{"id":154680,"date":"2025-08-18T03:12:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T03:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/154680\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T03:12:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T03:12:15","slug":"border-patrol-show-of-force-at-newsom-event-spurs-demand-for-info","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/154680\/","title":{"rendered":"Border Patrol show of force at Newsom event spurs demand for info"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a request Sunday seeking records from the Trump administration to explain why a phalanx of Border Patrol agents<\/a> showed up outside a news conference held by leading California Democrats last week. <\/p>\n

Newsom filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security asking for \u201call documents and records\u201d related to the Aug. 14 Border Patrol operation in downtown Los Angeles, which took place outside the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. At the news conference, Newsom announced a campaign to seek voter approval to redraw California\u2019s congressional maps<\/a> to boost Democrats\u2019 chances of retaking the House and stymieing Trump\u2019s agenda in the 2026 midterm elections. <\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s use of the military and federal law enforcement to try to intimidate his political opponents is yet another dangerous step towards authoritarianism,\u201d Newsom posted Sunday on X<\/a>. \u201cThis is an attempt to advance a playbook from the despots he admires in Russia and North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsom announced at the press event the \u201cElection Rigging Response Act\u201d \u2014 which would scrap independently drawn congressional maps in favor of those sketched by Democratic strategists in an attempt to counter moves by Republicans in Texas and other GOP-led states to gerrymander their own districts to favor Republicans in the 2026 midterms. Meanwhile, dozens of armed federal agents massed in the adjacent streets wearing masks, helmets and camouflage. <\/p>\n

Newsom and other leading Democrats, including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, dismissed the Border Patrol action as an intimidation tactic. In response to questions from The Times on Sunday, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the agents were \u201cfocused on enforcing the law, not on [Newsom].\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaughlin said two people were arrested during the Little Tokyo operation. One was a drug trafficker, according to McLaughlin, who said the other was a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has been a focus of the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to use the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportation efforts. <\/p>\n

She did not respond to questions about how many agents were deployed or what specific agencies were involved in the Aug. 14 operation. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, who has been leading the Trump administration\u2019s aggressive immigration operations in California, was at the scene and briefly spoke to reporters. <\/p>\n

McLaughlin did not name either person arrested or respond to a request for further information or evidence of links between the arrests and the Venezuelan gang.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder President Trump and [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi] Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences,\u201d she wrote in an e-mailed statement. \u201cCriminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, witnesses at the scene identified one of the men arrested as Angel, a delivery worker who was carrying strawberries when he was captured. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just doing his normal delivery to the courthouse,\u201d said the man\u2019s colleague, Carlos Franco. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty sad, because I\u2019ve got to go to work tomorrow, and Angel isn\u2019t going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the FOIA request, Newsom\u2019s legal affairs secretary, David Sapp, called the Border Patrol deployment an \u201cattempt to intimidate the people of California from defending a fair electoral process.\u201d <\/p>\n

In addition to documents related to the planning of the raid, the FOIA request also seeks \u201cany records referencing Governor Newsom or the rally that was scheduled to occur\u201d and communications between federal law enforcement officials and Fox News, which allowed the Trump-friendly media outlet to embed a reporter with Border Patrol that day. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s increased use of the military and federal law enforcement against his political rivals has drawn growing concern in recent months. The president deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines to quell protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this year. Just last week, Trump sent swarms of federal law enforcement officials to Washington, D.C., to combat what he sees as out-of-control crime, despite the fact that most crime statistics show violence in the nation\u2019s capital is at a 30-year low. <\/p>\n

Although Newsom demanded an answer by early September, the federal government is notoriously slow in responding to FOIA requests and will often delay responses for years. A spokesman for Newsom did not immediately respond to questions on Sunday about what, if any, other legal steps the governor was prepared to take. <\/p>\n

Voters would have to approve Newsom\u2019s plan to redraw the congressional maps in a special election in November. The new maps, drawn by Democratic strategists and lawmakers behind closed doors instead of the independent commission that voters previously chose, would concentrate Republican voters in a few deep-red pockets of the state and eliminate an Inland Empire district long held by the GOP. <\/p>\n

In total, Democrats would likely pick up five seats in California in the midterms under the redrawn maps, possibly countering or outpacing Republican efforts to tilt their map red in Texas. Other states have already begun to consider redrawing their maps along more partisan lines in response to growing anxieties over the fight to control the House of Representatives in 2026. <\/p>\n

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a request Sunday seeking records from the Trump administration to explain why a phalanx…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":154681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[90312,90309,276,90311,7033,11892,12644,2444,79976,50,3435,5210,90310,25548,277,6288,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-154680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-attempt","10":"tag-border-patrol-show","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-congressional-map","13":"tag-democrats","14":"tag-federal-law-enforcement","15":"tag-information","16":"tag-los-angeles-times","17":"tag-midterm-election","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newsom","20":"tag-question","21":"tag-request-sunday","22":"tag-response","23":"tag-trump","24":"tag-u-s-department","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115047585862577770","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}