The answer to the violence and vandalism going on in Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass insisted during a news conference on Tuesday morning, “is for the federal government to stop the raids.”
It’s my sincere wish for all humans on earth to have someone in their lives who loves them as much as Mayor Karen Bass loves illegal immigration.
“I want to tell him to stop the raids,” she said in answer to a question about what she would say to President Donald Trump if she spoke with him on the phone. “I want to tell him that we are a city of immigrants.”
Los Angeles is also a city in the United States, where the federal government can enforce federal law, and not just immigration law. “Border czar” Tom Homan told MSNBC on Monday that three criminal warrants were served on a business in the downtown fashion district as the result of a multi-agency investigation into suspected money laundering, tax evasion and customs fraud. “The Fashion District wasn’t an immigration raid,” Homan said.
But immigrants’ rights organizations have formed a “Rapid Response Network” that spreads the word of any sighting of any federal officers. Bass said she learns of “raids” from this network.
Did you hear about the car wash “raids” this week? Local government officials raced to the microphones to fear-monger that ICE was going to car washes to tear families apart.
But last month in New Orleans, the district attorney announced the seizure of a car wash following a months-long investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, the New Orleans Police Department Special Operations Division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The car wash, the D.A. said, was a front for “criminal activities” such as alleged drug activity and trafficking.
California Democratic politicians are filtering every federal law enforcement activity through their “stop the raids” lens. The story they want to tell is that President Trump is needlessly disturbing the idyllic conditions in California’s perfectly calm cities because he is, in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s words, “reckless” and “immoral.”
On Monday, Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a press release disguised as a lawsuit asserting that the president has taken the supposedly illegal and unconstitutional action of federalizing the National Guard without the governor’s permission. The president doesn’t need the governor’s permission.
It’s no secret that Trump has gained significant political from Latino voters, something that Democrats would like to reverse with their attacks on the president.
But what is a secret is the funding of the actions on the streets. On June 6, Mayor Bass said in a statement, “My Office is in close coordination with immigrant rights community organizations. We will not stand for this.”
Who funds these organizations that “will not stand” for the enforcement of federal law?
Mayor Bass has filed legally required reports of behested payments – donations made because she specifically requested them – that show dark money changing hands. For example, more than 70 separate contributions were made in January totaling $798,864 from the Pledgeling Foundation, a donor-advised fund masking the name of the donor, to California Community Foundation, which states on its website that immigration is one of its areas of focus. The site states in a section labeled Our Strategic Priority Projects, “CCF ed the establishment of the Immigrants Are LA Coalition, which, in 2021, successfully secured over $160M from the American Rescue Plan to aid immigrant programs.”
On March 31, Bass “behested” a $425,000 donation from California Community Foundation to Community Partners, which provides “fiscal sponsorships” to nonprofits working for “equitable, just and vibrant communities.” Its website features a photo of protesters holding signs that read, “Immigration is an LGBT Issue.”
In 2021, the California Fair Political Practices Commission issued a new regulation requiring public officials reporting behested payments to disclose the original donor of contributions made by a donor-advised fund, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
What’s happening is that people are secretly making tax-deductible contributions at the request of the mayor to fund community organizations that promote the interests of illegal immigrants.
If the IRS Criminal Division ever takes an interest in the L.A. riots, they might follow the money to some surprising doorsteps.
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