Dozens of heavily armed federal agents in military-style gear conducted an apparent immigration enforcement operation on Monday morning in Los Angeles’s MacArthur Park, provoking outrage from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who quickly arrived on the scene of the raid.
“Minutes before, there were more than 20 kids playing — then, the MILITARY comes through,” she wrote on X, sharing a video of about 20 officers, including some on horseback, marching through the park. “The SECOND I heard about this, I went to the park to speak to the person in charge to tell them it needed to end NOW. Absolutely outrageous.”
Border Patrol agents were photographed at the park and local media reported the presence of military vehicles and a Department of Homeland Security helicopter.
The Independent has contacted the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol, and the military task force overseeing the deployment of Marines and California National Guard members in Los Angeles for comment.
The operation reportedly started around 10:30 a.m. and lasted about an hour. It’s unclear who it was targeting or if anyone was arrested.
Activists with megaphones alerted bystanders in the park about the operation, and people were reportedly seen running down the street yelling, “la migra,” a Spanish term for immigration officials.
Protesters reportedly gathered in the park and screamed for the officials to “get the f*** out,” and Bass was seen amid the scrum using a Border Patrol agent’s phone to speak with a senior official, urging officers to leave.
“I don’t work for Karen Bass,” Border Patrol El Centro sector chief Gregory Bovino told Fox News after the operation. “Better get used to us now, cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.”
Local activists condemned the operation, which comes after the deployment of federal troops in Los Angeles amid fiery anti-immigration raid protests.
“This was just one big, perverse publicity stunt,” Ron Gochez of the group Unión del Barrio told The Los Angeles Times. “It was just to show force, it was just to take pictures.”
The Trump administration’s spending package gives immigration and border officials an infusion of about $170 billion, an unprecedented increase in funding, expected to increase the size and pace of immigration raids across the country.
