Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass made a clarifying statement at a press conference Monday.
“We need to stop the raids,” she said. “This should not be happening in our city. It is not warranted … On Thursday, the city was peaceful. On Friday, it was not because of the intervention of the federal government.”
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Bass perhaps intended this statement to be simply observational. But in context with the behavior of Democratic elected officials and their allies, it was a clear threat: Stop enforcing immigration laws in California, or we will keep inciting violence.
If this inference sounds unfair, consider the actions of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who, when she arrived at a federal detention facility holding Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta, said, “We can’t be intimidated, we’ve got to get the people out. We’ve got to get the elected officials out … We’ve got to resist!”
And what exactly did Waters mean by resisting? Well, Huerta was arrested after obstructing federal officers who were serving valid search warrants at worksites where illegal immigrants were illegally working. On Tuesday, the same SEIU that Huerta leads posted, “When ICE comes into our neighborhoods targeting our communities and hurting our leaders, we show up! United. Organized. Ready to protect families.”
When elected Democrats, such as Bass and Waters, and their allies in Big Labor, including Huerta and the SEIU, call for action against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, they do not mean a peaceful protest. If they did, they would say so. The moment you put yourself between a federal officer and an illegal immigrant that officer is trying to arrest, you are committing an act of violence. You are allowed to shout and yell at ICE officers all you want, but the moment you try to impede their work physically, you have crossed a line. You have committed a crime. Like Huerta, you should go to jail.
When former President Barack Obama refused to enforce immigration laws, Arizona tried to take matters into its own hands. The state’s former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed a law that, among other things, made it a state crime for illegal immigrants to be in Arizona without registering with the federal government, and made it a misdemeanor for illegal immigrants to seek work in the state.
A divided Supreme Court held that these provisions violated the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which gives the federal government the highest authority over certain policy areas, including immigration.
“The federal power to determine immigration policy is well settled. Immigration policy can affect trade, investment, tourism, and diplomatic relations for the entire nation, as well as the perceptions and expectations of aliens in this country who seek the full protection of its laws,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. “The Supremacy Clause provides a clear rule that federal law ‘shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby.’”
TRUMP HAS EVERY RIGHT TO PROTECT FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENTS
Bass, Waters, and all the other elected Democrats in California may not like the result of the 2024 election, but President Donald Trump won fair and square. This gives him the supreme authority to set immigration law enforcement priorities nationwide. Just as Obama chose not to enforce laws, Trump is choosing to do the opposite. This is his right as president. California has no more right to create its own immigration arrangements today in 2025 than Arizona did in 2010.
Instead of telling Trump how to do his job enforcing immigration law, Bass could enforce the state’s vagrancy laws and rebuild neighborhoods that burned down after she failed to make sure reservoirs were filled while she was at a conference in Africa.