It was mere weeks ago that demonstrators against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials were organizing in Los Angeles, waving Mexican flags, throwing rocks at ICE vehicles, setting fire to Waymo vehicles, and igniting other blazes around federal facilities.
The organizers of this fiasco may have thought they were creating BLM 2025, but with a Mexican twist. However, President Donald Trump’s administration seems to have been prepared for a BLM replay, and Los Angeles officials are now dealing with a number of unintended consequences.
To begin, Trump sent in the National Guard and the U.S. Marines to protect federal property. The demonstrations were not allowed to escalate as likely intended.
The anti-ICE riots are poised to cost the city $32 million in recovery and repair efforts. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy indicates he will not be authorizing one dime to help the city with these expenses.
Now the Trump administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a federal lawsuit against the city, arguing that its recently enacted sanctuary city policies violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by intentionally discriminating against the federal government and impeding federal immigration enforcement.
The city’s laws, DOJ says, “interfere with and discriminate against the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law,” according to the lawsuit filed Monday.“The practical upshot of Los Angeles’ refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities has, since June 6, 2025, been lawlessness, rioting, looting, and vandalism. The situation became so dire that the Federal Government deployed the California National Guard and United States Marines to quell the chaos,” the complaint states.
Mayor Karen Bass and the Los Angeles City Council were named in this lawsuit as well. The responses from these illegal immigration enablers are woke classics!
Bass did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In recent weeks, she has pushed back against the Trump administration’s portrayal of L.A. as a city enveloped in violence, saying that immigration agents are the ones sowing chaos, terrorizing families and harming the city’s economy.“To characterize what is going on in our city as a city of mayhem is just an outright lie,” Bass said earlier this month. “I’m not going to call it an untruth. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I’m going to call it for what it is, which is a lie.”Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez represents much of Hollywood, where immigration agents recently raided a Home Depot on Sunset Boulevard. Asked about the lawsuit, he said the president is “tearing families apart” as he seeks to “force every city and town to help him carry out his white nationalist agenda.”
Those of us who work in the regulatory environment are familiar with the U.S. Supremacy Clause, which is found in Article VI, Clause 2 of our Constitution. This particular article asserts that the U.S. Constitution, federal laws, and treaties are the highest laws in the country.
Therefore, if there’s ever a conflict between federal law and state law, federal law trumps state rules. Additionally, state laws that contradict federal law are not valid and cannot be enforced.
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
I highlighted a section that many judges seem to have forgotten. But, I digress.
Hopefully, the DOJ will prove successful in its case, and this could set a pivotal legal precedent with nationwide implications for other sanctuary jurisdictions. I will note that this strategy was deployed against Chicago in February of this year, signaling a systematic effort to challenge sanctuary policies through the courts.
I also suspect that Los Angeles officials will be grappling with even more unintended consequences from their attempt to create a “Resistance 2.0,” for quite some time.
My only worry is that next time, Los Angelenos will find an even bigger communist than Bass and make him/her/it/them mayor. You know, like NYC on the West Coast.
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