Editor’s note: KTLA reached out to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for comment multiple times prior to publication. As of publishing, DHS has not responded.
Federal agents were spotted near MacArthur Park in the Westlake district on Monday as part of an apparent immigration raid that was quickly condemned by local leaders.
Mayor Karen Bass, City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez and Council President Marqueece Harris Dawson decried the raids at a Monday afternoon news conference.
Bass said it “was another example of the [Trump] administration ratcheting up chaos by deploying what looked like a military operation in an American city.”
Late Monday morning, NewsNation affiliate KTLA’s Rich Prickett reported that he spotted Department of Homeland Security and military vehicles on site. He also counted at least four white vans similar to the types of vehicles federal agents have recently been using to transport people to jails and detention sites.
“It’s outrageous and un-American that we have federal armed vehicles in our parks when nothing is going on in the parks,” Bass said. “It’s outrageous and unAmerican that the federal government seized our state’s National Guard.”
“We will continue to have each other’s backs, and we will continue demand the immediate withdrawal of federal troops and ICE from our city,” Hernandez said.
Early Monday afternoon, Bass shared footage to social media of agents, including some members of law enforcement on horseback, traversing a soccer field at the park.
“Minutes before, there were more than 20 kids playing — then, the MILITARY comes through,” she wrote. “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.”
Those children were attending a summer day camp, she added at the news conference.
Hernandez said she believes LA is a “canary in a coal mine” for other cities.
“What you saw happening in MacArthur Park is coming to you,” she said in a message to leaders of other cities.
The Los Angeles Times identified the agents as members of the Border Patrol and confirmed that Bass spoke via phone with someone she identified as “the head of customs,” asking “you’re getting ready to leave? Can you leave ASAP?”
Presumably, she was referring to Rodney Scott, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, though the Times did not name him.
The Los Angeles Police Department told KTLA they are not assisting in the federal actions, though officers were present for crowd control.
The National Guard has sent about 90 troops to defend the federal agents, the Associated Press reports.
It’s unclear if anyone was arrested on Monday, but more than 1,600 people were arrested between June 6 and 22, the Times reports.
Monday’s incident, however, appears to be more for optics than an actual crackdown, Harris-Dawson said.
“This morning looked like the staging for a TikTok video,” he said. “And what we say to Border Patrol as the Council, if you want to film in LA, you should apply for a film permit like everybody else and stop trying to scare the bejesus out of everybody in this great city.”
Sofia Pop Perez and Luis Zuniga contributed to this report.