New immigration enforcement operations underway in Los Angeles area

(CNN) — US immigration officials launched a new round of enforcement operations in the Los Angeles area Sunday, according to two people familiar with the effort.

The new effort in Southern California follows recent operations ordered by the Trump administration to apprehend individuals unlawfully residing in places such as Chicago and New York.

Video posted on social media by community activists appeared to show federal agents gathered outside one residence east of downtown Los Angeles. In the video, activists can be seen and heard using megaphones to speak with residents inside the home.

“There’s presence of ICE here so don’t open your door. They are not allowed to go in unless they have a judicial warrant signed by a judge,” one activist can be heard saying over a megaphone.

The video captures the incident for about 20 minutes before the vehicles with the apparent federal agents drive away.

It is unclear how many individuals have been detained as part of Sunday’s operations. CNN has reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment.

Sources previously told CNN that US immigration officials were planning for a wave of enforcement actions to detain and deport individuals in the Los Angeles area.

About 150 activists from the Community Self Defense Coalition are patrolling the Los Angeles area throughout the day, a member of the group told CNN.

ICE officers were expected to be assisted by agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; FBI and US Customs and Border Protection, sources said.

Los Angeles is one of a number of Democratic-led cities in California, Colorado and Illinois that have instituted sanctuary city policies restricting cooperation with federal immigration officials’ efforts to arrest, detain or gather information on migrants.

The move comes as the Los Angeles area continues to recover from January’s devastating Eaton and Palisades fires that killed 29 people and destroyed thousands of buildings.

Immigration crackdown across the country

The surge is the first to take place since the removal of ICE’s acting director, Caleb Vitello, from his role at the agency amid frustrations over a slowdown of immigration arrests, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the move.

Despite denying publicly he’s unhappy with the levels of deportations, President Donald Trump, who selected Vitello to fill the post, has complained privately about it to his top immigration aides, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The Trump administration began its immigration crackdown shortly after the president’s inauguration January 20. More than 14,000 undocumented immigrants have been arrested since then, border czar Tom Homan said in an interview on 77 WABC radio February 11.

Chicago was one of the first cities to undergo some immigration enforcement actions. In addition to “enhanced targeted operations” announced by ICE in Chicago, immigration enforcement actions were also reported in the Atlanta area; Puerto Rico; Colorado; and Austin, Texas.

Homan, who was on the ground in Chicago, maintained it was a “criminal operation.”

Some of the challenges come from a 2024 court order in which a federal judge in the Central District of California limited so-called “knock and talk” tactics often used by ICE agents to question people at their homes.

In California, US immigration officers are operating under certain constraints their counterparts in other states may not face. This could impact the total number of people arrested in the current surge.

The judge said immigration officers are barred from entering private property to attempt immigration enforcement efforts that are civil in nature. However, agents who have a criminal warrant for a suspect are still permitted to conduct arrests on private property.

Last Monday, the border czar touted what he described as a record low number of border encounters – 229 over a 24-hour period – and said he will not be satisfied until “we eradicate” every criminal migrant.

“Last count we got almost 600,000 illegal aliens in the United States with a criminal conviction, so I won’t be happy until we eradicate every one of those,” he told Fox News in an interview.

But Homan has also said he’s not happy with the number of arrests.

“ICE is doing a great job,” Homan recently told CNN’s Dana Bash. “I’m not happy with the numbers because we got a lot of criminals to find.”

An immigration sweep in New York City was also part of a series of enforcement actions targeting suspected gang members, according to a law enforcement official. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accompanied law enforcement on the sweep and in several online posts, she referred to those arrested as “dirt bags.”

CNN’s Sara Smart, Gloria Pazmino, Meridith Edwards, Rosa Flores and Lauren Mascarenhas contributed to this report.

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