The Trump administration’s immigrants who rocked Southern California have shown few signs of looseness despite lawsuits, court orders and signs of growth.
The business, which began in early June in the Los Angeles area, focuses primarily on small targets such as car washes, strip malls and Home Depot parking lots last week before authorities reached their biggest goals. One worker died after falling from a greenhouse roof during the attack, with 361 others arrested.
In response to his death, Tom Homan, President Trump’s chief border policy adviser, called the situation “sad.”
“When there’s death, that’s obviously a shame,” he told CNN. “I don’t want to see anyone die.”
“He was not in ice custody,” Homan said. “Ice didn’t have his hand on this person.”
Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem said authorities are planning to step up the crackdown on immigration with more funding from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” spending plan recently passed by Congress.
The budget bill injects around $150 billion into Trump’s immigration and border enforcement plans, including funding ice and border patrol staff, building immigration detention facilities, and reimmigration-related costs to state and local governments.
“We’re going to be harder and faster and beat these criminals more powerful than ever,” Norm said at a weekend press conference. Trump added: “We have a mandate from Americans to clean our city to make our community safer.”
However, there are some signs that support may be slipping.
A Gallup poll released this month shows that fewer Americans are Americans than strict border enforcement measures in June 2024 and prefer to provide undocumented immigrants who currently live on the national path to citizenship. The percentage of respondents who wanted to immigrate fell from 55% in 2024 to 30% in current polls, overturning the growing trend of immigration concerns.
The low immigration desire has declined among all major political parties, but the decline among Republicans has declined by 40% from last year. Among independents, preference for less immigration fell by 21%, while among Democrats, polls declined by 12%.
Also, a record 79% of adults believe immigrants are beneficial to the country, with only 17% thinking it is negative, a record for polls.
Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac University poll released in June shows that 38% of voters approved how Trump handles the presidency, with 54% disapproving. Among immigrants, 54% of those voted to disapprove of handling Trump’s issue, and 56% disapprove of deportation.
At the same time, growing legal challenges are threatening to hamper the Trump administration’s efforts.
On Friday, US District Judge Mame Mensa Frimon, an appointee to President Biden, temporarily blocked federal agents in Southland from using racial profiling to carry out immigrant arrests after finding sufficient evidence that agents were using race, people’s jobs or places.
However, the Trump administration vowed to fight back.
“Federal judges have no authority to direct immigration policies. That authority depends on Congress and the president,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “Enforcement work requires careful planning and implementation. Skills that go far beyond the scope and jurisdiction of the judge. We hope that this judicial authority’s summaries will be revised upon appeal.”
On Monday, the administration called on federal courts to overturn the judge’s order, allowing attacks to resume in seven California counties.
Legal experts say it’s difficult to say how successful the federal government will be in staying on temporary orders given the current political situation.
“This differs from many other types of Trump lawsuits because the law is so clear in the discovery of facts by the district court,” said UC Berkeley Law Dean Irwin Kemelinski. “So, following basic legal principles, this is a very weak case for the government on appeal, but it’s very difficult to predict what will happen because everything is so ideological.”
In the past, jurists say it is very rare for an appeal court to consider such an order. However, recent events suggest that it is not from the realm of possibility.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal government to allow convicted offenders to be forced into “third countries.”
That same month, a judge in the federal district ruled 6 to 3 to limit his ability to issue national orders that hamper the president’s policies.
Still, that’s not an easy case for the government, said Ahiran Allananandham, professor of practice and co-director at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law School.
“I think one of the things that makes this case a little more difficult for the government than some of the other shadow cases is that it actually affects citizens in an important way,” he said. “Obviously, immigration agents don’t know beforehand when they approach someone, whether they’re citizens or non-citizens.”
The continuous sweep has led to a wave of other lawsuits challenging the Trump administration. Amidst the legal battle, there are also signs of drastic change within the federal government.
Reuters reported Monday that the Justice Department unit has charged with defending legal agendas to the administration’s policies, including innate citizenship restrictions.
The administration is also facing scrutiny from Democrats and activists over the handling of last week’s attacks on marijuana farms, part of California’s legal and highly regulated industry.
“It was disproportionate and overdone,” Rep. D-Santa Barbara said of the operation.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) criticized Trump for targeting immigrant farm workers as the administration publicly states that the target is people with criminal history.
“Does the MS-13 gang members wake up at 3am and choose strawberries? Oia, Zero! Trump says he’s chasing “bad Honbless,” but he’s targeting immigrant farm workers who feed America.
The White House applauded X’s post: “It’s not producing, Holmes. It’s a product.”
Jaime Alanis Garcia, 57, a cannabis farm worker who was seriously injured after falling from the roof amid the mayhem of a Camarillo attack over the weekend, was taken from life support, according to his family.
Alanis’ family said they were fleeing immigration agents at Glasshouse Farm’s cannabis operation held in Camarillo on Thursday. The Department of Homeland Security said Alanis is not among those pursued.
His nie announced his death on the Gofundme page on Saturday. The page had raised more than $159,000 by Monday afternoon, far exceeding its initial $50,000 target.
“They took one of our family. We need justice,” nie writes.
Times staff writers Sonja Sharp, Dakota Smith and Jeanette Marantos contributed to this report.
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