While President Donald Trump marks six months in his second term, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, told ABC News “This Week”, Martha Raddatz, that the repression of immigration of the administration has not only caused protests, but fears among the city’s residents.
“Los Angeles is a city of immigrants: 3.8 million people, and about 50% of our population is Latin. And so when the raids began, fear extended,” Bass said.
The immigration and customs control raids (ICE) began in Los Angeles in early June, which caused manifestations that sometimes became violent. While it was said that Trump’s deportation impulse initially focused on undocumented immigrants with criminal record, an ABC news analysis of new data shows that in recent weeks, the Trump administration has arrested a growing number of migrants without criminal convictions.
Since then, farmers, business owners and immigrant defense groups, such as the mayor, have said that many residents have been afraid to leave their homes for fear of deportation, affecting the workforce, food supply and the culture of the city. Bass said that the restaurant in which the interview was held, located in the predominantly Latin neighborhood Boyle Heights of East Los Angeles, was typically bustling. But now, and the neighborhood in general, it can feel like a ghost city.
Martha Raddatz de ABC interviews the mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass at the Boyle Heights House Fine Restaurant.
Julia Cherner/ABC News
“It is not just deportation. It is fear that is established when raids occur, when people are taken from the street,” Bass said. “Even the people who are legally here, even the people who are US citizens, have been arrested. Immigrants who have their documents and presented themselves for their annual immigration appointment were arrested when they appeared exactly what they were supposed to do.”
She criticized ICE for agents for executing application operations without their affiliation being prominently displayed.
“Men masked in unmarked cars, without a plate, without real uniforms, jumping from cars with rifles and snatching people out of the street, taking many people to think that they were perhaps having kidnappings,” Bass said. “How do you have masked men who then say: ‘Well, we are federal officials’, without identification?”
Raddatz said the administration says that these agents do that because “there have been threats … [and] Doxing “.
“We have a Los Angeles police department that has to deal with crime in this city every day. And they are not masked. They stay here,” Bass said. “The masked parachute men stay here for a while and leave. And then you enter a profession like the police, like the police? I feel, I do not think you have the right to have a mask and snatch people out of the street.”
Bass also touched the continuous presence of federal troops in the city. In response to these protests in early June, Trump deployed the National Guard and the Marines of Active Service to Los Angeles after the protesters faced the police. Some protesters threw rocks, fireworks and other objects in the police, according to reports, before the arrival of federal troops.
Trump signed a memorandum in June saying that the National Guard was deployed to address anarchy in Los Angeles. The 79th Combat Team of the Infantry Brigade of the National Guard of California published in unknown that his goal was to protect federal protesters and personnel.
In his interview with ABC News, Bass denounced violence as “terrible”, but said it did not “guarantee military intervention.”
“He did not guarantee the Marines who arrived in our city, basically, there is no real mission, but only to show a force,” Bass said.
While the number of National Guard members in the city has been cut in half, Bass said that its goal has not changed since they first arrived, and argued that their presence is not yet necessary.
“If you drive through our two federal buildings, you will see them stand there. But there is nothing in those federal buildings. So, in my opinion, we are using the dollars of the taxpayers badly, and we are badly using our troops,” he said.
While I did not agree with the Trump administration immigration agenda, Bass said it appreciated the help that the administration gave to Los Angeles during the massive forest fires of January.
“Well, I will praise the administration during the first six months in Los Angeles with the fires. If you ask me, are there anything they have done well in terms of immigration? I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the point of view has been punitive, it has been mostly possible so that these people do not come.”
Bass said he is still willing to “work” with the White House, noting that both the Olympic Games and the World Cup arrive in the city in the coming years.
“How does this end?” Raddatz asked. “How do you see the next six months, the next two years for immigrants in your city?” “Well, I just hope that this reign of terror ends. I hope the military leave, because they were never necessary to start. I hope we can return to normal. I hope that the next time I come to this restaurant, it will be filled, because people will not be afraid to come here.”
