Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a request Sunday seeking records from the Trump administration to explain why a phalanx of Border Patrol agents showed up outside a news conference held by leading California Democrats last week.
Newsom filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security asking for “all documents and records” related to the Aug. 14 Border Patrol operation in downtown Los Angeles, which took place outside the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. At the news conference, Newsom announced a campaign to seek voter approval to redraw California’s congressional maps to boost Democrats’ chances of retaking the House and stymieing Trump’s agenda in the 2026 midterm elections.
“Trump’s use of the military and federal law enforcement to try to intimidate his political opponents is yet another dangerous step towards authoritarianism,” Newsom posted Sunday on X. “This is an attempt to advance a playbook from the despots he admires in Russia and North Korea.”
Newsom announced at the press event the “Election Rigging Response Act” — which would scrap independently drawn congressional maps in favor of those sketched by Democratic strategists in an attempt to counter moves by Republicans in Texas and other GOP-led states to gerrymander their own districts to favor Republicans in the 2026 midterms. Meanwhile, dozens of armed federal agents massed in the adjacent streets wearing masks, helmets and camouflage.
Newsom and other leading Democrats, including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, dismissed the Border Patrol action as an intimidation tactic. In response to questions from The Times on Sunday, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the agents were “focused on enforcing the law, not on [Newsom].”
McLaughlin said two people were arrested during the Little Tokyo operation. One was a drug trafficker, according to McLaughlin, who said the other was a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has been a focus of the Trump administration’s efforts to use the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportation efforts.
She did not respond to questions about how many agents were deployed or what specific agencies were involved in the Aug. 14 operation. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, who has been leading the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration operations in California, was at the scene and briefly spoke to reporters.
McLaughlin did not name either person arrested or respond to a request for further information or evidence of links between the arrests and the Venezuelan gang.
“Under President Trump and [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi] Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences,” she wrote in an e-mailed statement. “Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Thursday, witnesses at the scene identified one of the men arrested as Angel, a delivery worker who was carrying strawberries when he was captured.
“He was just doing his normal delivery to the courthouse,” said the man’s colleague, Carlos Franco. “It’s pretty sad, because I’ve got to go to work tomorrow, and Angel isn’t going to be there.”
In the FOIA request, Newsom’s legal affairs secretary, David Sapp, called the Border Patrol deployment an “attempt to intimidate the people of California from defending a fair electoral process.”
In addition to documents related to the planning of the raid, the FOIA request also seeks “any records referencing Governor Newsom or the rally that was scheduled to occur” and communications between federal law enforcement officials and Fox News, which allowed the Trump-friendly media outlet to embed a reporter with Border Patrol that day.
Trump’s increased use of the military and federal law enforcement against his political rivals has drawn growing concern in recent months. The president deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines to quell protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this year. Just last week, Trump sent swarms of federal law enforcement officials to Washington, D.C., to combat what he sees as out-of-control crime, despite the fact that most crime statistics show violence in the nation’s capital is at a 30-year low.
Although Newsom demanded an answer by early September, the federal government is notoriously slow in responding to FOIA requests and will often delay responses for years. A spokesman for Newsom did not immediately respond to questions on Sunday about what, if any, other legal steps the governor was prepared to take.
Voters would have to approve Newsom’s plan to redraw the congressional maps in a special election in November. The new maps, drawn by Democratic strategists and lawmakers behind closed doors instead of the independent commission that voters previously chose, would concentrate Republican voters in a few deep-red pockets of the state and eliminate an Inland Empire district long held by the GOP.
In total, Democrats would likely pick up five seats in California in the midterms under the redrawn maps, possibly countering or outpacing Republican efforts to tilt their map red in Texas. Other states have already begun to consider redrawing their maps along more partisan lines in response to growing anxieties over the fight to control the House of Representatives in 2026.
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
