With many Southern California communities living in fear because of ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, federal officials, including the president, appear to want to ramp up enforcement operations in Democratic-run cities like Los Angeles.
The onslaught of ICE raids in the Southland prompted more than a week of large-scale protests across the region, some of which turned violent, leading to more than 500 arrests in L.A. and a curfew in a single square mile of downtown, an area bounded by the 5, 10 and 110 Freeways.
On Saturday, one of the most popular swap meets in all of L.A. County was raided by some 60 heavily armed federal agents in tactical gear, their appearance sending customers and vendors running in some cases.
That raid, which included Department of Homeland Security helicopters, resulted in the arrest of just two individuals, neither of whom federal officials said had criminal records outside of illegally entering the U.S., which is a misdemeanor.
In another instance, a pregnant mother of four, a U.S. citizen, and her children were forced by heavily armed agents to exit their Huntington Park home while ICE searched the residence room by room for the woman’s husband, an undocumented man who, according to federal officials, has a criminal record.
That raid unfolded with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem watching from the street as agents were unable to locate the man.
In new reporting from CNN, internal government documents obtained by the outlet show that less than 10% of the estimated 185,000 people arrested by ICE between Oct. 2025 and May 2025 have convictions of serious crimes, such as rape, murder, assault or robbery.
More than 75% of those taken into custody during that same period, according to ICE documents, had no criminal conviction beyond an immigration or traffic-related offense.
In a Sunday post to his social media platform Truth Social, President Trump called on ICE “to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
Trump continued the post by singling out L.A., New York and Chicago, calling them “Democrat Power Centers” where “Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside.”
In Canada at the G7 Conference, the president doubled down on the inflammatory rhetoric.
“Yeah, I want them to focus on these cities because the cities are where you really have what’s called sanctuary cities, and that’s where the people are,” he told reporters. “New York and L.A. – look at L.A. Those people weren’t from L.A., they weren’t from California, most of those people, many of those people.”
Locally, demonstrators gathered in Santa Fe Springs to protest the swap meet raid that occurred over the weekend.
“The worst thing is the way they’re treating people, the inhumanity, the cruelty,” Emilia Garcia told KTLA.
It’s unclear just how long federal immigration officials plan to carry out mass deportation efforts in Southern California, with some estimates suggesting that it could be as long as another 30 to 60 days.
In the meantime, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has reduced the downtown curfew hours as conditions stabilize after a week of civil unrest.
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