Karen Bass says Los Angeles being used as a ‘test case’ and ‘an experiment’
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has accused the federal government of using her city as a “test case” for the federal government taking over from local and state authorities and said the intervention was completely unwarranted.
She told the press conference Los Angeles was being used as “a test case for what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state or away from local government.” She added:
I don’t think our city should be used for an experiment.
She asked “do you know what the national guard are doing? They are guarding two buildings … that’s what they’re doing, so they need marines on top of it?”
She notes that Trump had congratulated the National Guard on restoring the peace before they had even arrived in the city.
She said that the city had been peaceful before Ice raids that began last week, adding “this is chaos that was started in Washington DC” and that “nothing warranted the raids, nothing was happening”.
She said the Ice raids had induced a “level of fear” in residents, including legal residents. “I can’t emphasize enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelinos right now, not knowing if tomorrow or tonight, it might be where they live, it might be their workplace, should you send your kids to school, should you go to work?”
Can you imagine having your annual appointment to Ice… and you are told that you need to go to the facility to check in and then you are detained… when you are legal? …
What this means is that people are going to be afraid to maintain appointments which means they will fall into the closet and they will fall out of status.
She adds that “we are a city of immigrants and we have always embraced that”.
This kinds of atmosphere it creates a chaos in our city .. we did not need this,” she said.
Key events
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Karen Bass says Los Angeles being used as a ‘test case’ and ‘an experiment’
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Donald Trump can’t name the crime he thinks Gavin Newsom should be arrested for
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Hegseth claims Marines are needed in LA because Newsom refuses to defend federal law enforcement officers
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Newsom says Trump is deploying another 2,000 National Guard troops to LA, needlessly
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LAPD chief says deployment of marines comes as a surprise to him, and could make things harder
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Software used in surveillance of immigrants has deep ties to the LAPD
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US military confirms 700 Marines are being deployed to Los Angeles amid protests
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Union leader David Huerta released on bond after being charged with allegedly interfering with Ice raid
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Trump is ‘intentionally trying to inflame’ LA protests, says Jeffries
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Pentagon to temporarily deploy about 700 Marines to Los Angeles – reports
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Trump says ‘we’ll see what happens’ on deploying marines to California
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Trump says events in LA weren’t an insurrection ‘but it could have led to one’
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Trump says he would bring in more National Guard to California ‘if we needed it’
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Trump LA protest response risks turning US military into political force, veterans warn
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Trump’s support for arresting Newsom is ‘more bluster, more threats’, says California attorney general
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California to file lawsuit against Trump for ‘unlawfully’ federalizing state’s national guard
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California sues Trump over national guard deployment to LA – Washington Post
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Newsom calls Trump’s apparent support for his arrest ‘an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism’
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Trump calls protesters ‘professional agitators … insurrectionists’ who ‘should be in jail’
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42 Mexicans detained in LA raids, Mexican officials say
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‘I would do it’: Trump hints he would support arrest of California governor Gavin Newsom
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Trump says he made ‘great decision’ deploying national guard to California
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Scenes in LA is ‘chaos provoked by the administration’, says LA mayor as she reissues call for peaceful protest
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Trump’s border czar Tom Homan claims ‘there was no discussion about arresting Newsom’
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Further protests and rallies planned for today in downtown LA
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‘Weak’ Newsom ‘did nothing’ to protect LA from ‘violent riots … for days’, alleges Leavitt
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Newsom: California suing Trump administration for ‘illegal’ federalization of national guard
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Federalizing national guard ‘illegal and unconstitutional’, says Newsom, calling Trump ‘reckless’ and ‘immoral’
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The day so far
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60 arrested and three police officers injured in San Francisco
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City of Glendale terminates Ice contract
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British photographer hit by non-lethal bullet during LA protests
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Trump says ‘Bring in the troops’ and calls for people in face masks to be arrested
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LAPD calls for protesters to disperse immediately
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Newsom: ‘Trump has manufactured a crisis’
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Today so far
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Opening summary
Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Tuesday said images of an Australian journalist being injured during protests in Los Angeles were “horrific” and that his government had contacted the US over the incident.
“We have already raised these issues with the U.S. administration. We don’t find it acceptable that it occurred,” Albanese told reporters.
Australia’s 9News US reporter Lauren Tomasi was hit by a rubber bullet in Los Angeles on Sunday during protests against president Trump’s immigration policies.
“I’m a bit sore, but I’m okay. Important we keep on telling the stories that need to be told,” Tomasi said in a post on X.
A presumed frontrunner for the Democratic leadership, governor Gavin Newsom has made no secret of his political ambitions and appears to be relishing his chance for a public showdown with Donald Trump. Here’s a snippet from AFP:
“Every political crisis is a political opportunity,” Jeff Le, a former senior official in California state politics who negotiated with the first Trump administration, told AFP.
“In California, where President Trump polls at 30%, it’s a potential gift for the governor to showcase stark differences between the two.”
Those differences were all too apparent as Trump upbraided the Democrat for a “horrible job,” while the president’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, threatened to arrest Newsom over any interference with deportations.
Homan rowed back his comments after the Newsom gave a fiery interview with left-leaning MSNBC mocking his “tough guy” stance and calling his bluff.
Le said Newsom’s defiant showing would delight a Democratic base “desperate for a fighter.”
But he warned that a prolonged stand-off in LA – and particularly an escalation of violence or vandalism – could erode public sympathy, especially if Trump seeks to target California’s federal funding.
Newsom’s reputation also lost some of its sheen among centrists during the pandemic, when he was slammed by business owners for onerous public health restrictions.
“There’s no question Gavin Newsom is trying to use this moment to elevate his national profile, casting himself as the face of Democratic resistance to Donald Trump,” said veteran political strategist Charlie Kolean.
But the analyst cautioned that Newsom would damage his presidential ambitions if voters thought he was taking the side of criminals over security forces in his drive to be seen as a defender of civil rights.
“Voters overwhelmingly want law and order – it’s one of the core issues Trump ran on and won big with,” Kolean told AFP.
Shortly after California filed a lawsuit suing the Trump administration for deploying the National Guard to the state, governor Gavin Newsom has indicated he will take similar action against the deployment of US marines, saying “we will sue to stop this”. In a post on X he wrote:
US Marines serve a valuable purpose for this country – defending democracy. They are not political pawns.
The Secretary of Defense is illegally deploying them onto American streets so Trump can have a talking point at his parade this weekend.
It’s a blatant abuse of power. We will sue to stop this. The Courts and Congress must act. Checks and balances are crumbling. This is a red line – and they’re crossing it. WAKE UP!
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem has said the protests in Los Angeles are “absolutely” organized by people being paid to instigate violence, without providing any evidence.
Asked by Sean Hannity on Fox News about pallets of bricks that he claimed had mysteriously appeared at the protests and whether she had found evidence of organisation and funding, Noem said:
Absolutely. These are organized. These are people that are being paid to do this. You can follow how they behave, the signals they give to each other in these crowds and these protests to instigate violence. This is an operation, and it’s professionally done. They’ve done it before, and we’re going to stop it and make sure that we prosecute every single one of them.
She also called Karen Bass a “trainwreck of a mayor” and said Los Angeles was not “a city of immigrants they’re a city of criminals.”
Meanwhile in Texas hundreds of protesters have marched from the Capitol building in Austin to the Ice processing centre at the JJ Pickle Building.
Video showed protesters chanting “No more Ice” and holding up signs including “No human being is illegal”.
Local reporter Candice Bernd wrote on social media platform Bluesky that protesters had occupied the federal building and that at least two people had been arrested at the demonstration.
Protests have also taken place in at least nine other US cities on Monday, including in San Francisco, where local reports say a march has started down Mission Street.
Chants of “Move Ice, get out the Bay! Get out the Bay Ice, get out the Bay!” could be heard and many protesters wore Palestinian keffiyehs, Mission Local reported.
NOW
Hundreds of people are rallying at 24th & Mission in San Francisco, protesting the ICE raids in LA & arrests taking place across the country.
Marches have started down Mission Street. pic.twitter.com/iuvSPjDysw
— Mission Local (@MLNow) June 10, 2025
The rapper Doechii has used her acceptance speech at the BET Awards, which were taking place in Los Angeles on Monday evening, to highlight the Trump administration’s deployment of military forces to put down protests. She said:
I do want to address what’s happening right now, outside the building. These are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order.
Trump is using military forces to stop a protest – and I want y’all to consider what kind of government it appears to be when every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us. What type of government is that?
People are being swept up and torn from their families and I feel its my responsibility as an artist to use this moment to speak up for all oppressed people for Black people, for Latino people, for trans people, for the people in Gaza.
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Here’s Karen Bass speaking at that press conference we reported on not long ago. In it she said Los Angeles was being used as a “test case for what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state or away from local government”:
A few pics from outside the federal building in Los Angeles:
Over the past hour LAPD officers have been attempting to push back protesters from outside the federal building in downtown Los Angeles.
Local reporter Sergio Olmos said police had declared an “unlawful gathering” and gave the crowd five minutes to disperse. They later began firing “less lethal rounds” and pepper balls at protesters, including from on top of the building.
Shortly after her press conference ended, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass posted on X:
Don’t buy into Trump’s chaos. Rise to the moment. This is about protecting our immigrant communities, not destruction of our city.
After being released from federal custody, Union leader David Huerta has said he hoped has he not put members of his union “in harm’s way” after being arrested and highlighted the inability of inmates, currently in lockdown, to access their lawyers and attend court hearings.
As we reported earlier, Huerta was violently arrested on Friday while serving as a community observer during an Ice raid in Los Angeles.
Karen Bass says Los Angeles being used as a ‘test case’ and ‘an experiment’
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has accused the federal government of using her city as a “test case” for the federal government taking over from local and state authorities and said the intervention was completely unwarranted.
She told the press conference Los Angeles was being used as “a test case for what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state or away from local government.” She added:
I don’t think our city should be used for an experiment.
She asked “do you know what the national guard are doing? They are guarding two buildings … that’s what they’re doing, so they need marines on top of it?”
She notes that Trump had congratulated the National Guard on restoring the peace before they had even arrived in the city.
She said that the city had been peaceful before Ice raids that began last week, adding “this is chaos that was started in Washington DC” and that “nothing warranted the raids, nothing was happening”.
She said the Ice raids had induced a “level of fear” in residents, including legal residents. “I can’t emphasize enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelinos right now, not knowing if tomorrow or tonight, it might be where they live, it might be their workplace, should you send your kids to school, should you go to work?”
Can you imagine having your annual appointment to Ice… and you are told that you need to go to the facility to check in and then you are detained… when you are legal? …
What this means is that people are going to be afraid to maintain appointments which means they will fall into the closet and they will fall out of status.
She adds that “we are a city of immigrants and we have always embraced that”.
This kinds of atmosphere it creates a chaos in our city .. we did not need this,” she said.