Even over the Fourth of July weekend, ICE officials didn't stop their raids in LA: ‘Troubling reminder of federal overreach'
The agency has detained more than 1,600 people in the region in recent months, according to the Los Angeles Times. Among those arrested on the Fourth of July were two car wash workers who had been employed there for decades and a beloved food vendor who runs a birria stand, the outlet reports.
A man whose father was detained, who asked to remain anonymous, told NBC 4 LA that he was unsure what prompted the raids.
'He's not a criminal,' he said. 'He wasn't doing anything he wasn't supposed to. He came in to work on the Fourth of July.'
West Hollywood officials were also critical.
'On a day meant to honor the ideals of liberty, democracy, and freedom from oppression, we instead confront a deeply troubling reminder of federal overreach. Independence Day should be a time for reflection and reverence, not fear and persecution,'' they said in a statement on the city website.
Anti-ICE protests also continued on the holiday. The Los Angeles Police Department arrested five people in connection with downtown demonstrations, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Fans of the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team walked out of the stadium on Friday in protest against the owners' lack of public support for immigrants. Fans also held up a banner that read: 'Fight Ignorance, Not Immigrants.'
Earlier in the week, ICE raided three Los Angeles-area Home Depots and arrested a total of 37 people, KTLA reports.
President Donald Trump also signed his sweeping spending and tax bill into law on Independence Day while attending a picnic for military families. That bill will provide ICE with roughly $45 billion over the next four years to spend on detaining undocumented immigrants.
This comes as part of Trump's promise to carry out the 'largest deportation program in American history.'
The new funds make ICE the 'single largest federal law enforcement agency in the history of the nation,' Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council told Democracy Now!.
'We're talking nearly 20 years' worth of detention funding to be spent only in a four-year period, and an increase to ICE's enforcement budget beyond anything we've ever seen before, allowing the agency to expand mass deportations over the next four years to every community nationwide,' he said.
Trump has also praised a new ICE detention center in Florida, dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz.' The president visited the site on Tuesday, saying it will soon house 'some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.'
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Daily Mail
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- Daily Mail
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The Guardian
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Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Once Trump returned to office, Loomer began to flex her newfound power, and even professional ties to top Trump administration officials weren't enough to protect staffers from being fired after Loomer gave her list of names to Trump. Among those fired at the NSC was Brian Walsh, who had worked on the staff of the Senate intelligence committee for Marco Rubio, now serving as both secretary of state and national security adviser, when Rubio was in the Senate. The most stunning purge attributed to Loomer came in April when Trump fired Gen Timothy Haugh, the director of the National Security Agency, along with his top deputy, after they had found their way on to Loomer's list as well. 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But like Musk, Loomer has been so red-hot in the early days of Trump's second term that her fall seems almost inevitable, especially after she began to call out White House actions she didn't like. In May, for example, she publicly criticized Trump's decision to accept a luxury jet from Qatar. When news of the gift was first reported, Loomer posted a statement saying: 'This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true.' She added: 'I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump. I'm so disappointed.' She later backtracked and became more supportive. But later she was critical of Trump's decision to withdraw the nomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman to be the head of Nasa, whose nomination she had supported. 'There is reason to believe that Isaacman may be facing retaliation because of his friendship with @elonmusk,' Loomer posted as the news first broke. 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