Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and congressional Democrats have announced a sweeping investigation into potential misconduct in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown that has ensnared citizens, made use of racial profiling and terrified communities for months.
Bass and the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), announced that Congress will open up “a broad investigation” into arrests of U.S. citizens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as well as another investigation into immigration raids overall. The announcement was made Monday at a news conference at L.A. City Hall.
“Donald Trump and [Department of Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem are terrorizing immigrants, working people, the people of Los Angeles and of our state every single day,” Garcia said. “They violate the law and they violate the constitution.”
Garcia said that his House committee would investigate “every single brutal misconduct” that immigration authorities have committed in Los Angeles as well as across the country.
Simultaneously, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will conduct an investigation into reports of the detention of at least 170 U.S. citizens by immigration authorities, which was reported by ProPublica last week.
“Troublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling — particularly of Latinos — which has been well documented in Los Angeles,” Garcia and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a letter to Noem. “In a pattern symptomatic of a disregard for civil rights by DHS, U.S. citizens have faced extended periods of detention.”
For months, agents have roamed the streets of Los Angeles toting guns and chasing down immigrants. The scenes that have played out on the streets — protesters being arrested, immigrants dragged out of their cars — have been repeated in Chicago and other cities with largely Democratic leadership.
Mayor Bass said the arrests of American citizens means that no one in the country is safe.
“This can happen to anyone, to all of us, at any period of time,” she said.
Garcia said that the first hearing of the House committee will be held in Los Angeles and that Angelenos should attend and be heard on immigration enforcement issues.
The congressman did not give a date for the hearing, but said he hoped it would be soon.
In the letter that Garcia and Blumenthal sent to Noem on Monday, the legislators called on the Department of Homeland Security to report the total number of U.S. citizens who have been detained by immigration authorities, as well as how long each individual was detained. They also asked for information regarding the training that CE and Customs and Border Protection agents receive on use of force, among other things.
The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.