U.S. Border Patrol agents appeared outside of the Japanese American National Museum on Thursday morning as Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state and local leaders were conducting a news conference announcing a plan to move forward with a redistricting plan.
A group of masked agents showed up in trucks outside of the news conference. U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino said agents were conducting “roving patrols” in the area. Bovino confirmed to CBS Los Angeles that one person was arrested outside the museum.
Newsom’s office posted a video on X showing the agents outside of the museum saying, “BORDER PATROL HAS SHOWED UP AT OUR BIG BEAUTIFUL PRESS CONFERENCE! WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED!”
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin responded, “Our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law—not about Gavin Newsom,” she said in a statement. “CBP patrols all areas of Los Angeles every day with over 40 teams on the ground to make LA safe.”
Mayor Karen Bass, who hosted a news conference earlier in the day renewing her call for an end to “reckless immigration raids,” quickly showed up at the museum and called the agents’ presence a “provocative act” and “disrespectful.”
“The governor is inside having a press conference; there was no reason in the world for them to come here,” Bass said. “We do not need them here and they had no business to come here and provoke this.”
Bass said she does not believe the Border Patrol’s presence was a coincidence and claims agents “decided they were going to come and thumb their nose in front of the governor’s face.”
She has been outspoken about the immigration operations around the city and the tactics being used during them.
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