MASSIVE Federal Immigration Operation Involving “Hundreds” of Federal Agents To Remove MS-13 From Sanctuary City

This operation in MacArthur Park is unlike anything we’ve seen in a major U.S. city in recent years. The sheer scale — 90 armed troops, 17 Humvees, Border Patrol on horseback, federal agents swarming a densely populated, heavily immigrant neighborhood — looks more like a foreign military intervention than a domestic enforcement action. Even if the stated purpose was to support immigration enforcement, the optics are jarring and intentionally provocative.

Mayor Karen Bass is right to be alarmed. Whether or not you agree with sanctuary city policies, rolling in troops and tactical vehicles into a public park where children are playing sends a message of fear, not law and order. This is not how civil immigration enforcement is typically conducted in the U.S., and it’s hard to view this as anything other than a political spectacle — designed to make a statement more than to actually target dangerous individuals.

Critics of the mayor point to crime and drug use in MacArthur Park, and those issues are real. But the solution to urban decay is not militarization — it’s governance, investment, and community partnership. You don’t restore public safety by scaring entire communities into silence or flight.

What’s most troubling is the precedent this sets. If federal immigration enforcement now means boots on the ground, military convoys, and operations so large they look like a wartime response — then we’re entering dangerous territory. It blurs the line between military and civilian roles, especially within our own borders.

The federal government may have the authority to enforce immigration law, but it also has the responsibility to act with proportionality, transparency, and respect for civil liberties. Deploying thousands of troops into a major U.S. city over immigration sends a chilling message — one that raises serious questions about federal overreach, state-federal conflict, and the rights of the people caught in the middle.