MacArthur Park is one of my favorite songs, a track that has come a long way from cakes melting in rain, Richard Harris singing in a weird voice, and Donna Summer’s infused drug trips that transformed disco parties. When I think of the song, I think of the place, and the place has also been in the news big time lately.
In Los Angeles, MacArthur Park (the location) has served as a perfect symbol for the dysfunction and lawlessness of progressive Democrat-run cities addicted to open borders, union-pandering, and general disregard for the rule of law.
Any lengthy drive through Los Angeles must include Wilshire Boulevard, the longest stretch of road in the city, and smack dab in the heart of that street is MacArthur Park. Illegal aliens trade drugs, code enforcement for food and other sales of goods and services is non-existent, and the general drudgery and degradation define the confines.
Human trafficking, drug trafficking, and sex trafficking are the norm. Until about two years ago, homeless encampments overran the entire expanse. No passerby could use the sidewalk, and shanty towns of tarp covers covered everything.
The businesses along the streets resemble the dirtiest corridors of San Salvador pre-Nayib Bukele. Everything’s in Spanish, blurred away in brown or grey, and nothing is appealing. Every Central American country is represented, while anything American is conspicuously absent.
This Los Angeles fixture is named after one of America’s greatest generals. But the progressive vision to its zenith, erases the past, denigrates our heroes, and champions everything wrong and bad.
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But … MacArthur Park is changing, no longer melting into amoral decay.
On July 7th, 2025, ICE raids swarmed the region in large numbers to apprehend as many illegal aliens as possible. Mayor Karen Bass, comically feckless in her ongoing progressive incompetence, marched to the park to protest the raids. ICE officials didn’t care, and they pledged to double their operations.
For the last six months, President Trump has made good on his promise to secure our nation’s borders and remove all illegal aliens. He is directing ICE to arrest as many illegals as possible, and there is no place teeming more heavily with illegal aliens than Los Angeles, and MacArthur Park is the epicenter of this illegal alien coven.
This is a welcome turnaround for a California conservative like me, who has witnessed decades of lawlessness becoming the norm. For years, I threw myself into immigration enforcement causes. I protested in city councils throughout Southern California. Some of the cities directly sought to flout immigration laws. Other cities wanted to assist with immigration enforcement. Los Alamitos, California, went as far as passing an ordinance to comply fully with federal law enforcement and ignore California's “Values Act,” aka the Sanctuary State Law SB 54.
Before the protests, I was writing Congress not to pass any form of amnesty. Around the same time, I was living amid the anti-enforcement upheaval swarming Los Angeles County. I was teaching in a high school located in South Gate. Back in 2006, the city was 99 percent Latino, and my classes had nearly 100 percent Latino students. Most of them came from El Salvador or two states in Mexico: Michoacan and Jalisco.
That same year, students walked out of LAUSD schools to protest proposed immigration enforcement laws from the George W. Bush administration. I worked under lockdown conditions during that contentious period. The next year, on May 1, 2007, melee and anti-enforcement protests engulfed MacArthur Park in downtown Los Angeles. The rioting against local police was disturbing. Mexican flags waved everywhere, and the call for Reconquista rang out. The police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd to quell the uprisings. Investigations under LAPD Police Chief Bratton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa concluded that some of the police officers exercised excessive force to contain the protests. I submit that the police were just doing their job.
LA City officials have shied away from enforcement since then, and illegal aliens and their champions run amok. Fast forward to July 2025, federal law enforcement officials are finally doing something to crack down on the crime, corruption, degradation, and dysfunction that have defined that park.
And what a surprise! Not only is the United States taking a different tack with illegal immigration, but the change toward enforcement is now affecting Mexico, as well. Mexicans are getting their fill of open borders, illegal immigration, and mass immigration in their country. Residents in D.F. (Mexico City) have been protesting American migrants looking for cheaper housing and a better quality of life. Mexican citizens are complaining about their lack of assimilation. One protester carried a sign reading: “Speak Spanish, Pay Your Taxes, Respect My Culture.”
The irony of the Mexicans’ protesting mass immigration reminds me of the early 2000s once again. Clearly, Mexicans today don’t want their version of MacArthur Park in Mexico City. They don’t like their borders, language, and culture being dishonored.
And finally, Angelenos are getting their park back. Enforcement and clean-up in MacArthur Park is the symbol for resurging immigration enforcement in America. For too long, presidents in both parties complained about illegal immigration, but quietly ignored or increased the problem. Now, we have leadership committed to solving this problem. No Amnesty ever, President Trump has just pledged.
Witnessing ICE agents swarming Los Angeles County this year is a welcome turnaround. Finally, the lawless city council and mayor are not getting away with disregarding the rights and needs of their law-abiding residents. Sure, violent pro-illegal protests in Los Angeles’ streets and on the highways and byways escalated just like 20 years ago, but new leadership in Los Angeles County (District Attorney Nathan Hochman) and President Trump and his cabinet in the White House are restoring order and respect for our borders. Law enforcement, respect for moral law and order, are becoming the norm again. No more melting in the dark, and we finally have the recipe for a stable civilization restored.
Editor’s Note: We voted for mass deportations, not mass amnesty. Help us continue to fight back against those trying to go against the will of the American people.
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