Critics are blasting Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for claiming it’s unconstitutional for federal immigration law to be enforced.
“They’re going after people selling fruit and working at car washes,” the Democrat wrote on X, sharing a clip of her interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation."
“It’s unconstitutional and it must end," she added.
They’re going after people selling fruit and working at car washes.
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) July 20, 2025
It’s unconstitutional and it must end. pic.twitter.com/75xIA9lYar
In the interview, Bass criticized how federal agents are concealing their identities and lamented how there are not enough workers showing up to car washes in Los Angeles now that immigration officials are enforcing federal immigration law.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You've filed a Freedom of Information requests to, quote, "know who these masked men are."
Why, though, is their identity important to you? Do you plan to prosecute them?
KAREN BASS: Well, no. Let me just explain, because you have people who are literally walking down the street, sitting at bus stops, are individual vendors selling fruit on the street. These masked men pull up in unmarked cars and jump out of the cars with rifles and detain people. So, for the average citizen, it looks like it's a violent kidnapping. So, you should never have that. They don't identify themselves. And, furthermore, to your previous guest, how on earth do they know that they're a threat when they're just chasing random people through parking lots, at Home Depots, going to car washes and rounding up people. It's difficult to get your car washed in Los Angeles now because most of the car washes, the employees won't come to work out of fear that a raid will take place.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the acting director says that his agents, some of them fear that their families will be retaliated against, and that's why they are covering their faces, that they do wear markings for the agencies that they work with.
KAREN BASS: So –
MARGARET BRENNAN: How do you respond?
KAREN BASS: Well – well, first of all, let me just tell you that the masked men are not from Los Angeles. And so, how their families could be retaliated against? And then what is that to say to local law enforcement, the Los Angeles Police Department, none of whom are ever masked, who always identify themselves, and even hand someone a business card. So, that makes absolutely no sense at all.
And I don't know, but I have a hard time believing that the woman selling pineapples on the corner will going to attack an ICE agent.
And then when he says that there is identification, the problem is, many of these men are in plain clothes with vests on that say "police." It looks like something that they could have gotten online. I think it's really important to point out the extreme nature of the randomness. And, you know, Homan has said, he's mentioned a number of criteria for why they stop people. One of the points of criteria is physical appearance. Los Angeles has 3.8 million people and about 50 percent of our population is Latino. So, I guess that means 50 percent of Los Angeles could be possible suspects in an immigration raid.
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Border czar Tom Homan has defended the masking of agents, which he says is due to the "unprecedented" attacks against them, not to mention the doxing of agents and their families.
I don't think she understands what "unconstitutional" means... https://t.co/2d5FeK0cMj
— Dean Cain (@RealDeanCain) July 20, 2025
The @mayorofla Karen Bass wants you to believe it is unconstitutional to arrest illegal aliens. It is in fact the duty of law enforcement to arrest them. https://t.co/lwGC3y8Y2H
— James Hutton (@JEHutton) July 21, 2025
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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