Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass intervened on the ground this morning when a large contingent of federal immigration agents, armored trucks, and mounted officials arrived at a park in a Los Angeles neighborhood. The troops swept through MacArthur Park in what appeared to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation.
“What I saw in the park today looked like a city under siege, under armed occupation,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a press conference Monday afternoon, adding she believes the goal of the display was to spread fear. She said children at a day camp in the park were quickly ushered away so they would not see the troops.
Dozens of federal officers and about 90 members of the California National Guard were deployed for about an hour to the mostly empty park, which has a large immigrant population and MS-13 influence. No arrests have been reported.
Military tanks and a black military-style helicopter were also sighted in the area, according to those on the ground. Defense officials said the troops and over a dozen military vehicles would help protect immigration officers as they carried out the raid in the park, the AP reported.
Bass said she was on the way to a press conference with Governor Gavin Newsom on the six-month anniversary of the Los Angeles fires when she was notified of the operation in MacArthur Park and immediately had her car turned around.
“They need to leave and they need to leave right now because this is unacceptable,” Bass told reporters when she arrived at the scene with the operation still underway.
Bass said she spoke on the phone when she arrived with Chief Gregory Bovino, the chief patrol agent in charge of the immigration enforcement operation, and told him the display needed to end.
“He said that they would be leaving in minutes, and I believe a few minutes later, they left,” Bass said. “But they clearly had been there for a while.”
National Review has reached out to ICE and Customs and Border Protection for further information.
“I don’t work for Karen Bass,” Bovino said when asked by FOX News’s Bill Melugin for his message to Bass. “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.”
Bass has previously called for an end to federal immigration raids in the city that began in early June.