“It’s disgusting … this is not what democracies do,” he said.
Noem said immigration authorities had tens of thousands of people on their list of targets, and that millions of people were in Los Angeles illegally.
California Senator Alex Padilla is pushed out of the room as the Homeland Security secretary holds a news conference in Los Angeles.Credit: AP
She noted Trump had repeatedly said criminals were the primary targets, but said other people may be caught up in the raids as “collateral” if they were associates of the targets.
“We’re going to stay here and build our operations until we make sure that we liberate the city of Los Angeles,” Noem said.
However, Trump indicated he was preparing to soften his approach after complaints from industry and farmers that they were losing important and irreplaceable labour because of the raids.
California in particular is reliant on migrant, often undocumented, workers, for its hospitality industry, shops and car washes, and agricultural basin.
President Donald Trump winks during an event to sign a bill blocking California’s rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035 on Thursday.Credit: AP
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
“In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
Later, at a White House event, Trump said farmers were being “hurt badly” as they had loyal, long-standing workers who may or may not be in the country legally, but might be replaced by criminals if they were deported.
“We’re going to have to do something about that,” he said.
“We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have, maybe, what they’re supposed to have.
“We can’t do that to our farmers. And leisure too. Hotels. We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
Trump critics immediately said it was another example of “TACO” – or Trump Always Chickens Out – an acronym that initially circulated among Wall Street traders to describe the president’s oscillation on tariffs, but has now become a popular descriptor for his policy backflips or compromises.
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“Turns out, chasing hard-working people through ranches and farms and snatching women and children off the streets is not good policy,” Newsom said on X.
After a quieter day of demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles – the second night of a curfew – police said they made 81 arrests overnight, mostly for failing to disperse.
Two people were arrested for assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon, and one person for resisting an officer. Numerous “less lethal” weapons, such as rubber bullets, were used when dispersing the crowd.
