LA, other SoCal cities take legal action against Trump's immigration enforcement

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The city and county of Los Angeles are among several local municipalities seeking to join a lawsuit against the Trump administration to stop what officials have described as "unlawful" and "unconstitutional" immigration enforcement in the region.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass announced at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that the city filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit.

L.A. County and several other cities - Montebello, Culver City, Monterey Park, Pasadena, Pico Rivera, Santa Monica and West Hollywood - are also seeking to join the lawsuit brought last week by the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigration and civil rights groups.

The lawsuit alleges that federal agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, have engaged in unconstitutional and unlawful immigration raids by targeting Angelenos based on their perceived race and ethnicity and also denying detainees constitutionally mandated due process.

Bass' announcement comes one day after armed federal agents, some on horseback and others arriving in tactical vehicles, descended on MacArthur Park in an operation that Bass and other local officials said was designed to sow fear.

"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.

L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said the government's actions have caused harm to local communities and immigrants. She said the enforcement violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendment.

"The federal government has concentrated thousands of armed immigration agents, many of whom lack visible identification, and military troops in our communities, conducting unconstitutional raids, roundups and anonymous detentions, sowing fear and chaos among our residents," she said in a statement. "Today's motion to intervene shows we will not stand by and allow these raids to continue or to become the standard operating procedure in our communities."

President Donald Trump's administration ramped up immigration arrests in the L.A. area early last month, with federal agents arresting and detaining people at their workplaces. Chaotic encounters have played out across L.A. of witnesses recording federal agents in tactical gear taking suspected undocumented immigrants into custody.

"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. "Aside from the fact that this in unconstitutional, how do we know the difference between this and a kidnapping?"

The Trump administration also filed suit against Los Angeles, claiming the city is obstructing the enforcement of immigration laws and creating a lawless environment with its sanctuary policies that bar local police from sharing information on people without legal status.

City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report.