By Kelly McCleary, CNN
(CNN) — The city and county of Los Angeles, along with several municipalities in Southern California, are seeking to join a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration over recent immigration raids that prompted several days of protests and the federalization of the National Guard.
The lawsuit, filed last week by the ACLU of Southern California on behalf of five individuals and immigration advocacy groups, alleges the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “has unconstitutionally arrested and detained people in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration,” the ACLU said in a statement.
“No matter their status or the color of their skin, everyone is guaranteed Constitutional rights to protect them from illegal stops. We will hold DHS accountable,” Mohammad Tajsar, ACLU senior staff attorney, said in the statement.
On Tuesday, officials from Los Angeles and several cities in the surrounding county said they were joining the effort “to challenge the unlawful immigration enforcement activities … which have included the federal government’s targeting of the Los Angeles area and of Angelenos based on their race and ethnicity and denying constitutionally-mandated due process to those detained,” a statement from Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said.
“We as jurisdiction, not only support our residents in stopping these unconstitutional practices, but we in effect assert our own rights under the 10th Amendment and as jurisdictions that have, ultimately, local control over our police powers,” Feldstein Soto said at a news conference Tuesday.
“These unconstitutional roundups and raids cannot be allowed to continue,” Feldstein Soto added. “They cannot become the new normal.”
CNN has reached out to DHS for comment on the lawsuit.
“Any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed, the Los Angeles Times reported. “DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence,” she said.
The lawsuit comes after President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles last month in response to protests against his administration’s immigration raids. Trump claimed local leaders lost control of the city and military intervention was required to restore peace – accusations Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom strongly denied.
The Los Angeles protests sparked similar demonstrations across the country, with scores of anti-Trump demonstrators taking to the streets in “No Kings” protests nationwide last month.
Bass said the immigration raids, which have been taking place at homes and businesses across the Los Angeles area since June 6, create a safety problem.
“You have a situation now where people are walking down the street, a car will pull up, no license plate, men will jump out completely masked, pull guns on whoever it is and take them away,” Bass said at the news conference Tuesday. “Aside from the fact that this is unconstitutional, how do we know the difference between this and a kidnapping?”
In addition to the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, the cities of Pasadena, Santa Monica, Culver City, Pico Rivera, Montebello, Monterey Park, and West Hollywood are also seeking to join the lawsuit, the statement from Feldstein Soto’s office said.
The announcement comes a day after Bass confronted heavily armed federal agents and the National Guard marching through MacArthur Park near downtown Los Angeles.
“Our city is definitely united … We are a city of immigrants, and we will stand united with Angelenos regardless of what country they came from, when they got here or why they’re here,” Bass said Tuesday.
Last month, the Trump administration called for ICE to expand deportation efforts in Democratic cities and “do all in their power” to achieve mass deportations – a key campaign promise touted as a public safety and national security concern.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration brought a lawsuit against the city Los Angeles over its so-called “sanctuary city” policy, saying the city’s laws “interfere with and discriminate against the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law.”
Officials and business leaders in Los Angeles say the administration’s immigration raids have already had economic impacts, disrupting key industries and hitting consumer sentiment.
“The sense of fear is overwhelming,” said Anthony Rodriguez, the president and CEO of the LA Fashion District Business Improvement District. Visitors are down 45%, leaving massive losses in revenue for what he said was one of the economic drivers of the city.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
