By Katherine Tinsley
1:28pm PDT, Jul 9, 2025
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Los Angeles Mayor
Karen Bass shrugged off Homeland Security's threat to arrest her after she showed up to shut down an ICE raid at L.A.'s MacArthur Park.
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Karen Bass shared during a Tuesday, July 8, appearance on MSNBC that armed federal agents entered the Westlake park "where nothing was going on." She described the situation as what the city looks like "before a coup." Chris Hayes noted that "the whole operation was intended as a show of presence, according to internal Army documents … which have not been independently verified by NBC News."
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Karen Bass claimed she didn't receive any formal communication about the raid, but she managed to arrive shortly after the incident took place. "I was sitting in a room and everybody's phone started blowing up, and that told me that the military had arrived in a park," she said. "They literally marched through the kids' summer camp. The kids had to be ushered in a building so that they weren't exposed to the scene."
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Karen Bass went on to say that she wasn't even sure which agencies were represented in the military display. "That that is one of the mysteries of what is going on in our town," she said. "What I do know is that the Customs Border Patrol was definitely there. I have been told that the National Guard and the Marines were playing different roles — some on the periphery — but we don't know that for sure." She added that plainclothes officers were also involved, "jumping out of unmarked cars with tinted windows, no license plate, wielding guns, pulling people off the street." Said Bass, "That is the scene in L.A. right now."
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DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said arresting Karen Bass is "on the table." Bass responded to the threat with a sardonic laugh, saying, "They're going to arrest me for doing my job as mayor? My No. 1 responsibility is to keep Angelenos safe. Now, it never dawned on me that I would have to worry about keeping Angelenos safe from my own government — from military that are supposed to be overseas fighting foreign enemies, from the Customs and Border Patrol — we're about 2.5 hours away from a border — or from the National Guard that have been federalized unnecessarily."
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"I just have to say that I think that it's pathetic," Karen Bass continued. "I mean, last I checked, all of us work for the American people. And so, as I said, I am the duly elected official here to represent the city, and it is my job to protect the city. … It is my responsibility to ask, 'What are you doing here in this park where nothing is going on? Why are you grabbing people off the street?' Making a lot of people believe that kidnappings are taking place."
