As immigration enforcement activity continues in Pasadena and throughout the Los Angeles area, Monday the Trump administration sued Los Angeles over so-called “sanctuary city” policies.
On Saturday around 7:30 a.m. the Pasadena Police Department received a 911 call reporting suspicious activity at Del Mar Boulevard and Catalina Avenue, Chief Gene Harris said. Officers and a supervisor responded and discovered an ICE operation.
Officers verified the federal agents’ identification, Harris reported.
The agents detained one adult female without incident, and Pasadena police “did not assist ICE in the apprehension as PPD was solely there for the call for service,” Harris said in a statement.
The Pasadena Fire Department was called to evaluate the woman who was detained and treated her at the scene. She declined to go to the hospital.
Harris said the woman’s family was very cooperative in diffusing the situation when a small group assembled near the scene of the ICE operation.
“PPD remained on scene to provide for public safety,” Harris said.
Pasadena officials canceled recreation activities at local parks earlier this month after reports of federal immigration enforcement activity in the city.
Officials canceled swim lessons and other programs at Villa Parke, Robinson Park and Victory Park “out of an abundance of caution after seeing social media posts of what appears to be federal enforcement activity at Villa Parke (Saturday) morning and the potential escalation of conflict that unannounced federal enforcement activity causes,” according to a statement posted on X.
The cancellations followed an ICE detention of six individuals around 6 a.m. June 18 near a Pasadena shopping center, including two men at a bus stop at Los Robles Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard.
‘Sanctuary’ lawsuit
The Trump administration Monday sued the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council over the so-called “sanctuary city” ordinance, alleging the law enacted after Trump’s election violates the Constitution by interfering with the federal government’s immigration enforcement.
Via sanctuary laws, local officials declare their refusal to assist immigration enforcement operations.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump.”
The suit filed in U.S. District Court in downtown LA seeks to have the city’s policies ruled invalid based on the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
“The United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause prohibits the city from picking and choosing which federal laws will be enforced and which will not,” Bill Essayli, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. “By assisting removable aliens in evading federal law enforcement, the city’s unlawful and discriminatory ordinance has contributed to a lawless and unsafe environment that this lawsuit will help end.”
Bass said Tuesday the initial intention of sanctuary policies was “so the newly arrived immigrant population that was being preyed on by criminals would feel safe” reporting crimes to police.
“We will defend our ordinance and continue to defend policies that reflect the long-standing values of our city,” Bass said during a news conference in downtown LA.
“I personally won’t be intimidated by these tactics. We won’t be intimidated by these tactics,” the mayor said, referring to the lawsuit and the deployment of approximately 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in downtown and West Los Angeles.
Bass vowed to “always protect Angelenos against the unwarranted and cruel actions of this administration.”
Ivor Pine, a spokesman for LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, said the sanctuary ordinance was in line with the Constitution.
“The city of Los Angeles ordinance limiting the use of city resources for federal immigration enforcement was carefully drafted and fully complies with federal law and constitutional principles,” he said in a statement to HeySoCal.com. “The Constitution and federal law both allow the federal government to regulate immigration, but the reserved power of the state and the people including under the Tenth Amendment ensures our ability to defend the constitutionality of our ordinances and policies.
“Our city remains committed to standing up for our constitutional rights and the rights of our residents,” Pine added. “We will defend our ordinance and continue to defend policies that reflect our longstanding values as a welcoming community for all residents.”
A spokeswoman for Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said Monday he was unavailable for comment.
LA’s sanctuary policies generally prohibit local resources, primarily police officers, from participating in federal immigration raids. The policies for the most part are based on state law that prohibit local cooperation with federal agents except during incidents of serious or violent crime.
The federal government contends that then-candidate Donald Trump campaigned and won the 2024 presidential election “on a platform of deporting the millions of illegal immigrants the previous administration permitted, through its open borders policy, to enter the country unlawfully.
“Days after now President Trump won the Nov. 5, 2024 election, the Los Angeles City Council, wishing to thwart the will of the American people regarding deportations, began the process of codifying into law its sanctuary city policies,” according to DOJ attorneys.
In her remarks Tuesday, Bass questioned the Trump administration’s motivations for initiating aggressive immigration enforcement operations beginning in early June and continuing daily throughout Southern California.
“Three short weeks ago, Los Angeles was calm. Angelenos were going about work, school, and families were preparing for graduation events,” Bass said. “The next day the federal government decided to disrupt our city and began a series of immigration raids, arresting hundreds of people, many for dubious reasons, beginning what I will call an all-out-assault on Los Angeles.
“First, the raids, then randomly grabbing people off the streets, chasing Angelenos through parking lots,” the mayor continued. “Sending in federalized troops to stand idle, protecting two buildings and having U.S. Marines trained to fight the enemy abroad stationed here and caravanning around town, intimidating Angelenos.”
Bass said the military presence and immigration enforcement operations have created “a sense of fear and terror in our city, families missing graduations, people afraid to go to work and school. Businesses unable to open and inflicting a serious blow to our local economy.”
Bass also was critical of investigations by congressional Republicans the secretary of transportation’s requests “for documents and communications with the implication that the mayor’s office and the city (were) either negligent or complicit in the protests and the vandalism that was falsely portrayed as citywide riots.”
Now with the latest federal salvo coming in the form of Monday’s lawsuit filing, “This is essentially an all out assault against Los Angeles,” Bass said.
The lawsuit against LA is the latest action brought by the Justice Department targeting sanctuary city policies in the U.S. The DOJ has previously sued New York and New Jersey over immigration laws.
Numerous cities have adopted sanctuary ordinances, including Long Beach, Pasadena, Santa Ana and West Hollywood.
Updated July 1, 2025, 2:43 p.m.
