Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles says that:

I find this line astonishing. When Bass says “immigrant labor,” she means illegal immigrant labor. (That, after all, is the thing on which “this administration” is “waging a war.”) And when she says that “entire sectors of the economy  . . . depend on” that illegal immigrant labor, she means that a significant number of people in Los Angeles enjoy the benefits that inevitably flow from employing people who are not bound by the same archipelago of labor regulations that, in every other conceivable circumstance, figures such as Karen Bass insist are necessary for the survival of civilization.

In recent weeks, the argument that Bass is advancing here has become quite popular on the Left. As a free-market guy, I can of course comprehend the case. But, coming from a figure such as her? It’s utterly absurd. Just eighteen days ago, Bass:

signed a bill passed in late May by Los Angeles City Council labeled the Living Wage Ordinance. It’s also being called the Olympic Wage—because it will boost wages for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and workers at the city’s major hotels to $30 per hour, the highest in the nation, by 2028, when L.A. hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The proposed new law applies to hotels with over 60 rooms and businesses operating within LAX. The wage increase will be implemented gradually, starting with $22.50 per hour this July. In July 2026, hotel workers would also receive a health-care credit for the first time.

As mayor of Los Angeles, and, before that as a member of Congress, Bass has been fully on board with the Left’s labor agenda. In Congress, she supported the expansion of the federal minimum wage, backed the PRO Act, and advanced measures to strengthen the power of unions against corporations. As mayor, she has enjoyed the strong backing of the AFL-CIO (which has given her a 100 percent rating on multiple occasions), of the SEIU, of the UAW, and of others; she stood with the teachers’ unions during “the largest education strike in US history”; and she has been a broken record in demanding that employers must pay a “living wage.” All told, Bass’s approach to labor is almost French. She favors high minimum wages, strict workplace rules, robust unions, and all manner of ancillary protections for workers — and she’s willing to use the government to deliver them.

And yet, when the topic is illegal immigration, she just . . . ignores all of that. Look again at the words she uses:

There are entire sectors of the economy in Los Angeles that depend on immigrant labor. This administration is waging a war against our own economy.

I’m sure that, if pushed, Bass would insist that she meant only that immigrants are doing those jobs. But that’s nonsense — and we all know it. Everyone with eyes is aware that illegal immigrants are not treated by employers in the same way as everyone else. Which, inter alia, is why the Internet is currently full of memes such as this one — which, while lacking in finesse, is ultimately making the same point as Bass:

Why, despite opposing many of the labor laws that are favored by figures such as Karen Bass, do I care about this? I’ll tell you: Because, irrespective of my personal preferences, those laws exist — and they are enforced on everyone in this country other than illegal immigrants. For the usual reasons, I do not favor the minimum wage. But if we are going to have one, it ought to apply to everyone; not only to those people who have deigned to follow our laws. Politically, it is utterly unsustainable for the most enthusiastic champions of worker protections to be gung-ho about the violation of those protections when a favored constituency is implicated by them. If, indeed, Los Angeles cannot run properly under the patchwork of laws that are supposed to govern it, then those laws should be removed. Until that happens, they must be applied equally.

I’ll close with a question. Those of us who favor a secure border, an orderly immigration system, and the swift deportation of illegal aliens are often told that this view must be motivated by animus. In particular, we are accused of wishing to remove those who came here without permission because we believe that they are in some sense “second-class.” But is that not, in fact, a perfect description of the approach of Karen Bass, who apparently envisions a city in which some of the jobs are done by her friends at a minimum of $30 per hour plus benefit, and the rest are taken care of by the faceless “immigrant labor,” which does not deserve to benefit from such rules, and cannot.