Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass Orders City to Shield Illegal Immigrants, Undermine Federal Enforcement

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has taken her defiance of federal immigration law to dangerous new heights, signing an executive directive on Friday that instructs all city departments to actively protect illegal aliens and obstruct federal immigration enforcement.

Dubbed Executive Directive No. 12, the order is being sold as a move to “preserve the dignity, safety and constitutional rights of all City of Los Angeles residents, regardless of their immigration status.” In reality, it’s a blueprint for taxpayer-funded resistance to lawful immigration enforcement.

Bass invoked a decades-old 1979 LAPD policy that prohibits officers from taking action based on immigration status, then launched into a tirade against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for daring to uphold the law. In her directive, Bass claimed that ICE raids “have heightened fears, torn apart families, disrupted the immigrant community, and interfered with businesses and day to day life across the city.”

Noticeably absent from her statement? Any mention of the countless American citizens harmed, assaulted, or even killed by individuals who entered this country illegally and were shielded by sanctuary policies just like these.

The six-point directive mandates that every city department engage in coordinated efforts to insulate illegal immigrants from federal authorities:

1. Counter-ICE Planning: Departments are ordered to develop strategies to resist federal enforcement on city property.
2. Contractor Compliance: All city contractors must ensure workers — legal or not — are informed about local “protections.”
3. Appointed Activists: Each department must designate an “Immigrant Affairs Liaison” to monitor and report federal enforcement activities on city property.
4. Taxpayer-Funded Support for Illegals: Departments are told to recommend new services for families affected by immigration raids.
5. Targeted Propaganda: Departments must promote these services via Spanish and “other language” media outlets.
6. Mandatory Compliance: All departments must submit their implementation plans within two weeks.

Bass framed these measures as a necessary response to “unprecedented tactics” by the federal government — completely ignoring the unprecedented border crisis that necessitated them. The federal government is finally targeting criminal elements, gang affiliates, and high-risk illegal immigrants, yet Bass appears determined to obstruct even those efforts.

Rather than confront rising crime, rampant homelessness, or her city’s newly-declared fiscal emergency stemming from a billion-dollar shortfall, Mayor Bass is focused on ensuring that illegal immigrants — many of whom have never contributed a cent to the system — are prioritized over struggling American families.

This is what sanctuary city leadership looks like: Protecting those who broke our laws, while ignoring the consequences for lawful citizens. And for what? To score political points with the far-left?

President Donald Trump’s overwhelming victory in 2024 was a direct rejection of policies just like these. Americans are demanding border security, not taxpayer-subsidized lawlessness. When cities welcome illegal aliens with open arms, they invite federal scrutiny — and rightly so.

If Karen Bass spent half as much time protecting American citizens as she does shielding illegals, L.A. wouldn’t be a national embarrassment.