LOS ANGELES (CNS) – One day after the Trump Administration sued the city of Los Angeles, challenging the constitutionality of its “sanctuary city” policies, Mayor Karen Bass said Tuesday the legal action is part of an “all-out assault against Los Angeles” by the federal government, but she “won’t be intimidated by these tactics.”
“I will always protect Angelenos against the unwarranted and cruel actions of this administration,” Bass said during a downtown news conference.
She said the city “will stand strong and we will stand together.”
Bass said the lawsuit filed Monday is an “attempt to overturn the will of the city, calling for a halt to long-standing policy to protect immigrant Angelenos.”
“We will defend our ordinance and continue to defend policies that reflect the long-standing values of our city,” Bass said.
In its federal lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that Los Angeles’ sanctuary-city policies violate the Constitution by “thwarting” immigration enforcement.
The lawsuit contends that the sanctuary laws — in which local law enforcement officials refuse to assist immigration enforcement efforts — are illegal, and expressly designed to “obstruct the federal government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and impede consultation and communication between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials that is necessary for federal officials to carry out federal immigration law and keep Americans safe.”
According to the federal government, then-candidate Donald J. Trump campaigned and won the presidential election in 2024 “on a platform of deporting the millions of illegal immigrants the previous administration permitted, through its open borders policy, to enter the country unlawfully.
“Days after now President Trump won the Nov. 5, 2024 election, the Los Angeles City Council, wishing to thwart the will of the American people regarding deportations, began the process of codifying into law its sanctuary city policies.”
The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office issued a statement Monday saying, “The city of Los Angeles ordinance limiting the use of city resources for federal immigration enforcement was carefully drafted and fully complies with federal law and constitutional principles.
“The Constitution and federal law both allow the federal government to regulate immigration, but the reserved power of the state and the people including under the Tenth Amendment ensures our ability to defend the constitutionality of our ordinances and policies.
“Our city remains committed to standing up for our constitutional rights and the rights of our residents. We will defend our ordinance and continue to defend policies that reflect our longstanding values as a welcoming community for all residents,” according to the statement.
In her remarks Tuesday, Bass noted that the original intent of the sanctuary city policies was to boost public safety, “so the newly arrived immigrant population that was being preyed on by criminals would feel safe” reporting crimes to police.
She insisted the city would not back down from its stance, despite the federal lawsuit and ongoing immigration-enforcement raids in the city, which have been accompanied by the deployment of California National Guard troops and U.S. Marines — actions Bass called intimidation tactics.
“I personally won’t be intimidated by these tactics,” Bass said. “We won’t be intimidated by these tactics.”
In a statement Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi blamed sanctuary policies for the recent violence surrounding federal immigration raids in the Southland.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” she said. “Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump.”
Bass again blasted the federal government’s portrayal of the protests, saying Trump and other administration officials have falsely labeled the demonstrations as citywide riots, while the actions were largely confined to a several block area downtown. She also noted that despite claims by Trump, the National Guard and Marines played no role in quelling the protests, with the troops instead remaining mostly “static” defending “two buildings” — the federal buildings in downtown and West Los Angeles.
The federal government’s lawsuit in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles seeks to have Los Angeles’ policies declared invalid based on the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which “prohibits the city and its officials from obstructing the federal government’s ability to enforce laws that Congress has enacted or to take actions entrusted to it by the Constitution,” the suit states.
Bill Essayli, U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, said the lawsuit “holds the city of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
“The United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause prohibits the city from picking and choosing which federal laws will be enforced and which will not,” Essayli said in a statement.
“By assisting removable aliens in evading federal law enforcement, the city’s unlawful and discriminatory ordinance has contributed to a lawless and unsafe environment that this lawsuit will help end.”
The city’s sanctuary policies generally prohibit local resources — most notably police officers — from taking part in federal immigration enforcement efforts. The policies generally mirror state law that bar local cooperation with federal authorities except in cases involving serious or violent crimes.
Numerous other cities have also adopted sanctuary policies, including Long Beach, Pasadena, Santa Ana and West Hollywood.
Trump has frequently criticized such cities, even threatening to withhold federal funding from local governments that adopt sanctuary policies.
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