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Mayor Boss, thank you so much for joining us today.
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I think our community is.
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In the midst of very troubling times right now,
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so we appreciate you speaking directly with us.
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How are you doing today?
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I'm doing fine and thanks for having me on.
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Thank you. So we're now 6 months into a second Donald
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Trump presidency here in the United States.
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Here in Los Angeles,
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our immigrant communities have been,
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feeling it a lot and they've been severely impacted.
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Impacted by his administration's tactics and his decisions,
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can you speak to your long term vision for immigrant policies and
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protections here in Los Angeles?
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I'm so honored to be a Californian and an Angeleno because we
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embrace immigrants. We're a diverse city and we always have and
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we have a long tradition of that in this city.
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immigrant rights is an issue that's been important to me
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for several decades, and,
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and I think that laws and policies that we have
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put in place really that have been in place for years unfortunately
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are being tested now in ways that we would have never imagined
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Because we would have never imagined the federal government coming in
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and literally seizing power from the governor over the National Guard and
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bringing the National Guard and the Marines to LA when we didn't
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need them nothing was going on and then basically.
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masked armed men in unmarked cars snatching people out of places.
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Immigration has always been an issue.
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There's always been immigration enforcement,
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but nothing has ever happened before like we're seeing today.
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Yes, and, and you mentioned masked,
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personnel and you know vehicles without identification so.
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What can be done to protect the,
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Angelino or average citizen,
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you know, whether they're an immigrant or not from these people
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who are unable to be identified and what can be done to
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our us from from them and you know to make it worse
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Who are they? you know,
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we don't know if this has happened here in Los
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Angeles, but it has happened in other cities where it's been
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criminals that have been impersonating federal agents right now we're in a
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situation where we don't know where they are who they are.
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And we're looking to see if there can be a remedy through
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the courts like we were just talking about a remedy through the
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courts an injunction that stops it so I've been in conversation with
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our city attorney and we're working on that right now appealing to
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the Trump administration to say you are wreaking havoc in our city
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entire populations to be living in terror,
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people to not go to work,
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people to not go to school.
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in East LA on Father's Day in front of restaurants
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that were completely empty when it should have been lines down the
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street. People are afraid to leave their home and not wanting
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to buy groceries, so now we're having to come up with
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ways to make sure that they get food,
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children who went through Father's Day,
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not knowing what happened to their fathers,
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this is just a reign of terror that has been imposed on
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our city. And looking for every avenue possible but the most
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frightening thing about it is the highest level of law in our
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country is the federal government.
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You mentioned the federal government.
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The Supreme Court just made a decision this morning impacting birthright citizenship
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Can you speak to to their decision this morning your thoughts
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Oh sure, I thought it actually impacted birthright citizenship because
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that's kind of how it was billed but actually it was looking
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at the power of a lower court to stop a presidential executive
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order so and that's scary because we know that Trump has issued
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some outrageous executive orders and we have relied on until now lower
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courts to provide an injunction that says you can't do this a
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higher court has to figure it out.
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My understanding, and I am not a lawyer.
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that the decision that that was made today says that a lower
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court cannot do an injunction that applies to the entire nation.
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Now what I don't know is is that if a court in
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California was able to win an injunction,
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can it just apply to California?
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I don't know that not being a lawyer,
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but you know after they come out with the Supreme Court decision
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it takes about a week for all the lawyers to work
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and really understand and interpret it.
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you mentioned Trump militarized the city of Los Angeles whether Governor Newsom
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asked for it or not,
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can you speak to the current status of Trump's military presence here
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in Los Angeles? Are they still here?
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Yes, and in part I can't speak to it,
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you know why? Because we don't know.
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of course, is that he has deployed thousands of National Guard
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soldiers as well as Marines to the city.
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That doesn't mean there's thousands that are here.
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Sometimes they're waiting and posted outside of the city.
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There's no need for them here.
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You know, basically what they're doing is,
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is that they're guarding two buildings,
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they're guarding the federal building where nothing is happening at the federal
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building. So it is a misuse of our young men and
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women who are in the military and I think what a lot
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of people don't realize is that National Guard soldiers are regular people
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they're at work they're at school they have their families they are
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called out of those environments,
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forced into these deployments for no reason because they're props,
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they're being staged as part of what I believe is an experiment
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of the federal government to.
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See how far the public will accept federal intervention in a state
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and he decided to come to the nation's largest state,
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most diverse state, a state that embraces immigrants and always has
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he decided to use us as the test case.
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You can imagine if he is successful here what that says for
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states around the country.
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Have you been able to speak with him?
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I've not spoken with him.
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I have put in an official request.
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many Angelenos feel they have no one to call except organizations like
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Ciulla and Union del Barrio.
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Is there a way to activate and inform community police advisory boards
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so that they can help share resources,
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support residents, and combat ICE intimidation tactics?
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You know, I don't know about police advisory boards.
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I mean, police advisory boards are made up of community members
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but we are fortunate to have organizations like CIRLA
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who I have known and worked.
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For jeez 40 years now because we have a solid immigrant
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rights infrastructure here and that is probably the best bet in terms
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of the rapid response network that's why people have been able to
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show up on the scene but I do have to caution people
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because in people's anger and outrage we have to remember that in
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many cases they are federal people if you intervene you could be
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charged. Serious felonies and what worries me is that this administration
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is just chomping at the bit to prosecute so I don't wanna
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see our folks get in trouble trying to intervene in something that
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they're not going to be able to stop so we have to
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be careful. This is an entirely different situation.
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I wanna show you a video if that's OK.
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from 9th and Spring Street you've seen it I'm sure
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Yeah. Where the fuck.
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Get my. It shows LAPD appearing to protect and cooperate with
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federal agents this appears,
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you know, to contradict your prior statements that LAPD is not
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working with federal agents what is your response to this.
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Sure, well first of all,
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it is so troubling and it's troubling in so many different ways
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but that's why I said a few minutes ago that we've
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passed sanctuary city policies but they're being tested now in ways that
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we would have never imagined.
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And so what I understand the back story of that situation is
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is that people saw regular residents saw what looked like the young
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woman not look like what was her being snatched off the street
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if I'm not mistaken,
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the men that did that are not properly identified and they called
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in a kidnapping they call in a kidnapping.
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LAPD goes to respond to that and sees that scene.
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So you have a situation that's happening now because of the unprecedented
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nature in which these raids are taking place that it's testing what
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our policies are and I think it's been very,
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very confusing and so what I have called upon and what I
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know is underway is in Los Angeles we're governed the police department
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is governed by a police commission citizen,
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volunteer police commission.
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And we need them to examine exactly all of the things that
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went down, but not just there there was the police response
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to the protests as well what happened in those incidences and they
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need to do it and they need to do it quickly,
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not an investigation or a response that's gonna take months and months
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but because we're in unchartered territory we have to figure out
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You've posted multiple times about Shine LA,
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an initiative to clean up residential protest graffiti.
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Angelenos have, you know,
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expressed mixed feelings because they feel some of them feel that the
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should be focused, that you should be focused on is ICE
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separating immigrant families. How do you respond to Angelenos who are
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upset? Well, let me just tell you too,
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I, I thought you were gonna ask me something different about
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What I'm gonna worry about about Shine LA now like we're worrying
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about everywhere is if you have public gatherings of people,
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I have to running the city have to focus on multiple issues
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I wish I could just focus on one issue,
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but that's impossible. So Shine LA was something that was supposed
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to have been started at the beginning of the year.
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The point of Shine LA is to galvanize the city,
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bring the city together to prepare for the World Cup coming next
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this week Shine LA is gonna be at El Pueblo
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our our city's first street in Olvera Street,
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because unfortunately, and it hurt my heart for protesters to vandalize
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Olvera Street and to put obscenities in graffiti on a symbol of
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immigration. The other symbol of immigration downtown that was vandalized is
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the Japanese American Museum,
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which tells the whole story about the internment of the Japanese.
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So that to me that type of protest,
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you're not supporting immigrants if you deface the very institutions that are
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holding up symbols of immigration.
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And so Shine LA is still important.
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Absolutely I have to focus on I ICE and what is happening
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to the immigrant population,
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but it's not just focusing on ice,
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it's about making sure that people that are held up in their
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house get the groceries that they need.
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It's about making sure that people that can't pay their rent don't
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wind up evicted as well,
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so we have to do all of that at the same time
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I'm glad you mentioned your concern over large gatherings and events
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going down in the city,
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you know, in these times because several cities in LA County
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have already canceled their 4th of July celebrations,
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4th of July celebration.
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Not just because of a pandemic which happened 4 years ago or
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no but because they're feeling threatened that ICE is going to come
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and terrorize terrorize their community.
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let me tell you about what we're contemplating canceling.
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events every summer called Summer Night Lights,
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and it's a gang prevention violence prevention project.
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People and families go to parks and engage in recreational activities and
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a lot of former gang involved young people are there as peacemakers
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community interventionists, and we're contemplating that we might not be
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able to do that because we don't know if we can keep
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the family safe. And it and how ironic is that because
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the whole point of the event is to keep families safe and
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to have safe recreation activities in the summer that that program played
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a big role in reducing gang homicides last year.
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So unfortunately the state that we're in right now we're questioning all
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of these big gatherings where we don't wanna have them because we
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don't want people to be subject to a raid and what
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does that say to you about the current state of our country
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Oh, it it's terrifying.
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It's absolutely terrifying because it leaves you feeling like,
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I mean, I will never lose hope,
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but we do have to understand that the highest level of law
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in our country is the federal government.
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And I was there during the first Trump administration.
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I was there during family separation.
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Texas. I watched kids who had been separated from their parents
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get reunited, especially the toddlers.
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They would walk in the room they had been separated from their
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parents for months. They walk in their parent is there totally
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going hysterical, and the kid is standing in shock to me
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I thought, and I do believe that it will go
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down in history as one of the cruelest moments equal to.
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what happened to the Japanese,
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what's happened to African Americans,
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what's what's happened, what's happened,
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what's happens, it's gonna be one of those incidents and to
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make it worse, there's about 1000 kids that were separated from
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their families at the beginning of that policy.
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Nobody knows where they are now.
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They didn't track them so they're floating around this country.
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Their parents were deported or who knows,
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maybe their parents weren't deported and when a child when a parent
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was deported and separated from the child.
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The federal government's response then was the parent had to pay to
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How a parent gonna do that?
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So, so having lived through that in the first Trump administration
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I'm terrified of where we are now.
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And here we are month 6,
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right? It's a 4 year term.
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I mean as Angelenos,
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I think you know as the United States citizens obviously we've felt
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it, but as Angelenos we started the year with the fires
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they brought on more fires that weren't caused by nature.
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What's your message to to Angelenos right now?
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let me just tell you something.
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I'm born and raised here.
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I've been in this city through some really tumultuous horrible times we
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always persevere because we're a strong city we're a resilient population we
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stick together even with all this immigration stuff going on,
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you haven't seen our city divided.
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You haven't seen anybody stand up and agree with this and promote
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this everybody, no matter who you are,
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what part of the city you are,
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what your background is,
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you have not seen any support for this at all.
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I think that's emblematic of the incredible city that we live in
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That gives me tremendous hope.
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I know we can get past this we have to stick together
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and basically the whole country is looking at us to be the
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example so we have to stand up,
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not put up with this and push back and I do believe
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we will and Shine LA is a part of that.
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It's a part of building that community spirit and hanging on to
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each other and having the hope that's gonna get us through this
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That's why I would never stop doing Shine LA.
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To then do something else.
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we've already seen no King's Day protests and there were protests before
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that to protest the administration and their immigration tactics,
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if there are protests that come,
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and I can almost assure you there will be July 4th,
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there will be protests.
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Are you supportive of them?
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Absolutely. There's no way.
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I mean, of course I do.
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I mean, I grew up as a young activist spending a
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good part of my time protesting,
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but let me just tell you that we absolutely have to
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Could you imagine if we didn't protest then we're saying that
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this is OK, but where I draw the line is that
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if you really support immigrants,
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you're not gonna tear up the city don't tear up the city
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and say you're doing it on behalf of immigrants because you're not
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All you're doing is inviting the military to come in so
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it's inexcusable to me for there to be vandalism in the city
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for there to be violence of of any level.
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Thank you so much for speaking with us,
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Mayor Bass we truly appreciate your time and and your work and
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and please keep advocating for our community.
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Absolutely and I appreciate the opportunity to do this and hopefully
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we'll stay in contact.
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