concerned about the officers and their feelings,” said Placencia. “They’re the ones that are out there, they’re the ones that are getting rocks thrown at them.”

In past interviews, McDonnell has spoken proudly about his immigrant upbringing — both of his parents moved to Boston from Ireland a year before he was born — saying that he understands the struggle of trying to make a better life in America. But as sheriff he also came under fire by breaking ranks with many other area politicians by opposing a “sanctuary state” bill that sought to prevent federal immigration agents from taking custody of people being released from California jails.

The selection of McDonnell last November came as a disappointment among some within the department, who had hoped Bass would pick Robert Arcos, a third-generation Mexican American, who had the backing of some powerful Latino civic leaders and would have been the first Latino chief of a city that is more than 50% Latino.

Ruben Lopez, a retired LAPD SWAT lieutenant, said he appreciated that McDonnell decided to address the internal moral dilemma that some officers face.

Lopez remembers wrestling with similar feelings when, as a young cop, he was on the front lines of a massive protest over Proposition 187, a controversial law — later struck down by a federal court — that barred undocumented immigrants from receiving public school educations and a range of other state- and county-funded benefits.

“I remember some of the command staff wanted to be more aggressive, and I felt these were just families and kids wanting to exercise their right to protest,” he said. “Because if we don’t have that trust in the community, including immigrant communities then we’re not going to get that collaborative approach to police a city of this size.”

Times staff writer Connor Sheets contributed reporting.

The Trump administration argued in federal court Wednesday that any judicial intervention to curtail its deployment of military troops to Los Angeles would endanger federal immigration agents and undermine the president’s authority to keep American cities safe.

Attorneys for President Trump called California’s request Tuesday for a temporary restraining order barring those deployments a “crass political stunt endangering American lives” amid violent protests over immigration raids in the city.

If granted, they wrote, a restraining order would prevent Trump “from exercising his lawful statutory and constitutional power” as commander in chief to ensure federal facilities and personnel are protected and that the nation’s immigration laws are adequately enforced.

“There is no rioters’ veto to enforcement of federal law,” they wrote. “And the President has every right under the Constitution and by statute to call forth the National Guard and Marines to quell lawless violence directed against enforcement of federal law.”

Hindering the administration’s deployment of troops, the attorneys argued, “would be constitutionally anathema. And it would be dangerous.”

The administration was responding to California’s request Tuesday that U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer issue a restraining order blocking Trump’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deployments of thousands of state National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to L.A.

The troops were deployed without the request or approval of Gov. Gavin Newsom or city leaders, who have called their presence unnecessary, politically motivated and a move to increase tensions on the streets, rather than reduce them.

Trump and other administration officials have defended the deployments as necessary, and in their filing Wednesday, the president’s attorneys argued that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents had been targeted in violent attacks and that federal facilities had been damaged and defaced.

They also said that local police had acknowledged things had spun out of control and that their response had been inadequate to restore order.

Trump’s attorneys included with their opposition a written declaration from Ernesto Santacruz Jr., field office director for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations unit in Los Angeles. He described how federal agents faced violence from protesters during a raid in the Garment District, near a Home Depot store in Paramount, and at a secure ICE processing facility downtown.

Santacruz said federal immigration officials were also having their personal information spread by protesters online, and that efforts by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol to restore order and address the threats on the street were inadequate.

“Even with the LAPD, LASD, and CHP all engaged in the ensuing law enforcement activities, I believe the safety of local federal facilities and safety of those conducting immigration enforcement operations in this area of responsibility requires additional manpower and resources,” Santacruz wrote.

The administration’s arguments, if adopted by the court, could have implications elsewhere. Similar demonstrations against immigration raids have erupted in San Francisco and Santa Ana and across the country, including in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York and Seattle. More protests were scheduled to coincide with a large military parade in Washington on Saturday.

Newsom and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta first filed a lawsuit over the L.A. deployments Monday, arguing they are unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment — violating state sovereignty and clear federal law limiting the use of military forces for domestic policing, including the Posse Comitatus Act.

They said Tuesday that a restraining order was necessary on an emergency basis to prevent “imminent, irreparable harm” to the state, arguing that the Trump administration intended for the military troops to “accompany federal immigration enforcement officers on raids throughout Los Angeles.”

Bonta said Trump was using military personnel as “a political pawn” to “create a confrontational situation.” Newsom said the federal government was turning the military against American citizens in a way that “threatens the very core of our democracy.” Trump, he said, was “behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”

Constitutional scholars and members of Congress also have raised concerns about the executive branch deploying military assets to quell street protests, suggesting such tactics are most commonly used by authoritarian strongmen and dictators.

A coalition of 18 other state attorneys general issued a statement Wednesday backing Bonta and California’s lawsuit, saying Trump’s decision to deploy troops without the consent of California’s leaders was “unlawful, unconstitutional, and undemocratic.”

“The federal administration should be working with local leaders to keep everyone safe, not mobilizing the military against the American people,” said the statement, which was joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Vermont.

In their response to California’s restraining order request Wednesday, the president’s attorneys said the military forces in L.A. would not be directly engaged in policing, and that state officials had offered zero evidence to suggest otherwise.

“Neither the National Guard nor the Marines are engaged in law enforcement. Rather, they are protecting law enforcement, consistent with longstanding practice and the inherent protective power to provide for the safety of federal property and personnel,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

A hearing on the state’s request for a restraining order is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The outcome could potentially affect how federal resources are deployed at future demonstrations in L.A. and beyond, including in coming days.

The administration has said immigration raids will continue in L.A. and nationwide. Trump has warned that any protesters who show up at the military parade in Washington will be “met with heavy force.”

The parade is for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, according to the administration, but critics have derided it as an authoritarian show of strongman power by Trump — whose birthday is also Saturday.

Acting Enforcement Director Cara Petersen has served with the United States agency since it was founded.

The top remaining enforcement official at the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has tendered her resignation, saying the White House’s overhaul of the agency has made her position untenable.

Acting Enforcement Director Cara Petersen, who has served at the agency since its creation nearly 15 years ago, said that current leadership under US President Donald Trump “has no intention to enforce the law in any meaningful way”, according to an email first obtained by the Reuters news agency.

“I have served under every director and acting director in the bureau’s history and never before have I seen the ability to perform our core mission so under attack,” Petersen wrote in an email.

“It has been devastating to see the bureau’s enforcement function being dismantled through thoughtless reductions in staff, inexplicable dismissals of cases, and terminations of negotiated settlements that let wrongdoers off the hook.”

Petersen’s departure comes four months after the agency’s enforcement and supervision chiefs also resigned amid efforts by President Donald Trump to dismantle the CFPB.

An agency spokesperson and Petersen did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In addition to seeking to cut the CFPB’s workforce by about 90 percent, acting Director Russell Vought and chief legal officer Mark Paoletta have said they will slash agency enforcement and supervision and have dropped major CFPB enforcement cases en masse, including against Capital One and Walmart. The agency has even revised some cases already settled under the prior administration.

The dramatic changes come as Republicans have complained for years that the CFPB, created in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 global financial crisis, is too powerful and lacks oversight. Democrats and agency backers contend it plays a critical role in policing financial markets on behalf of consumers.

“While I wish you all the best, I worry for American consumers,” said Petersen in her email. A federal appeals court in Washington has yet to decide on the Trump administration’s effort to undo a court injunction blocking the agency from firing most agency staff.