FREE
Los Angeles Housing Department will investigate residential hotels
Orange County Fair returns with new attractions, old favorites
PG 02
PG 28
VISIT AZUSABEACON.COM
M O N D AY, J U LY 17- J U LY 23, 2023
V O L U M E 12,
3rd bus of migrants from Texas arrives at Union Station
LA County Sheriff Luna to turn probe of traffic stop over to FBI
By City News Service
By City News Service
T
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. | Photo courtesy of Gov Greg Abbott/YouTube
A
N O. 129
bout two weeks after a second bus of migrants from Texas arrived in the city, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ office confirmed a third bus dropped off more migrants Thursday at Union Station. “One bus from Texas arrived around 12:40 p.m. today,” Zach Seidl, spokesman for Bass, said in a statement. “The city has continued to work with city departments, the county and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year.” Seidl added, “As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan.” According to a statement from LA Welcomes Collective, a network of immigrant rights, immigration legal services providers and faith organizations, 35 migrants were sent from Brownsville, Texas.
The collective works in close coordination with the city and county of Los Angeles to offer support services such as food, clothing and legal immigration consultation upon arrival. They also work to reunite families, if migrants have loved ones living in the region. “Based on our experience serving vulnerable migrant populations, we expect the families arriving in Los Angeles to need legal services urgently. Asylum seekers and others fleeing harm and violent circumstances have rights under U.S. immigration law, but they have to present their cases in court. They deserve our compassion, respect and support. We expect the community to once again mobilize and rise to the challenge,” Kimberley Plotnik, program director for Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, which is a member of the collective,
Union Station. | Photo courtesy of David Wilson/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
said in a statement. Lindsay Toczylowski, Immigrant Defenders Law Center executive director, said in a statement that the center is “proud to offer legal support to people arriving in Los Angeles. “We are grateful to the City of Brownsville for sending information in advance about this bus so we can better prepare to welcome them,” Toczylowski said in a statement. “We will continue to work with our community partners to receive migrants with dignity and ensure their legal needs are met.” The first bus of migrants arrived on June 14, followed by a second bus on July 1, which carried 41 migrants and 42 migrants, respectively. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently proclaimed his state’s border region “overrun” and hinted that more shipments of immigrants could follow.
“Texas’ small border towns remain overwhelmed and overrun by the thousands of people illegally crossing into Texas from Mexico because of President Biden’s refusal to secure the border,” Abbott said in a statement after the first bus arrived. “Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status. Our border communities are on the front lines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much- needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border.” In June, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a motion directing the city to draft a “Sanctuary City” ordinance that, when passed, would prohibit any city resources, property or personnel from being utilized for any federal immigration enforcement.
he FBI will join local prosecutors in investigating a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy from the Palmdale station throwing punches at a woman while she cradled her baby during a traffic stop, the department announced Wednesday. Sheriff Robert Luna told reporters at a news conference about his decision regarding the incident that took place in July 2022 and where the department released body camera video footage of the traffic stop. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Thursday called the video — which shows a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy from the Palmdale station throwing punches at a woman while she cradled her baby during a traffic stop — “enraging and disturbing” and said the acts in the video must be condemned. “The idea that you would assault a mother with a child in her arms and then subject that child to the child welfare system just because the child didn’t have a car seat is an abuse of power,” Bass said. “When a child goes into the child welfare system, it can take months for that child to be returned. That process can result in lifelong trauma for both the mother and the child.” In the video, a male deputy at the edge of the frame is shown throwing two overhand punches at the woman as she is seen pleading not to take her baby away. “I found the punching of the woman and the circumstances completely unacceptable,” Luna said. Luna said he took the “swift action” of relieving the deputy of duty after finding out about the incident a few days ago. Luna said the traffic stop occurred just before midnight on July 13, 2022, when deputies from the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station noticed a vehicle driving at night without the headlights on, the Los Angeles Times reported. When they pulled over the driver, the deputies noticed the smell of alcohol coming from inside and saw four women, three of whom were holding babies in their arms instead of using car seats, according to the Times. The deputies arrested the man driving the vehicle on suspicion of felony child endangerment, as well as driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license. The women were arrested on the same charges but during the course of arresting them deputies used force with two of them. On the video released Wednesday, the deputies can be heard saying that the woman was riding in a car driven by someone without a valid license and that her baby was not in a car seat. They repeatedly asked the woman who was eventually struck in the face to give up the child so she can be placed under arrest, telling her that her infant will be pulled away otherwise. “Forcefully taking your child from you is not what’s best,” one deputy said. “Taking my child from me is not what’s best,” the woman replies. The Times reported that after several minutes of back-andSee FBI Page 27