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    ‘It seemed like a ghost town’: LA food vendors on how Trump’s Ice raids affected business

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    From early morning to late at night, food vendors are feeding the people of Los Angeles. They offer nearly anything – tamales, fried fish, crispy tacos, mole, pupusas, fresh fruit, esquites, bacon-wrapped hot dogs – to Angelenos as they start their commutes or head home after the bars have closed.Taco trucks and food vendors are a vital part of the city’s celebrated culinary scene, one that came under attack this summer as Donald Trump ordered mass immigration raids across the city.Shannon Camacho, a senior policy associate at Inclusive Action for the City, a non-profit in the Boyle Heights neighborhood that focuses on community economic development, says that many street vendors made the painful calculation between risking losing much-needed income or being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).“Vendors are in a particularly vulnerable situation, given that they have to work outdoors,” Camacho said. “They rely on foot traffic. They rely on busy neighborhoods and streets … This was something intentional that the Department of Homeland Security was doing – targeting vendors that were outside, understanding that many of them are immigrants and many of them are undocumented.”The LA Vendor Street Campaign, which includes Inclusive Action and three other organizations, has been advocating for the rights of vendors long before this summer. The LASVC led efforts to create a statewide policy decriminalizing street vending throughout the state. Recently, it raised around $100,000 of direct cash assistance for street vendors across Los Angeles county.Still, Camacho says more is needed.“There are thousands and thousands of street vendors, even just in the city of Los Angeles,” Camacho said. “And that’s not even including other parts of Southern California. We don’t have enough to support everybody.”The Guardian spoke to three food business owners in LA about the summer of Ice, and how it’s affected their families and businesses.Juan Carlos Guerra, Taqueria FronteraIt’s Los Angeles … you drive anywhere on the street, you’re going to see pop-ups. You’re going to see street vendors. But it just seemed like a ghost town during that time. No one was out on the street.I was going to open the new Silver Lake location of Taqueria Frontera at the beginning of June. And then the raids happened. It didn’t seem like we should have a celebration or a grand opening.I reached out to Javier Cabral from [the hyperlocal news site] LA Taco, and I said to him, “I want to try to help out. Whatever I can do. Do you know a good organization?” And he said: “Oh, yeah. CIELO is a great organization.”I talked to someone at CIELO, Comunidades Indígenas en Liderazgo (Indigenous Communities in Leadership). I was just like: “Taco Tuesday is usually a thing. Is it okay if I set up something saying that all proceeds of our trompo [taco] – which is what we sell the most – is going to be donated towards fundraising for CIELO so they can help immigrant families during this time?”We did Taco Tuesday with a purpose, and we ended up raising $4,000 from selling the trompo that day alone.Everyone was pretty supportive about it. And not just that day – a lot of people would come in just to check up on us, on my employees, see how they’re doing, how they’re feeling. There’s no way you could live in Los Angeles without being affected by this. And a lot of my clients were like: “I can’t believe this is going on.” Who doesn’t have a friend or family member or co-worker that isn’t undocumented here in Los Angeles?Street vendors are back out now and more people are outside eating. But I think that it’s still in the back of their minds. Could this happen at any time again? Right now it’s pretty calm, but what happens a month from now if they decide to do it again?Bulmaro, street vendorWhen we started the business, there weren’t many jobs out there. We knew how to make tamales, which is what we sell. Due to the lack of jobs and opportunities, we decided to do what we know how to do. From there, business grew and we started getting more clients, little by little. It’s our sole source of income.Because of the raids, everything stopped. We stopped selling for about a month, without working or anything. We just started working again a little more about two weeks ago. A lot of people don’t go out to buy things anymore because they’re scared. Sales have gone down a lot because of the raids. More than half of the clients we had haven’t come back to buy anything because of the fear that continues.We haven’t had phone orders, either. We just bring the day’s supply, and sometimes we come back home with tamales or with atol that didn’t sell. It’s never going to be the same as before the raids.View image in fullscreenIt’s me, my wife and another employee – three of us depend on the business. There’s nothing we can do, we have to keep working. We need to pay rent and bills, even though we’re going outside with fear. There’s no other way. The rent isn’t going to wait. The bills, and the food we need to buy, aren’t going to wait either.Alejandra Rodriguez, Alex Foods and Cemitas PoblanasA lot of our customers stopped coming. They were scared because a lot of them are Latino. Even at the local restaurants in the city of West Hollywood, [the workers] have their visas to be here, but they were still scared because of everything that was going on. They were saying that even if you had a visa, even if you had permission to be here, everybody was still getting kicked out. Our sales dropped more than 70%.Even on the street, there was nobody walking, nobody coming. It did take a very big toll on us … the local people that work at the restaurants, the chefs or the servers or the valet guys, they weren’t coming in to work.We closed down for about 10 days because it wasn’t worth coming out here. And luckily, we had a little bit of money saved up. Usually, when we leave on trips, customers will still call us to place orders. But no, the whole 10 days we were gone, we didn’t go to work. We didn’t get any calls or people asking us when we were going to come back.I had to let one of my two employees go. I couldn’t afford it anymore. And we’ve just slowly been climbing back. We have customers from the local car washes, and they told us that Ice actually got there at that car wash and took about four people. People are still aware. People are still scared. Any time they see a police officer pass by or a sheriff’s department or just somebody, they would flinch.People are just trying to get to work and come back. I know they were able to stay away, maybe for a couple of weeks, but everybody has to pay rent. More

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      Supreme court lifts restrictions on Los Angeles immigration raids in win for Trump

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      Federal agents can resume sweeping immigration operations in Los Angeles after the US supreme court lifted an order barring the Donald Trump administration from stopping people solely based on their race, language or job.The court ruled in favor of Trump’s administration, granting a stay against a restraining order from another judge that found “roving patrols” of immigration agents were conducting indiscriminate arrests in LA. The ruling from the conservative majority is a win for the administration in its ongoing effort to enact mass deportations.US district judge Maame E Frimpong in Los Angeles had found a “mountain of evidence” that enforcement tactics were violating the constitution. The plaintiffs, who said the administration’s approach amounted to “blatant racial profiling”, included US citizens swept up in immigration stops. An appeals court had left Frimpong’s ruling in place.But the Trump administration argued the order wrongly restricted agents carrying out its widespread crackdown on illegal immigration.The supreme court’s 6-3 decision comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents also step up enforcement in Washington amid Trump’s unprecedented federal takeover of the capital city’s law enforcement and deployment of the national guard.The lawsuit will now continue to unfold in California. It was filed by immigrant advocacy groups that accused Trump’s administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people during a crackdown on illegal immigration in the Los Angeles area.The Trump administration has made California a center of its deportation campaign, sending federal agents near schools and workplaces and Home Depot stores. The large show of federal agents – along with the deployment of the military – has left southern California communities in fear.In its order granting the stay, the court majority wrote that the government sometimes makes stops to check the immigration status of people who work jobs in landscaping or construction, among others “that often do not require paperwork and are therefore attractive to illegal immigrants; and who do not speak much if any English”.“Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of US immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations,” the decision states.In a stinging dissent joined by her two liberal colleagues, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor. Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”Department of Homeland Security attorneys have said immigration officers target people based on illegal presence in the US, not skin color, race or ethnicity. Even so, the justice department argued that the order wrongly restricted the factors that Ice agents can use when deciding who to stop.The Los Angeles region has been a battleground for the Trump administration after its hardline immigration strategy spurred protests and the deployment of the national guard and the marines. The number of immigration raids in the Los Angeles area appeared to slow shortly after Frimpong’s order came down in July, but recently they have become more frequent again, including an operation in which agents jumped out of the back of a rented box truck and made arrests at an LA Home Depot store.The supreme court decision was condemned by LA mayor Karen Bass, who said it “isn’t just an attack on the people of Los Angeles, this is an attack on every person in every city in this country.“I want the entire nation to hear me when I say this isn’t just an attack on the people of Los Angeles, this is an attack on every person in every city in this country. Today’s ruling is not only dangerous – it’s un-American and threatens the fabric of personal freedom in the United States of America.”The plaintiffs argued that her order only prevents federal agents from making stops without reasonable suspicion, something that aligns with the constitution and supreme court precedent.“Numerous US citizens and others who are lawfully present in this country have been subjected to significant intrusions on their liberty,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote. “Many have been physically injured; at least two were taken to a holding facility.”The Trump administration said the order is too restrictive, “threatening agents with sanctions if the court disbelieves that they relied on additional factors in making any particular stop”.D John Sauer, the solicitor general, also argued the order can’t stand under the high court’s recent decision restricting universal injunctions, though the plaintiffs disagreed.The order from Frimpong, who was nominated by Joe Biden, barred authorities from using factors such as apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, presence at a location such as a tow yard or car wash, or someone’s occupation as the only basis for reasonable suspicion for detention. It’s covered a combined population of nearly 20 million people, nearly half of whom identify as Hispanic or Latino.Plaintiffs included three detained immigrants and two US citizens. One of the citizens was Los Angeles resident Brian Gavidia, who was shown in a 13 June video being seized by federal agents as he yelled: “I was born here in the States. East LA, bro!”Gavidia was released about 20 minutes later after showing agents his identification, as was another citizen stopped at a car wash, according to the lawsuit. More

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      ‘Nightmare’: family in shock after Ice moves LA teen out of state without their knowledge

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      The family of 18-year-old Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz was shocked when they found out that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) had discreetly moved him out of California, according to California congresswoman Luz Rivas, who spoke with his relatives and reviewed federal detention records.Guerrero-Cruz, who was first detained in Van Nuys neighborhood while walking his dog, was transferred late Monday from the Adelanto detention facility in San Bernardino county to a remote holding site in Arizona without any notification given to his family.The next day, Ice prepared to send him to Louisiana, a key hub for deportation flights. At the last moment, however, Guerrero-Cruz was removed from the plane and returned to Adelanto, where he remains in custody, according to Rivas’s office.“The nightmare for him, his family, and thousands in similar situations is not over yet,” Rivas said in a statement. “I will not accept the current reality that ICE shuffles and transfers detainees without notifying their family to inflict psychological pain for all of those involved.“Benjamin and his family deserve answers behind Ice’s inconsistent and chaotic decision-making process, including why Benjamin was initially transferred to Arizona, why he was slated to be transferred to Louisiana afterward, and why his family wasn’t notified of his whereabouts by Ice throughout this process,” the statement continued.Rivas introduced legislation on Tuesday that would require Ice to contact a detainee’s immediate family within 24 hours of a transfer. Current rules only mandate notification in the event of a detainee’s death.According to the Department of Homeland Security, Guerrero-Cruz faces deportation to Chile after overstaying his visa, which obliged him to leave the US by 15 March 2023.The teen was initially arrested on 8 August and held in downtown LA for a week. One of his former teachers, Liz Becerra, visited Guerrero-Cruz at an Ice processing center in Adelanto, an hour and a half north of LA.She said that Guerrero-Cruz spoke about being surrounded by masked men while walking his dog, handed over to federal agents, and then brought to the metropolitan detention center in downtown LA. He was not allowed to shower or brush his teeth for a week, Becerra said.Once he was moved to Adelanto, he said he was being kept in a small cell with about two dozen other men with little access to food and water.This pattern of detainees being shifted between multiple sites reflects a broader practice under what the Trump administration is touting as the largest deportation initiative in US history.An analysis of Ice data by the Guardian found that in June this year, average daily arrests were up 268% compared with June 2024. It also found that, despite Trump’s claims that his administration is seeking out the “worst of the worst”, the majority of people being arrested by Ice now have no criminal convictions.As a result, detention facilities have been increasingly overcrowded, and the US system was over capacity by more than 13,500 people as of July. More

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      New allegations against Smartmatic executive in company’s voting machine contract with LA county

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      The justice department is alleging in a new court filing that three Smartmatic executives who were indicted last year on bribery and money-laundering charges transferred money from a 2018 voting machine contract with Los Angeles county into slush funds that were originally set up to pay bribes to election officials in Venezuela and the Philippines between 2012 and 2016 to obtain and retain lucrative election contracts.Prosecutors say one of the executives transferred an undisclosed amount from the $282m LA county contract into the slush funds in 2019 but did not say if anyone actually received bribes from the county’s money at that point. The government is seeking to prove the funds were part of a long pattern of bribing election officials by Smartmatic, the voting machine company, which sued Fox News for defamation after the 2020 election.A separate court filing in a lawsuit brought by Fox News against LA county to obtain records about Smartmatic’s relationship with Dean Logan, LA county’s registrar-recorder and county clerk who oversees elections and the Smartmatic contract, Fox News asserts that Logan may have received inappropriate gifts from the company in the form of business-class travel and upscale restaurant meals. Logan is supposed to report vendor gifts above $50 on annual disclosure forms, but records obtained by Fox News and included in the court filing show he did not report some gifts from Smartmatic. Logan maintains he was not required to report the travel or a meal that Fox highlights in its filing. Fox News is seeking the records from LA county to support its defense against a defamation suit filed against it by Smartmatic in 2021.Last year, prosecutors in Florida filed corruption charges against the president of UK-based Smartmatic, along with two other current and former executives, for allegedly operating a years-long bribery and money-laundering scheme that paid bribes to an election official in the Philippines. The justice department has since said that the scheme involved payments to officials in Venezuela as well, where the company obtained its first elections contract in 2004.US election integrity activists have long been concerned about Smartmatic’s contract with LA county, due to the company’s controversial history, the founders’ ties to Venezuela and a lack of transparency over company ownership. The company first tried to get into the US elections market in 2006, but a federal investigation into its ownership and potential ties to the Venezuelan government at the time put a halt to its US ambitions until it obtained the contract with LA county in 2018. Concerns about the company and its role in US elections increased last year when the justice department indicted its executives.The new revelations about the LA county money raise even more questions about the county’s contract. Prosecutors allege that the Smartmatic executives conspired for years with the owner of Jarltech International, a hardware maker in Taiwan that manufactured voting machines for Smartmatic, to overcharge customers for the systems it built then used the excess money to pay bribes to election officials in the Philippines and Venezuela. Prosecutors do not say if they overcharged LA county as well or if any LA county money actually got paid out in bribes to anyone – only that some of that money made it into slush funds that had been used in the past to pay bribes. The justice department declined to answer questions about the case but said in a court filing that it has documents and witness testimony to support its claims about LA county’s money.Smartmatic itself has not been accused of wrongdoing, only the three executives. But a Smartmatic spokesperson says the justice department allegations are “filled with misrepresentations” and also says the company operates “ethically” and abides “by all laws always, both in Los Angeles county and every jurisdiction where we operate”.The new allegations are not part of charges the justice department brought against the Smartmatic executives. Prosecutors are only asking a Florida court to allow evidence about the LA county money to show a pattern in how the executives managed their alleged bribery and money-laundering scheme.After news of the indictments broke last year, the county barred the three executives from any further association with its Smartmatic contract but did not “debar” the company itself, something it can do if a contractor shows a lack of “business integrity or business honesty”. The county can also terminate a contract if a vendor gives any county officer or employee “improper consideration” in the form of travel, entertainment or tangible gifts to secure favor. But Logan’s office says it stands by its work with the company. With regard to the implication that LA county money that got into the slush funds might have come from overcharging the county, Logan says the county’s contract with Smartmatic uses fixed pricing.“The alleged actions in the federal matter are unrelated to the work performed under contract by Smartmatic for Los Angeles County,” according to a statement sent by Logan in an email. “The County has no knowledge or visibility into how Smartmatic USA used proceeds from that contract; however, the County does validate work performed and deliverable requirements aligned to the fixed price structure of the contract prior to making any payments.”The contract runs through March 2027, but has three, two-year extension options that, if exercised, would stretch the agreement to 2033. It also does allow for changes in pricing up to 10% of the contracted amounts.The three indicted executives include company president and co-founder, Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez Jr; Jorge Vasquez, former vice-president of hardware development for Smartmatic’s US division; and Elie Moreno, who oversaw the company’s contracts. According to a company bio, Piñate, who goes by Roger Piñate, played a “critical” role in winning the LA county contract and was chief operating officer until becoming president in 2018, the year Smartmatic won the Los Angeles contract.Piñate is a Venezuelan citizen and permanent US resident, and Elie Moreno is a Venezuelan-Israeli. The company put Piñate and Moreno on administrative leave after the announcement of their indictments last year, and currently Ruliena Piñate, Roger’s cousin, oversees Smartmatic’s LA contract with another employee. She was co-president with her cousin before his indictment. Vasquez, a US citizen, left Smartmatic in 2021 in the midst of the justice department investigation. The justice department accuses him of receiving direct kickbacks for his role in the alleged scheme.Controversial beginningsSmartmatic has been dogged by controversy almost since its founding in Florida in 1999 by Piñate and two fellow Venezuelan engineers – Antonio Mugica and Alfredo José Anzola – as a network applications developer.The company shifted to voting machines in 2004 when then-Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez was threatened with a recall referendum. Months before the recall election, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council announced it would replace the country’s six-year-old voting machines with new ones under a $91m contract awarded to Smartmatic, Bizta – a small software firm owned by Mugica and his father – and the state-run telecom CANTV. Smartmatic and Bizta got the contract despite having no experience in voting machines or elections. There were other concerns about the deal as well: the Venezuelan government owned 28% of Bizta through a $200,000 investment in the firm, a close associate of Chávez was on Bizta’s board, and two of the five members of the electoral council denounced the contract, citing irregularity with the bidding process.Chávez survived his recall battle, though not without additional controversy: he and his supporters were accused of rigging the election based on an outcome that differed from an exit poll. However, after an audit of the results, the US-based Carter Center, which monitors overseas elections, supported the outcome, as did the US state department.Riding its success in Venezuela, Smartmatic tried to enter the US elections market in 2006 by using money from the Venezuela contract to buy the California-based Sequoia Voting Systems, whose voting systems were used across the US. The purchase caught the attention of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which launched an investigation into Smartmatic’s ownership and possible ties to the Venezuelan government. But rather than cooperate with the federal inquiry, Smartmatic quickly sold off Sequoia.The company then turned to Europe and other election markets, moving its headquarters to the UK in 2012. It won a contract worth more than $180m to supply the Philippines with more than 90,000 voting machines for its 2016 elections, with Jarltech International on board to manufacture the machines. But the company became embroiled in more controversy almost immediately after the election when Philippine authorities charged the head of Smartmatic’s technical support team and two subordinates with accessing a system on election night used to transmit unofficial results and making an unauthorized change to code. The case was later dismissed.Two years after the Philippines election, Smartmatic won the Los Angeles contract. Smartmatic hoped to parlay this win to expand across the US. But after its machines were used for the first time in the 2020 presidential primary and general election, Donald Trump, who lost the election, falsely accused Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems of manipulating the results to give the election to Joe Biden.These claims were amplified by Fox News and other media outlets sympathetic to Trump, and in 2021, Smartmatic filed a series of defamation lawsuits against media outlets and Trump supporters who they say encouraged and amplified the vote-rigging assertions, including a $2.7bn defamation suit against Fox News. Smartmatic claims Fox News reporting decimated its US business prospects, causing other election jurisdictions to shun it. But Fox News says it simply covered newsworthy claims made by Trump and others.Last year Smartmatic settled a similar suit against Newsmax for $40m and against One America News for an undisclosed sum and seemed to be on path to win or settle the Fox News suit as well until the indictment of its executives. Fox News has used the indictments and alleged bribery scheme to support its defense in the defamation suit, saying in court documents that if the company has had trouble expanding its business in the US, it’s due to these allegations and the company’s troubled history, not Fox News reporting.The chargesProsecutors from the southern district of Florida allege that the three Smartmatic executives and Jarltech owner Andy Wang engaged in a years-long conspiracy to overcharge the Philippines government for voting machines, then used the fraudulently obtained funds to pay more than $1m in kickbacks to Juan Andres Bautista – chair of the Philippine elections commission at the time – to win and retain a contract to supply systems for the 2016 elections there.Jarltech allegedly overcharged the Philippines government $10-$50 per voting machine in “extra” or “rush” fees, amassing about $6m in a slush fund to pay the bribes. Wang allegedly managed the funds in Hong Kong bank accounts, and Smartmatic executives directed the payments, using bogus purchasing agreements, shell companies and banks in Europe, Asia and the US. Bautista passed the money to a family member who then bought a condo in San Francisco, prosecutors say.Wang did not respond to questions from the Guardian.The justice department investigation began after Bautista’s estranged wife told Philippine authorities in 2017 that her husband had $20m in “unexplained wealth” and provided them with 35 passbooks for offshore bank accounts in Bautista’s name. Bautista resigned as chair of the election commission two months later, and in 2023, news broke that the justice department had filed charges against him and was investigating unnamed Smartmatic executives as well.But the scheme didn’t start with the Philippines. Prosecutors say the conspirators had also inflated the cost of voting machines sold to Venezuela to amass $4m for bribes paid to unnamed Venezuelan officials between 2012 and 2014 , showing a pattern of illegal activity. In 2019, prosecutors say Piñate also transferred ownership of an upscale home in Caracas to Tibisay Lucena Ramírez, then president of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, to secure her assistance with its business interests in that country.A Smartmatic spokesperson calls the house claim “untethered from reality”. She says Smartmatic “ceased all operations in Venezuela in August 2017 after blowing the whistle on the government and has never sought to secure business there again”.In 2017, Smartmatic accused the Venezuelan electoral council and the Nicolás Maduro regime of manipulating voter turnout numbers and election results and ceased business in the country. But prosecutors say Piñate hoped to repair the relationship with Venezuela with Ramírez’s help and gave her the Caracas home as a bribe. Ramírez died in 2023.Los Angeles countyThe federal case against Smartmatic executives and the company’s lawsuit against Fox News have now become intertwined due to the new allegations about the LA county money and questions about whether the executives used bribes to win favor around the county contract. Fox News says in its recent filing against LA county that it “does not yet have evidence that slush fund payments or real estate title transfers were made to any L.A. County official”, but it says that gifts Logan received from the company follow “patterns of misconduct” that prosecutors have alleged occurred in other countries, and that Logan cultivated an unusually close relationship with Smartmatic executives that went “well beyond typical business relationships.”Logan took a nine-day trip to the Maldives and Taiwan in July 2019 that was partially funded by Smartmatic, including business-class air fare, accommodations and meals, according to text messages obtained by Fox News and included in its court filing. The Maldives portion was covered by an organization that invited Logan to speak there, but Smartmatic paid for Logan’s travel to Taiwan. Based on another text message not included in the court filing but seen by the Guardian, Smartmatic played a role in coordinating the conference invitation to Logan as well.Logan’s wife accompanied him on the trip, but the text messages indicate he gave his credit card number to Smartmatic to cover her $5,000 air fare. Logan and his wife tacked on tourist activity to the Taiwan portion of their trip, and it’s not clear how much Smartmatic paid for the entire excursion. Under California Fair Political Practices Commission regulations, gifts to state and local officials from a single source were limited to $500 a year when Logan took the trip. Smartmatic would not say how much it paid for the Taiwan trip, citing ongoing litigation.An LA county spokesperson said in an email that the Taiwan trip was not a gift but a work trip to conduct oversight of the manufacturing process – the trip included a visit to Jarltech, the subcontractor that was making the hardware for LA county’s machines. The spokesperson wrote: “the lead from the County’s VSAP design contractor was also part of the trip, which included detailed reviews and presentations of products that required approval prior to manufacturing, and onsite visits to multiple product and manufacturing assembly plants/operations.”Approval of the manufacturing process was required as part of the contract, he says, and “protocols for notification and approval of the travel were followed and are documented in the responsive records provided [to Fox News]”.Asked why the project manager for the contract, whose job is “inspecting any and all tasks, deliverables, goods, services, or other work provided by or on behalf of the Contractor” didn’t visit the Jarltech facilities instead of Logan, spokesperson Michael Sanchez said that as chief elections official “Logan had and continues to have clear responsibility for ensuring contract compliance.”Fox News disputes that the travel was covered under the contract, noting that the contract only mentions paying travel expenses if county officials are auditing financial records related to Smartmatic’s contract with the county and have to travel outside the county to view the company’s financial records. Sanchez says the paragraph addressing travel expenses “is not limited to the inspection of financial records for a financial audit” but includes travel to “examine … any pertinent transaction, activity, or record” relating to the contract.In addition to the Taiwan travel, Fox News says Smartmatic paid for an unknown number of meals in upscale restaurants for Logan, at least one of which Logan did not report on annual disclosure form in 2022. In a deposition in the lawsuit Fox has filed against LA county to obtain Logan’s records, Logan disputes that he was required to report the meal because he says it was a personal meal with a Smartmatic employee.He also rejects the suggestion that Smartmatic won its contract out of favoritism.“The contract between Los Angeles County and Smartmatic USA was competitively bid, evaluated, and awarded in compliance with the County’s open competitive public procurement processes,” Logan wrote in an email. More

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      Judge blocks White House from defunding 34 municipalities over ‘sanctuary’ policies

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      A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to 34 “sanctuary cities” and counties that limit cooperation with federal immigration law enforcement, significantly expanding a previous order.The order, issued on Friday by the San Francisco-based US district judge William Orrick, adds Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as Boston, Baltimore, Denver and Albuquerque, to cities that the administration is barred from denying funding.Orrick, an Obama appointee, previously ruled it was unconstitutional for the Trump administration to freeze funding to local governments with “sanctuary” policies, limiting their cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).The April ruling came after cities including San Francisco, Sacramento, Minneapolis and Seattle sued the administration over what they claimed were illegal executive orders signed by Donald Trump in January and February that threatened to cut off funding if Democrat-controlled cities do not cooperate.Cities and counties suing the administration contend that the executive orders amount to an abuse of power that violate the constitution. The administration argues that the federal government should not be forced to subsidize policies that thwart its control of immigration.The administration has since ordered the national guard into Los Angeles and Washington DC, both cities with sanctuary designations, under a law-and-order mandate. On Friday, Trump said Chicago is likely the next target for efforts to crack down on crime, homelessness and illegal immigration.“I think Chicago will be our next,” Trump told reporters at the White House, later adding: “And then we’ll help with New York.”The number of people in immigration detention has soared by more than 50% since Trump’s inauguration, according to an Axios review published Saturday, reaching a record 60,000 immigrants in long-term detention or around 21,000 more than at the end of the Biden administration.Separately, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, last week issued fresh threats to 30 Democrat-led cities and states, including to the governors of California, Illinois and Minnesota, and the mayors of New York, Denver and Boston, to drop sanctuary policies.Bondi said in the letter that their jurisdictions had been identified as those that engage “in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States”.“This ends now,” Bondi wrote.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDemocrat leaders uniformly rejected the Trump administration’s assertion. Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said in response that Bondi’s order was “some kind of misguided political agenda” that “is fundamentally inconsistent with our founding principles as a nation”.The accelerating confrontation between the administration and Democratic-led jurisdictions comes as the Pentagon began ordering 2,000 national guard troops in Washington to carry firearms.US officials told NBC News that the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had authorized national guard members who are supporting local law enforcement will probably carry weapons but troops assigned to city beautification roles would not.The official said troops supporting the mission “to lower the crime rate in our nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training”, according to the outlet. More

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      LA Ice protests spurred US military to identify ‘hotels to avoid’ due to ‘harassment’

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      When Donald Trump’s administration escalated immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this summer, protest organizers responded with actions staged in an unusual setting: the hotels where immigration officers were staying.Protests took place at several southern California hotels where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents had been spotted. Some activists launched “No sleep for Ice” rallies, with chants and music blaring through the night, in hopes of pressuring the hotels to kick agents out.Now, public records shared with the Guardian show that the protests indeed sent federal agencies scrambling to find hotels for their officers in LA where they would not be “harassed”.A 16 June email from the US marines shows that military officials made a list of “LA Hotels to Avoid”. The information came from multiple law enforcement agencies who were tracking the community backlash to Ice and the border patrol, the marines said. The list was written by Army North, the domestic defense command deployed on the ground during the protests, and reviewed by the navy’s south-west division.The documents, obtained by Property of the People, a government transparency non-profit, suggest protesters successfully disrupted Trump’s immigration crackdown by targeting hotels, though the extent of their impact is not clear from the records.An email thread shows a Marine Corps analyst in San Diego sent the list of LA hotels to the San Diego Law Enforcement Coordination Center (SD-LECC) seeking a similar list of properties to avoid in San Diego. The analyst’s duties include “critical infrastructure protection” and their name was redacted. The SD-LECC is a fusion center where local, state and federal agencies share intelligence.“We have operations in the area and are looking to avoid issues wherever possible,” the analyst wrote, saying the LA list was based on reports of “harassment of Ice and CBP personnel”.View image in fullscreenAuthorities did not disclose the hotel names or further communications to Property of the People, so it is also unclear how widely hotel demonstrations erupted and were tracked.Spokespeople for the marines and the navy declined to comment, deferring to the army, which did not respond to inquiries. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the hotel protests, and in an email on Thursday after publication of this article, a spokesperson referred questions to the military.Kristi Laughlin, SD-LECC’s deputy director, told the Guardian that SD-LECC was not aware of protests taking place at hotels in the San Diego region and did not provide a list in response to the military’s request.The military’s apparent efforts to help federal personnel avoid demonstrators at hotels came after Trump took the extraordinary step of deploying the national guard and marines to respond to LA protests. The move polled poorly among US residents and led to reports of low morale among troops.Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, which filed a series of records requests on the LA immigration raids, said it was remarkable that US armed forces apparently had to search for accommodations where they would not be protested, an unusual predicament he attributed to the widespread outrage at the administration.“The document reveals that Trump’s nativist crusade, carried out by masked Ice thugs, is so widely detested that now the US military feels the need to hide from Americans on American soil,” Shapiro said in an email.Advocates involved in the protests said the emails seemed to affirm the effectiveness of the demonstrations, some of which were organized spontaneously by nearby residents. News reports in June chronicled hotel demonstrations across LA county municipalities, including Pasadena, Glendale, Long Beach, Whittier, Downey, Monrovia and Montebello.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Working-class people saw this as a way to participate in the struggle against Ice,” said Ron Gochez, a leading member of Unión del Barrio, a group that documents Ice actions in LA. At the height of the June raids, his group received five to 10 calls a day from people who had spotted immigration officers at hotels, Gochez said. Once the reports were verified through photos or hotel employees, Unión del Barrio alerted other community groups in their networks.“A lot of hotel workers were not only mad about officers staying there, but were in fear because they were undocumented,” he said. “People want to make life difficult for these agents as they are kidnapping and separating families. And for the agents to constantly hear that they are unwanted, that people in society hate what they’re doing, that they will go down in history as kidnappers and collaborators, I think that gets to them psychologically.”One of the first hotel demonstrations took place on 8 June at the AC Hotel in Pasadena, a Marriott property, where, according to a state senator, immigration officers were lodging and had questioned staff.“We wanted to alert the community that Ice was staying at the hotel and let Ice know they were not welcome in Pasadena,” said Jose Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, a day laborer center.Widely shared footage showed protesters cheering as federal vehicles left the AC Hotel, with agents seen exiting with their bags stacked on a cart, the LA Times reported.“It was effective because the community organically organized itself, and people did not leave until they physically saw the agents leave,” Madera said. “It’s a source of pride for the people who live and work in Pasadena that we started this and sparked other communities to organize to get Ice out of their hotels … It’s going to take many strategies to slow down and stop Ice raids.”At the Glendale Hilton on 12 June, protesters posted footage of a woman who identified herself as hotel management greeting protesters and saying officers had left and would no longer be staying there.Representatives of the Glendale and Pasadena hotels did not respond to inquiries.“It helped combat this feeling of hopelessness,” said Teto Huezo, who was involved in the Glendale protests and is part of an LA community self-defense coalition that monitors Ice. He said he hoped more protests would pressure hotels to publicly commit to keeping Ice out. “Community members should be proud of these wins. The lesson is, we can be so much more organized and smarter than these agencies, and when we don’t want them in our neighborhoods, we can actually take actions to force them out.” More

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      Community rallies around LA teen detained by Ice while walking dog

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      A southern California community is calling for the release of a high school student whom US immigration agents arrested earlier this month while he was walking his dog.Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz was supposed to be starting his senior year of high school at Reseda charter high school this month. But just days after his 18th birthday, masked Ice agents detained him as he walking his dog in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Van Nuys in what his family described as a kidnapping.The agents allowed his dog to run loose, and treated Guerrero-Cruz like a criminal and joked while arresting him, his family said in a GoFundMe.“He is more than just a student – he is a devoted son, a caring brother, a loyal friend, and a valued member of our community,” the family wrote, adding that he helps care for his younger brothers. “He is a good student, with a kind heart, who has always stepped up for his family.”Educators and advocates are expected to hold a rally and press conference in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon to call for Guerrero-Cruz’s release. A former teacher who recently visited the teen is expected to share an update, ABC7 reported.The arrest comes as Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants continues to unfold across southern California, where thousands of people have been arrested this summer at workplaces, at stores and near schools.Los Angeles Unified school district, which has nearly 800 schools across the county, has adopted new strategies to protect students and “ensure that schools remain safe, supportive spaces for all children and families – regardless of immigration status”.“Schools are safe spaces,” Alberto M Carvalho, the LAUSD superintendent, said in a statement. “Immigration enforcement near schools disrupts learning and creates anxiety that can last far beyond the school day.”Carvalho has said he is in communication with Guerrero-Cruz’s mother, who has alleged that the boy was being held with dozens of men, receiving water only once a day and insufficient food, in a space that doesn’t have enough room for everyone to sit or lie at the same time. The teen was reportedly being held at a detention center in Adelanto, where people have reported filthy conditions and not having access to clean clothes and towels for days at a time.His sudden arrest has sparked outrage in his community. Fellow soccer players said it was “heartbreaking to see him taken from us like this, and we’ll truly miss not just the player, but the person he was”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to the Guardian that Guerrero-Cruz was being detained pending his “removal” from the US.moval” from the US.“Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz, an illegal alien from Chile, overstayed his visa by more than two years, abusing the Visa Waiver Program under which he entered the United States, which required him to depart the United States on March 15, 2023,” the agency said. More

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      Newsom says California will push to redraw maps in riposte to Texas plan

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      Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said on Thursday state Democratic lawmakers would move forward with a redistricting plan to counter the Republican-led map-drawing effort in Texas aimed at securing a House majority after the midterm elections.As he spoke at the Japanese American National museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy – a venue deliberately chosen for its symbolism – federal agents, armed and masked, fanned out across the complex, led by Gregory Bovino, head of the border patrol’s El Centro sector. Local news footage showed a man being led away in handcuffs.Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled a plan, known as the election rigging response act, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines – a direct counter to a Texas effort, sought by Donald Trump, to push through mid-cycle maps that could hand Republicans five extra US House seats. The governor vowed the move would “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s proposal.“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Newsom declared at a rally in Los Angeles, in which he formally called for a 4 November special election to approve a new congressional map. “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”After the rally, Newsom called the presence of border patrol agents “sick and pathetic” and accused Trump of ordering the operation to intimidate Democrats. “Wake up, America,” Newsom warned. “You will not have a country if he rigs this election.”Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat who was not attending the event, arrived on the scene to condemn the raid. In remarks to reporters, she argued that it was not “a coincidence” the raid took place steps from where Newsom was speaking.. “The White House just sent federal agents to try to intimidate elected officials at a press conference,” she said in a social media post. “The problem for them is Los Angeles doesn’t get scared and Los Angeles doesn’t back down. We never have and we never will”.”The Department of Homeland Security said Bass “must be misinformed”.“Our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law – not about Gavin Newsom. CBP patrols all areas of Los Angeles every day with over 40 teams on the ground to make LA safe,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, said in a post on social media.The California map would only take effect if Texas – or any other Republican-led state – advanced a a partisan redistricting plan. Newsom said he preferred all states adopt independent commission, as California does, and had previously said in a letter to Trump that he would “happily” stand down if Texas abandoned its effort.Earlier on Thursday, a group of Texas Democrats, who had blocked a vote on the measure by fleeing the state, said they were prepared to end their two-week walkout when California releases its redrawn map proposal. Their return to the state legislature would allow Republicans to plow ahead. Accepting that reality, Newsom said California – with a population larger than the 21 smallest states combined – would not “unilaterally disarm”.“It’s not complicated,” he said. “We’re doing this in reaction to a president of the United States that called a sitting governor of the state of Texas and said, ‘Find me five seats.’”View image in fullscreenIn a recent interview, Trump claimed that Republicans were “entitled to five more seats” in Texas because he won the state overwhelmingly in the 2024 presidential election.The new map, Newsom said, would remain in place through the 2030 elections, after which mapmaking power would return to the independent redistricting commission, approved by voters more than a decade ago. The Democratic-led state legislature will introduce legislation on Monday, he added, expressing confidence the initiative would pass and ultimately prevail at the ballot box in November.California has 52 House seats – 43 held by Democrats – and several of the nation’s most competitive races, including a handful that helped Republicans claim the majority in 2024.How California voters will respond is uncertain: polls have found deep support for the state’s independent redistricting commission, suggesting Democrats will have to work quickly over the next three months to persuade voters to support their plan.Sara Sadhwani, a Democrat who served on California’s 2020 independent redistricting commission, said she wanted partisan gerrymandering banned nationwide. But in Los Angeles on Thursday, Sadhwani stood side by side with Newsom, lawmakers, labor leaders and advocates in support of tearing up the maps she helped draw. “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” she said.Common Cause, a good government group that has long opposed partisan map-making, said in a statement this week that it would “not pre-emptively” oppose the effort by California to redraw its maps in response to partisan redistricting in Texas.“A blanket condemnation at this moment would be sitting on the sidelines in the face of authoritarianism,” the group stated.Eric Holder, a former attorney general and chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said on Thursday that he backed “responsible and responsive” countermeasures to Trump’s “extreme and unjustified mid-decade gerrymanders in Texas and beyond”.“Our democracy is under attack,” he said. “We have no choice but to defend it.”Republicans have denounced the California proposal: “Gavin Newsom’s latest stunt has nothing to do with Californians and everything to do with consolidating radical Democrat power,” Christian Martinez, the National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson, said in a statement, accusing the governor of trampling the will of California voters to serve a “pathetic 2028 presidential pipe dream”.At the rally in Los Angeles, there was little sympathy for the nearly half-dozen California Republicans who could be out of job if the redistricting plan succeeds. Speaking before the governor, Jodi Hicks, the president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, had a message for the nine Republicans who backed legislation rolling back reproductive rights: “You take away our freedoms, we’ll take away your seats.”Texas’s pursuit of new maps has kicked off a redistricting “arms race” that has spread to state legislatures across the country. Leaders in Florida and Missouri – and in blue state like New York and Illinois – are weighing similar moves. “Other blue states need to stand up,” Newsom said.The campaign, with a freshly launched website, will be enormously costly and is expected to draw national attention and donors eager for a high-stakes, off-year political brawl. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who championed independent redistricting, has already voiced opposition. Newsom said he had spoken to Schwarzenegger and shared his disdain for gerrymandering, but argued that this was about preserving American democracy.“It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be,” Newsom said. “We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt. And we have got to meet fire with fire.” More

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      White House says 23 arrested after hundreds of federal officers deploy to DC

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      About 850 officers and agents took part in a “massive law enforcement surge” across Washington DC on Monday night and made nearly two dozen arrests, the White House has said.The show of force came after Donald Trump announced that he was sending the national guard into the capital and putting city police under federal control, even though the violent crime rate is at a 30-year low.Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday: “As part of the president’s massive law enforcement surge, last night approximately 850 officers and agents were surged across the city. They made a total of 23 arrests, including multiple other contacts.”The arrests consisted of homicide, firearms offences, possession with intent to distribute narcotics, fare evasion, lewd acts and stalking, Leavitt added. “A total of six illegal handguns were seized off of District of Columbia’s streets as part of last night’s effort.”Leavitt added: “This is only the beginning. Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the district who breaks the law, undermines public safety and endangers law-abiding Americans.”Leavitt used to briefing to argue that opinion polls show broad public backing for the crackdown on crime and that Democrats and the media are out of touch.View image in fullscreenIn a bizarre interlude, the first question went to podcast host Benny Johnson, who delivered a monologue about crimes he had suffered during his 15 years as a Washington DC resident. “To any reporter that says and lies that DC is a safe place to live and work, let me just say this,” he said, looking at Leavitt, “Thank you. Thank you for making the city safe.”Johnson followed up by asking if Trump would consider giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to “Big Balls”, whose real name is Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old software engineer, for his “heroic actions” in an attempted carjacking in Washington last week. Leavitt replied: “I haven’t spoken to him about that, but perhaps it’s something he would consider.”The press secretary also told reporters that homeless people have the option be taken to a homeless shelter and offered addiction and/or mental health services. “If they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time. These are pre-existing laws that are already on the books. They have not been enforced.”Trump’s intervention has been widely condemned as an authoritarian power grab that undermines the autonomy of Washington’s DC local government and seeks to distract attention from political problems such as the Jeffrey Epstein files.Earlier, Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC, pledged to work “side by side” with the federal government as national guard troops arrived at their headquarters in the capital.View image in fullscreenSpeaking after a meeting with the attorney general, Pam Bondi, at the justice department, Bowser told reporters: “I won’t go into the details of our operational plan at this point but you will see the Metropolitan police department (MPD) working side by side with our federal partners in order to enforce the effort that we need around the city.”Bowser has cultivated a delicate working relationship with Trump since his return to power in January, avoiding direct confrontations when possible. On Tuesday, she struck a conciliatory note and said she would try to make the most of the extra resources to fight crime.“What I’m focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have,” she said. “We have the best in the business at MPD and chief Pamela Smith to lead that effort and to make sure that the men and women who are coming from federal law enforcement are being well used and that, if there is national guard here, that they’re being well used and all in an effort to drive down crime.“So, how we got here or what we think about the circumstances right now, we have more police and we want to make sure we’re using them.”However, other Democratic mayors across the country have adopted a different tone, warning Trump against expanding his law and order power grab in other major cities.Trump told reporters on Monday: “We have other cities also that are bad,” citing the Democratic strongholds of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. “And then, of course, you have Baltimore and Oakland. You don’t even mention them any more, they’re so far gone.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStephen Miller, an influential White House deputy chief of staff, stepped up the rhetoric on Tuesday, tweeting without evidence: “Crime stats in big blue cities are fake. The real rates of crime, chaos & dysfunction are orders of magnitude higher. Everyone who lives in these areas knows this. They program their entire lives around it. Democrats are trying to unravel civilization. Pres Trump will save it.”All five cities named by Trump are run by Black mayors. Most were outspoken in denouncing the president’s move. Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s mayor, said in a statement: “Sending in the national guard would only serve to destabilize our city and undermine our public safety efforts.”Brandon Scott, the mayor of Baltimore, said: “When it comes to public safety in Baltimore, he should turn off the rightwing propaganda and look at the facts. Baltimore is the safest it’s been in over 50 years.”Barbara Lee, the mayor of Oakland, wrote on X: “President Trump’s characterization of Oakland is wrong and based in fear-mongering in an attempt to score cheap political points.”Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, where troops were sent earlier this month in a crackdown on protests, posted: “Another experiment by the Administration, another power grab from local government. This is performative. This is a stunt. It always has been and always will be.”View image in fullscreenTrump took command of the Washington DC police department and deployed the national guard under laws and constitutional powers that give the federal government more sway over the nation’s capital than other cities. But Democrats raised concerns that Washington DC could be a blueprint for similar strong-arm tactics elsewhere.Christina Henderson, a Washington DC at-large councilmember, told CNN on Tuesday: “I was listening to the president’s press conference yesterday, and I think it should be concerning to all Americans that he talked about other cities.“The District of Columbia, for decades, without statehood, has always been used as a petri dish, where Congress or the federal government is trying out ideas here. So, I would hope that folks don’t lose sight of what’s happening in the district. And even if they don’t live here, they fight hard with us.”California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, warned that Trump “will gaslight his way into militarising any city he wants in America”.JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, insisted that the president “has absolutely no right and no legal ability to send troops into the city of Chicago, and so I reject that notion”.He added: “You’ve seen that he doesn’t follow the law. I have talked about the fact that the Nazis in Germany in the 30s tore down a constitutional republic in just 53 days. It does not take much, frankly, and we have a president who seems hell-bent on doing just that.” More