L.A. Mayor Karen Bass on ICE arrests and wildfires

(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about ICE arrests.

Last week, the Trump Administration ordered half of National Guard troops deployed to L.A. to be removed.

This prompted Brennan to ask Mayor Bass if they have departed and what the remaining troops are doing, to which Bass said:

"I believe they've departed, but they were never needed in the first place, and the remaining ones are doing what they were doing all along, which is essentially protecting two federal buildings, one of which in Westwood, where there never has been a big protest against the immigration raids. This is just such an incredible misuse of, not only taxpayers money, but of the young people who are in the National Guard, who have had to leave their families, their jobs and their education for this deployment that is completely unnecessary. 4,000 troops, my understanding, is, most of their time has been spent in complete boredom, playing video games and essentially waiting around. Because again, 4,000 deployed, and about 200 actually used."

During the interview, Brennan and Bass talked about ICE enforcement still taking place in L.A., which the mayor objected, describing the agents as "masked men, unmarked cars, drawing guns, snatching people off the street."

Brennan also said Bass filed a Freedom of Information request to "know who these masked men are," prompting her to ask the mayor why their identity is important to her, and if she plans to prosecute them, to which Bass said:

"Well, no, let me just explain, because you have people who are literally walking down the street, sitting at bus stops, are individual vendors selling fruit on the street. These masked men pull up in unmarked cars and jump out of the cars with rifles and detain people. So for the average citizen, it looks like it's a violent kidnapping. So you should never have that. They don't identify themselves. And furthermore, to your previous guest, how on earth do they know that they're a threat when they're just chasing random people through parking lots at Home Depots, going to car washes and rounding up people. It's difficult to get your car washed in Los Angeles now, because most of the car washes, the employees won't come to work out of fear that a raid will take place."

Brennan brought up her colleague Camilo Montoya-Galvez's interview with Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, with the latter saying the agents cover their faces because "some of them fear that their families will be retaliated against" while saying the agents "they do wear markings for the agencies that they work with."

When asked how she responds to this, Bass said:

"First of all, let me just tell you that the masked men are not from Los Angeles, and so, how their families could be retaliated against. And then what is that to say to local law enforcement, the Los Angeles Police Department, none of whom are ever masked who always identify themselves and even hand someone a business card. So that makes absolutely no sense at all. And I don't know, but I have a hard time believing that the woman selling pineapples on the corner is going to attack an ICE agent. And then when he says that there's identification, the problem is many of these men are in plain clothes with vests on that say 'police,' it looks like something that they could have gotten online. I think it's really important to point out the extreme nature of the randomness. And you know, [Tom] Homan has said, he's mentioned a number of criteria for why they stop people. One of the points of criteria is physical appearance. Los Angeles is 3.8 million people, and about 50% of our population is Latino, so I guess that means 50% of Los Angeles could be possible suspects in an immigration raid."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Bass talked about the L.A. wildfires which happened six months ago, with Brennan saying the mayor fired then-Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) Chief Kristin Crowley for "failure to prepare." However, the LAFD still doesn't have a permanent fire chief, according to Brennan.

This prompted her to ask Bass if it's a problem and if Los Angeles is prepared as fire season is underway, to which Bass said:

"I don't think that that's a problem at all. Our interim fire chief has 40 years of experience. In fact, he had just recently retired. I called him in, out of retirement, during the fires. He was doing the emergency operation center. So he stepped in, didn't miss a beat by taking over the fire department. And we are prepared. We do know that it's fire season."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Bass, click here.