Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office Sunday formally requested public information about a federal immigration enforcement operation in downtown Los Angeles near where the governor was announcing a congressional redistricting initiative.
The raid Thursday was part of the Trump administration’s roving crackdown on illegal immigration since early June throughout LA and Southern California.
Newsom and local elected officials were in downtown’s Little Tokyo section to announce a Nov. 4 ballot measure asking voters to approve redistricting in an attempt to generate more House seats for the Democrats. The move was in response to Republican redistricting efforts in Texas to bolster the party’s slim majority.
“As Governor Newsom and other California elected leaders announced the Election Rigging Response Act to counter President Trump’s attempt to rig the mid-term elections, dozens of armed and masked U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents descended upon the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles,” according to a Freedom of Information Act request by David Sapp, the governor’s legal affairs secretary. “This attempt to intimidate the people of California from defending a fair electoral process was a grotesque use of federal government resources for political grandstanding.
“CBP nonetheless has made the incredible claim that the timing of their senseless operation was a mere coincidence,” Sapp continued in his letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Newsom’s office specifically seeks “text messages, Microsoft Teams messages, phone logs, risk assessments and memoranda” related to the immigration enforcement activity, including records of Trump administration officials’ “communications with Fox News to embed a reporter and camera crew with the group of federal agents and any records referencing Newsom or the news conference that was scheduled to occur at the time and location where CBP decided to conduct its operation.”
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin emphasized federal agents’ focus on criminals in a statement Monday to HeySoCal.com.
“DHS is a law enforcement agency — we enforce the law,” McLaughlin said. “Our brave men and women of CBP patrol ALL areas of Los Angeles every day with over 40 teams to arrest criminal illegal aliens. On Thursday, CBP arrested two illegal aliens in the vicinity of the Newsom’s press conference. To Mr. Newsom’s chagrin, DHS is focused on enforcing the law, not on him. These arrests include an alleged Tren de Aragua gang member and narcotics trafficker.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences,” McLaughlin continued. “Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.”
U.S. Border Patrol Sector Commander Gregory Bovino told reporters the agency was doing roving immigration enforcement patrols in the area and took one individual into custody.
“Know we’re here making Los Angeles a safer place since we don’t have politicians that’ll do that,” Bovino told Fox LA. “We do that ourselves. So, that’s why we’re here today, as you can see already, making it a safer place. We’re glad to be here. We are not going anywhere.”
Bovino said he didn’t know the governor was hosting a media event inside the cultural center.
“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 said in a statement. “Trump is attempting to advance a playbook from the despots he admires in Russia and North Korea. We will not back down in our defense of democratic freedom, and the Trump administration should answer for this pathetic and cowardly behavior.”
Newsom has also criticized attempts in Texas to redraw House districts as next year’s midterm elections approach, possibly adding three to five Republican seats. That redistricting effort has been on hold because Democrats in the Texas Legislature have left the state, preventing a quorum and vote on the issue.
LA Mayor Karen Bass, who arrived at the Little Tokyo event after federal agents had left the area, was critical of the government’s raid.
“There is no way this was a coincidence,” Bass told reporters. “This was widely publicized that the governor and many of our other elected officials were having a press conference here to talk about redistricting, and they decided they were going to come and thumb their nose in front of the governor’s face. Why would they do that?”
The federal government’s actions were “unbelievably disrespectful” and a “provocative act,” Bass said.
“They’re talking about disorder in Los Angeles, and they are the source of the disorder in Los Angeles right now,” she added. “This is just completely unacceptable. This is an administration and Customs and Border Patrol that has gone amok.”
Corrin Rankin, chair of the California Republican Party, said in a statement last week the party would sue to fight the redistricting effort.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said that if California redraws its districts, Texas will counter by amending its lines again to add even more Republican seats in the nation’s capital, according to published reports.
Newsom’s office filed a previous FOIA request Aug. 6 for documents and records to identify the total expenses for deploying U.S. Marines and federalizing California National Guard soldiers in LA. Shortly after the deployment to guard federal facilities and assist immigration enforcement operations, U.S. Department of Defense staff testified to Congress that the Pentagon would spend $134 million on the troop deployment.
Despite recent federal court rulings that call for a stop to federal agents’ “roving” tactics, the Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 8. Since then reports of immigration enforcement ops have increased throughout the LA area.
Newsom’s FOIA request submitted Sunday is available online.
