The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by volunteer members of DSA-LA. Our goal is to provide a weekly update on the latest developments in state and local politics, and to track the issues that are most important to our membership.

Issue No. 235 - July 11, 2025

ICE in Los Angeles

• Across the Los Angeles area, the pace and brutality of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids has only intensified. Recently, the Trump administration boosted the agency’s budget by an unprecedented $75 billion dollars. LA Taco provides a daily roundup of local ICE activity, much of it conveyed via social media. Capital & Main covers the volunteer networks that protect communities against raids.

• Los Angeles has joined a lawsuit demanding an end to the ICE raids, on the basis that the indiscriminate arrests being conducted are little more than racial profiling. A ruling, which may impose a temporary injunction against further raids, is expected as soon as today.

• The Trump Administration is suing the city of Los Angeles over its sanctuary city policy, which prohibits any city agency from collaborating with ICE. DSA-LA’s electeds have issued a joint response statement.

• The LAPD continues to provide unofficial support for immigration raids, in defiance of the city’s sanctuary ordinance. LAPD spokespeople have expressed frustration that citizens are calling 911 to report ICE’s indiscriminate arrests, conducted by masked men wearing no identification, as kidnappings. In Huntington Beach a man suspected of impersonating a Border Patrol agent was detained.

• Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Bob Blumenfield introduced motions seeking to require LAPD to verify the identities of individuals claiming to be law enforcement, and raising the penalties for impersonation of law enforcement.

• A federal court ruling prohibits the LAPD from detaining or assaulting journalists covering protests, The ruling results from a lawsuit initiated in response to brutality against journalists covering last month’s anti-ICE protests.

• Mayor Karen Bass has signed an executive order intended to bolster the city’s defense of its immigrant communities against ICE occupation. However, the order’s implementation relies on the establishment of a working group to “inform additional guidance” for the LAPD. Text of the order here.

City Politics

• The city council has voted unanimously to declare a fiscal emergency, which among other things will authorize the city to move forward with planned layoffs of over 600 city employees. The city can minimize the number of layoffs by shifting employees to agencies that have their own discreet funding sources, such as the Department of Water and Power.

• The Los Angeles City Charter Reform Commission will conduct its third meeting on July 13, this Wednesday – its first since all of its seats have been filled. Agendas here.

• DSA Los Angeles will hold its first electoral endorsement forum of the 2025/26 electoral cycle next Saturday, July 19th. Candidates for Los Angeles City Council or Los Angeles Unified School District board will be seeking an endorsement. The forum is only open to chapter members in good standing and will be followed by an asynchronous ballot.

Health Care

• CalMatters diagnoses how the Trump administration’s recent gutting of Medicaid will affect health care in California, where the program is administered under the name Medi-Cal.

Labor

• The hotel and airline industries are attempting to overturn the Olympic Wage Ordinance, which guarantees a $30 an hour minimum wage for tourism workers in Los Angeles, via a public ballot measure. Unite Here Local 11 filed a complaint with the state attorney general and city attorney over the pathologically deceptive claims made by the measure’s paid signature gatherers.

Housing

• The California Legislature has approved significant rollbacks of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). CEQA mandates a process of environmental review before any development, and can allow a small number of people to cause significant delays. It has now been amended to exempt most housing development in urban areas.

• In a high-profile trial of Los Angeles’ homelessness response, a judge has found that the city has not been in compliance with a settlement requiring it to grow its shelter capacity. The ruling appoints a federal monitor to oversee the city’s compliance, but stops short of placing the city’s entire homelessness response apparatus under the control of a court-appointed receiver.

• A multi-year survey of Hollywood, Venice, and Skid Row concluded that the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in those neighborhoods has gone down, but that living conditions for those who remain unsheltered have declined.