California’s elected leaders demand information about federal immigration raids
WASHINGTON D.C. (KEYT) – California Senator Alex Padilla spoke during a Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee meeting last week noting a severe lack of Congressional oversight regarding actions by Department of Homeland Security personnel this year and on Monday, Nov. 24, a joint City-Congressional Field Hearing is being held in Los Angeles regarding raids conducted this year.
"Violence against law enforcement is never okay," opened California's Senator during Wednesday's federal hearing. "Are we here truly to conduct oversight and find ways to actually improve the situation and public safety in our communities? Or are we simply here to throw more fuel on the political fire?"
The Subcommittee meeting, entitled "ICE Under Fire: The Radical Left's Crusade Against Immigration Enforcement" featured no testimony from federal witnesses that could confirm the impact on immigration enforcement at the federal level noted Senator Padilla.
"I refuse to sit back as this committee attempts to use or condone the use of law enforcement as a shield for abuses of power by this Administration," stated Senator Padilla Wednesday. "If today’s hearing was indeed a serious effort to protect our law enforcement, we would have government witnesses testifying before us today and fielding our questions as a committee."
On October 20 of this year, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other local leaders initiated public demonstrations and called for a congressional investigation into this year's expanded federal immigration raids and earlier the same month, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency regarding the sweeping enforcement actions.
"Our communities are suffering, and it isn't just those being arrested and detained," stated Los Angeles City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez. "Our businesses relying on the labor of immigrants are also suffering. Tourism has been hurt by federal policies that discourage both international and domestic travel. Commercial corridors that were once vibrant now feel like ghost towns."
During Wednesday's hearing, Senator Padilla also mentioned a series of escalating statements that have been publicly provided by the Department of Homeland Security regarding the increase in threats and violence against employees of the federal law enforcement agency.
"Our ICE law enforcement is now facing an 8,000% increase in death threats against them while they risk their lives every single day to remove the worst of the worst," said Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin in a press release on Oct. 30 of this year.
Your News Channel has received the same claims over the course of multiple statements from the Department of Homeland Security this year in response to inquiries about law enforcement actions regardless of indications of violence against federal agents during the incidents in question.
The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to multiple requests from Your News Channel to confirm the claims and on Wednesday, Senator Padilla noted members of Congress from both parties have also not received verification of the claims either.
"If today’s hearing was a serious effort, those government witnesses would be providing facts and data behind the numbers that the Department of Homeland Security so often cites to claim an increase in assaults on its officers and agents," noted Senator Padilla. "But even after repeated requests, months and months of request from my office and from others to the Department of Homeland Security to back up their claims of — is it '500%'? Is it '1,000%'? Now we’re even hearing claims of up to '8,000%' increase in assaults or death threats — they have refused to provide them."
"Mr. Chairman, you’re very well aware of this. You and I discussed this last week. And as far as I can tell, they’ve even refused your requests for data and statistics," added Senator Padilla while referring to Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas. "Not only would it [data about increasing violence and threats against federal agents] allow us to actually verify their claims, but that data would be critical to informing our policy response."
President Trump, both on the campaign trail and while serving as President, has repeatedly pledged to prioritize the detention of violent criminals as part of the push to increase detentions and expulsions.
According to nonpartisan research group Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), 71.5 percent of all people held in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in late September of this year had no criminal convictions and the CATO Institute found this summer that violent offenders were less than seven percent of all ICE bookings this fiscal year.
"The distinction between legal and illegal immigration becomes meaningless when both can destroy a country at its foundation," argued Matthew Tragesser, a spokesperson for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office of Public Affairs in a press release last Monday. "Unchecked mass migration floods the American labor market, depressing wages and taking jobs away from hardworking Americans, while straining healthcare, education, and housing systems."
In addition to those detentions confirmed by outside sources, nonprofit Propublica verified that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been held by the Department of Homeland Security for perceived violations of federal immigration laws.
"What is happening to undocumented immigrants is also happening to U.S. citizens, which means that this can happen to anyone, to all of us, at any period of time," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said after calling for a joint City-Congressional Field Hearing in late October.
Locally, Your News Channel covered when George Retes, a U.S. citizen and Ventura County father of two, was detained on July 10 of this year while trying to get to his security job during simultaneous raids at marijuana grow sites in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
He was released after three days and eventually filed a lawsuit against the federal government.
Your News Channel has filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with involved federal agencies regarding Retes' detention in July including various components of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, and applicable parts of the Department of Defense.
The federal disclosure law requires acknowledgment of the request within 20 business days, but the time it takes to respond is dependent on the agency's determination of the complexity of the request and any backlog in responses.
To this date, only two of those several requests have been partially fulfilled in accordance with federal law.
U.S. Northern Command, which oversees the North American region on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, confirmed that records authorizing the use of military personnel and installations during the July raids was not authorized by their office, but that the Secretary of Defense "can order NORTHCOM [U.S. Northern Command] to provide military facilities to enable their [Department of Homeland Security] operations. However, Naval Base Ventura County [the first stop after Retes was detained on July 10, 2025] was not requested".
The Department of Defense's Office of the Secretary and Joint Staff and the Department of Defenses Office of Inspector General have not yet responded to Your News Channel's unfulfilled FOIA request about the authorization to use the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement activities, a potential violation of federal law.
The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel also partially fulfilled a FOIA request from Your News Channel when it confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security did not officially receive legal counsel when denying Your News Channel's earlier FOIA requests about Retes' detention. Two other sections of the FOIA request with the Department of Justice remain unfulfilled.
On Sep. 17, more than two months after Retes' detention, but just one day after he penned an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle, the official X/Twitter account for the Department of Homeland Security claimed he had been arrested for assault.
While the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to Your News Channel's questions about the claim, it did inform Your News Channel earlier that our prior reporting that George Retes was arrested and released without charges was "inaccurate".
It further argued in the same email that, "There were more than 25 illegal aliens with criminal histories arrested during the operations at the marijuana sites in California on July 10. Additionally, many of the illegal aliens that the media counts as 'non-criminals' are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S. It is not an accurate description to say they are 'non-criminals.' This deceptive categorization is devoid of reality and misleads the American public, let us remind you that being here illegally is in fact a crime 8 USC 1325. We are putting the American people first by removing illegal aliens who pose a threat to our communities."
That email only quoted Your News Channel's coverage of George Retes and the claims made within that email are now part of FOIA requests filed by Your News Channel author that are still pending appeal of their denial on Sep. 18 of this year.
Retes has still never been charged in connection with his detention.
Just last week, Your News Channel confirmed through state disclosure laws that agents with the Department of Homeland Security provided false statements and used their authority as federal law enforcement personnel to take over an investigation into a road rage incident involving the agents.
Those agents also detained and transported the victim, Leo Martinez, a U.S. citizen who was legally recording the agents, to Los Angeles before later releasing him from custody claiming he was facing federal charges.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California -the primary federal prosecutorial authority in the area- confirmed it had not received any recommendations for any charges in connection with the incident and stated on Nov. 14 that no criminal charges have been filed against Martinez.
The broad discrepancies between the accounts provided by federal agents and the video and statements provided by other involved parties, the potential abuse of federal law enforcement authority to shut down a local investigation under the color of law, and the ongoing potential for further violent actions by the involved agents is the subject of an official complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General which referred the complaint to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of Professional Responsibility.
ICE's investigation into the complaint is now the subject of a FOIA request filed Monday, Nov. 24.
"No one, regardless of their background or appearance, should be living in fear of being thrown behind bars by their own government because of their race or what they look like," argued Los Angeles-area Congressman and Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Robert Garcia. "Every person in this country has rights, and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) must stop trampling on our civil liberties. Their actions are unconstitutional, unacceptable, and completely un-American, and we will not stop fighting until this administration is held accountable."
