The Brief

The evacuation shelter at the Pasadena Civic Center is expected to close soon — possibly next week — according to operators, leaving more than 200 remaining wildfire evacuees to wonder where they will go next.

The facility, operated by the American Red Cross, has housed hundreds of displaced residents since the Eaton Fire erupted Jan. 7, damaging or destroying more than 6,000 homes in Altadena and Pasadena. As of early this week, more than 270 residents were still sheltered there, Red Cross officials said.

L.A. County officials are saying the shelter will close Feb. 12, but the Red Cross and Pasadena officials say no official date has been set. They say they are working with the county to identify a location for a new shelter closer to Altadena.

"We want to make it clear that no one will be left behind or shut out,” Pasadena officials said in a statement Wednesday.

But people in the shelter aren’t so sure.

“If I don't find a place, I will go buy a tent and go up on my land and just set up camp, because sleeping on my land will be a little safer than sleeping in a park under a tree," said Alphonso Browne, who had lived in his Altadena home for 30 years before it burned.

Alphonso Browne lost his home in Altadena to the Eaton Fire and has been staying at the Pasadena Civic Center since.

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Looking for a new shelter

Angel Sauceda, regional communications director for The Red Cross said Pasadena shelter residents will be moved into a new shelter once a location is identified. In the meantime, Sauceda said, Red Cross workers are meeting with evacuees to make sure each has a plan for next steps that is tailored to their needs.

That may include connecting some residents with short-term stays in hotels or Airbnbs, according to Pasadena officials.

But evacuees say the uncertainty is causing anxiety.

“They say Friday, and then I heard a guy say it's gonna be Sunday," said a woman who asked that her name not be used in this story. She said she’s been living at the shelter since Jan. 8.

"This is not hopscotch or playtime," she said. "This is real life.”

Kamaisha Peppars, who has been at the shelter since Jan. 12, said many evacuees need more time to figure out how to rebuild their lives from nothing.

“We’ve never been through this before,” she said. “We don't know what to do. We come to you guys for help, for resources. I know a lot of people would like to have it happen overnight, but it doesn't work that way.”

Once a new shelter is opened to replace the one in Pasadena, it will stay open as long as it is needed, according to shelter operators.

“The Red Cross will continue to have a congregate sheltering option until all the residents have a plan in place to get them to their next housing solution,” Sauceda said.

A shelter resident interacting with a Red Cross worker at the Pasadena Civic Center.

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Why is it closing?

The Pasadena shelter opened Jan. 7, about 90 minutes after Cal Fire ordered evacuations in the city. At first, it was operated by the city, but the Red Cross took over a few days later. According to the Red Cross, representatives from the Civic Auditorium Complex asked the nonprofit to return the facility to the city for normal operations by early February.

The Red Cross signed a 30-day agreement with the city of Pasadena in January to operate the shelter, Finance Director Matthew Hawkesworth told councilmembers at a meeting Monday. Other events are scheduled to happen at the Convention Center later this month.

“Some business decisions will have to be made,” he said.

City and Civic Center representatives did not respond to LAist’s questions about those agreements, but the facility’s online calendar shows a full slate of events scheduled this month. They include a comedy show scheduled this Saturday in the auditorium and a youth leadership conference next week in the conference center. Next month, the Pasadena Civic Auditorium is scheduled to host live tapings of NBC’s "America’s Got Talent."

Los Angeles County, along with the Red Cross, is responsible for moving the remaining residents into another facility, according to Pasadena City Councilmember Tyron Hampton. He explained that most of the people still sheltering there are not residents of Pasadena, but of Altadena.

The Red Cross confirmed this week that two-thirds of the current shelter residents are from Altadena.

“We have the jurisdiction for our Pasadena residents,” Hampton said. “Unfortunately, we don't have the jurisdiction to do all we can for our county residents. And so the county is transitioning them to another facility.”

Officials with L.A. County's Coordinated Joint Information Center confirmed they are helping to find a new shelter site.

Residents say they’re having trouble finding new places to live at rates they can afford. Rent is already high for many in L.A. County residents, and some have reported instances of price gouging after the fires. Shortly after the fires began, tenant advocates began tracking hundreds of online listings for rental housing that raised asking rents far above the 10% post-disaster limit set by state law.

Many people displaced by the recent wildfires have encountered rent increases of 30% or more and a severe lack of available units.

"With so many of us displaced, it's hard to find a place, and the rent has gone from reasonable rent, like $1,000-$1,500, to like $2,500 and above," said Browne, who survives on Social Security retirement benefits.

William Lee, an Altadena resident who also relies on Social Security, said he hasn't gotten much help finding housing.

“There’s nothing from FEMA, nothing from the Red Cross, no emergency Section 8,” he said. “There is no subsidized housing for us. This is something that we need. I need some help.”

American Red Cross officials outside of the Pasadena Civic Center.

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Shelter conditions

Some evacuees say conditions at the convention center have been bad and described high turnover in Red Cross staff and volunteers.

“Everybody comes in with their own different rules and their own different way of doing things,” Browne said. “There’s no one system, so everyone is confused.”

In recent days, shelter residents sleeping in separate rooms have been consolidated into a single room, a cause of concern for some evacuees.

“We were condensed into one room where animals, children, everyone was just condensed into this room," Lee said. “I’m a disabled dialysis patient. Twice a week I have to have a safe place where I can lay down and just be relaxing.”

Last month, there was an outbreak of stomach flu among evacuation center residents, according to Pasadena Public Health officials.

“A lot of people got sick,” said Browne. ” We were bringing in our own food because a lot of people in here cannot eat the food. The children were getting sick from the food.”

Several evacuees say their experience at the shelter has changed their view of the American Red Cross, though some acknowledge positive interactions with several staff and volunteers.

“I had a lot of respect for the Red Cross,” said Browne. “But now that I'm here, I have lost so much respect for them.”

Red Cross officials did not respond to LAist’s request for a response to evacuees' complaints about the shelter.

Aside from the Pasadena Civic Center, the Red Cross also continues to operate a wildfire evacuation shelter at Westwood Recreation Center. That shelter remains open and had 88 people living there as of Wednesday.

Red Cross officials did not say when that facility is scheduled to close.

The Trump administration's unprecedented expansion of migrant detention facilities is igniting fierce opposition in communities across the political and geographic spectrum, as the administration moves to scale up its detention footprint to fuel its campaign to arrest, detain and deport the largest number of immigrants in modern U.S. history.

Flush with new cash — $85 billion in new funding, with around $45 billion specifically to expand immigration detention over four years — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is moving fast to lease and acquire warehouses and buildings across the United States with the aim of retrofitting them into detention spaces. ICE is also expanding contracts with local jails and private prison facilities as it builds out its sprawling detention footprint. ICE is now the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the nation.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement worker stands outside a warehouse in Williamsport, Md., that's being converted into an immigration detention center with plans to hold 1,500 people, on March 9.

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ICE detainees have been held at more than 220 detention sites around the country, according to government data provided by ICE in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by NPR. These sites range from dedicated ICE facilities and private prisons to county jails, military bases and newly converted warehouses. Detainees are also being held temporarily in staging areas, hospitals and holding sites. The number of sites continues to grow.

ICE's biggest detention operations are largely clustered in the southern United States. Just five states — Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Arizona and Georgia — account for just over 60% of the nation's more than 750,000 ICE detention book-ins. (In the Deportation Data Project's dataset, these book-ins are referred to as "stints." Most individuals have only one book-in per stay in detention, but some are transferred between multiple detention centers.) Texas had more than 200,000 book-ins across 115 facilities between President Trump taking office in January 2025 and mid-October 2025, the most book-ins of any state in the country.

A year ago, around 37,000 people were being held in immigration detention across the nation, according to ICE data. That number had jumped to more than 72,000 by the end of January 2026. The administration's goal is to keep expanding detention space to keep up with arrests. Ultimately, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) aims to build bed space for 100,000 immigrants alleged to be in the country illegally. On average, detention facilities daily now hold nearly 70,000 immigrants, a scale of mass detention not seen since the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans and nationals during World War II.

And most detained noncitizens are clustered at a handful of centers. Of the more than 60,000 book-ins across Arizona, nearly half were at the Florence Staging Facility. Forty-five percent of the 93,105 book-ins across Louisiana were at the Alexandria Staging Facility.

DHS documents reveal ambitious growth plans scaled up around a "Hub and Spoke Model" in which eight large detention centers holding between 7,500 and 10,000 people each are fed by 16 smaller regional processing centers holding 500 to 1,500 immigrants each. The proposed facility in Social Circle, Ga., for example, is one of the eight proposed "mega centers" positioned strategically across the nation. The new center would effectively double the town's population of roughly 5,000.

Growing frustration, local backlash

But there's growing grassroots opposition — across political and geographic lines — to ICE's detention expansion. And communities are winning. From Georgia to Texas to Arizona and in scores of towns across the U.S., residents are pushing back, citing costs and infrastructure worries, as well as zoning, political and even moral concerns.

"They're getting the wrong people," says Donnie Dagenhart, who lives not far from a proposed ICE detention center near Williamsport, Md. Dagenhart, who owns a local construction company, says he supported Trump for years but has now soured on the president largely over how immigration is being enforced. "Let's get the bad ones out. That's what we should be doing, but we're not. I just think we're living in a police state and it's getting worse," he says. "Did you see the building?" he asks of the new detention site. "It's huge."

Motorcyclists ride through Williamsport, Md., on March 9.

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Polling shows that the public has largely turned against Trump's aggressive mass deportation agenda. Sixty-five percent of Americans said ICE has "gone too far" in enforcing immigration laws, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. That's an 11-point increase since last summer.

In New Hampshire, a "purple"' swing state that holds the nation's first presidential primary, community uproar recently forced the halt of a planned ICE detention facility in the town of Merrimack.

New Hampshire state Rep. Bill Boyd, a Republican from Merrimack who had previously reached out to DHS voicing his opposition to the facility, called it a big win.

"This community has fought giants and has come out victorious," he told NPR member station NHPR. "And it's just a testament to my neighbors and local leadership and the state leaders for taking a stand.

Backlash erupted, too, in Oklahoma City in deep-red Oklahoma when local residents learned of plans to convert a vacant warehouse into a facility to process and temporarily house immigrants. Faced with strong opposition, DHS and ICE backed away from that proposed detention site too.

Mississippi's senior U.S. senator, Roger Wicker, a Republican, has strongly opposed a proposed immigration detention center near Byhalia, Miss. "I am all for immigration enforcement, but this site was meant for economic development and job creation. We cannot suddenly flood Byhalia with an influx of up to 10,000 detainees," Wicker wrote on X last month.

Public outcry also stopped a planned detention facility in conservative Texas. The federal government planned to buy a 1 million-square-foot warehouse from Majestic Realty in Hutchins, Texas, and turn it into a holding center. But following weeks of pushback from community members and city leaders, the company decided not to sell or lease the facility to DHS.

"We're grateful for the long-term relationship we have with Mayor Mario Vasquez and the City of Hutchins and look forward to continuing our work to find a buyer or lease tenant that will help drive economic growth," a Majestic Realty spokesperson told Texas Public Radio in a statement.

The largest detention facilities in the country are run by two for-profit, private companies, Geo Group and CoreCivic. Both companies reported more than $2 billion in revenue in 2025, an 8% and 18% increase, respectively, in growth year over year. A handful of other companies also have big DHS and ICE contracts to help guard, run and support ICE detention operations, including Akima Global Services and its sister company Akima Infrastructure Protection. The Project on Government Oversight reports that CoreCivic's ICE awards have increased 45% since Trump took office for his second term.

"A majority of these locations wouldn't pass for any other venue"

In Surprise, Ariz., where DHS recently purchased a 400,000-square-foot warehouse for $70 million, NPR member station KJZZ reported that the move sparked frequent protests and community pushback. Hundreds of people swarmed Surprise's City Council meetings demanding that the city pass a resolution to make DHS and ICE publicly disclose operational plans.

These concerns are heightened as reports of overcrowding and lack of food in detention centers across the nation have proliferated. ICE is investigating numerous detainee deaths. Since October, 26 people have died in ICE custody, putting immigration detention on track for its deadliest fiscal year since the agency was founded.

Protesters gather with signs condemning Immigration and Customs Enforcement's purchase of a warehouse in Roxbury, N.J., for use as an immigrant processing facility, on March 10.

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Advocates say reduced oversight and record numbers of detainees are a recipe for more sickness and death in custody. "The abhorrent and worsening conditions in detention centers, gross negligence and a complete lack of oversight have contributed to yet another grim record for deaths in ICE custody," said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant rights defense organization.

While there have been few to no oversight moves on the federal level, local leaders are taking action. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, a nonpartisan organization representing the more than 1,400 mayors of cities with populations over 30,000, recently passed two emergency resolutions calling for the administration to rein in ICE tactics, expand transparency and put guardrails on detention expansion.

"A majority of these locations wouldn't pass for any other venue, even possibly for a homeless shelter," the Republican mayor of Columbia, S.C., Daniel Rickenmann, told NPR. The conference called for federal immigration agencies to "assure all those detained have access to legal assistance required by law; require all buildings where people are detained to meet local health and safety standards; [and] obtain appropriate local zoning and building permit approvals to convert warehouses and other buildings to detention or deportation facilities."

Rickenmann says he and fellow mayors have grave concerns about the rapidly expanding ICE detention system: "Are they sanitary? Do they have the beds? Do they have the facilities for restrooms? Do they have places that they can provide meals that are to standards that we would require anybody, including jails, to keep up with?"

In a statement to NPR, ICE said new facilities would bring jobs, additional tax revenue and security to communities. On recently purchased warehouses in Roxbury, N.J., and Hagerstown, Md., the agency wrote: "These will not be warehouses — they will be very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards. These sites have undergone community impact studies and a rigorous due diligence process to make sure there is no hardship on local utilities or infrastructure prior to purchase."

Local officials NPR spoke with dispute the existence of any rigorous community impact studies for new ICE facilities.

An industrial warehouse recently purchased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for use as a detention center is seen on February 10, 2026 in Social Circle, Georgia. Local officials have expressed frustration over the planned ICE detention facility.

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DHS secrecy leaves local officials in the dark

A through-line complaint across communities is lack of transparency. Representatives at all levels of government, from city councils to the U.S. Congress, complain they have been largely kept in the dark about DHS' plans. Local representatives in Oakwood, Ga., Baytown, Texas, and Highland Park, Mich., told NPR that they received no response from DHS when they inquired about facilities slated to be built in their communities.

In Social Circle, Ga., local frustrations rose so high that city leaders barred water use by ICE's planned facility until the agency provides more clarity on its plans.

"There is a lock on the meter," Eric Taylor, the city manager for Social Circle, said in a statement to NPR member station Georgia Public Broadcasting. "The lock is there until ICE indicates how water and sewer will be served without exceeding our limited infrastructure capacity."

In Merrillville, Ind., reports that ICE intended to convert a vacant 275,000-square-foot warehouse into a detention facility caught local officials completely off guard. The town quickly passed a forceful resolution opposing the conversion and publicly criticized ICE for failing to inform local officials of the move.

"We want to be clear that we've received no communication from any federal agency regarding the use of this property as a processing or detention facility, and the town has not approved or authorized any such use," Merrillville Town Council President Rick Bella said in an emailed statement to NPR.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said that the lack of communication from ICE, as well as from the private-sector companies, is especially concerning when coupled with reports of mistreatment and abuse.

"Here in San Diego, our members of Congress are not permitted to access these facilities," Gloria said. "Our local public health officials have also been turned away. And so when you look at what's happening in public with these detention efforts, they often become extremely chaotic. It makes you wonder what's happening behind closed doors and without, you know, transparency and accountability."

In Oakwood, Ga., the mayor and City Council posted that while they support ICE's mission, they were concerned that the local government was not involved in the process of green-lighting the detention center or selecting its location. The sale was recently finalized, and Georgia Public Broadcasting reported that ICE paid $68 million for the space, which had an assessed value of around $7.2 million.

Oakwood City Manager B.R. White strongly criticized the detention center's placement next to two residential areas, an established subdivision and a building under construction, and warned that taxpayers would likely have to foot the bill, including an estimated $2.6 million in added sewer expenses alone.

"I would have liked to see [ICE representatives] come in, sit down, tell us what their plans are and discuss with us how to resolve the issues and the tax losses to the community," White told NPR.

He says the city has not received any communication from the federal government, so the city is left to deal with these issues on their own. "It was an egregious overstep by the federal government," White said. "'Get the ox and the cart out of the ditch service' is what we're having to do right now."

Some places that aren't slated to have a facility have preemptively taken action. After reports that DHS was scoping out locations for new facilities in Missouri, the Jackson County Legislature approved a plan to ban immigration detention facilities. Legislator Manny Abarca told NPR member station KCUR that it puts the county on the record as being against "the caging of people" even if the county doesn't legally have the authority to stop DHS.

A handful of communities have embraced new facilities, however warily, with an eye on the economic boost and local jobs that these detention centers bring.

In Georgia, Charlton County Administrator Glenn Hull says the county will make about $230,000 this year from the detention center contract between GEO Group and the federal government — enough to pay the salaries of 20% of the county's employees.

Hull says GEO Group has been a "great partner," providing about a dozen college scholarships and funding for holiday festivals and events, even as he acknowledges the ethical and moral costs of profiting from people being forcefully separated from their loved ones, locked away and deported.

"I hate to say it, but if not here, then somewhere else," Hull admits. "So you take advantage of what you have on your table. I hate to simplify it like that 'cause these are lives and families, but that's the reality of it."

To determine where people detained by ICE were held, NPR analyzed data provided by ICE in response to a FOIA request by the Deportation Data Project. In the Deportation Data Project's original dataset, a book-in is referred to as a "stint." Most noncitizens have only one book-in per stay in detention, but some are transferred between multiple facilities. Each transfer to a new facility counts as a separate book-in, as does a return to a facility where the person had previously been booked. Facilities range from dedicated ICE centers to local jails and hospitals.

Sergio Martinez-Beltran, Jasmine Garsd, Ximena Bustillo, Alyson Hurt, and Preeti Aroon contributed to this story.
Copyright 2026 NPR

L.A.’s main homeless services agency is at risk of blowing a federal deadline to turn in a required audit of its financial records after executives were far behind schedule in providing necessary documents, according to the lead outside auditor.

The federally-required review — known as a single audit — is one of the most important oversight checks of the L.A. Homeless Services Authority. Every year, LAHSA must hire an outside firm to determine whether the agency is accurately tracking and reporting what happens with taxpayer funds it manages. Turning it in late, or having significant negative findings, can jeopardize an organization’s federal funding.

The audit of LAHSA’s last fiscal year is due March 31, nine months after the fiscal year ended.

While government clients on that fiscal calendar would typically turn over their records to auditors by last December, LAHSA staff had failed to do so until March, lead auditor Justin Measley told LAHSA’s audit committee last Wednesday.

He said the timeline for reviewing the documents was now unusually compressed, and that the firm was doing everything it can to try to meet the deadline.

“It is possible that [LAHSA’s audit] will not meet the March 31st deadline,” Measley told the audit committee. “ It's been a few years of this sort of delay with LAHSA."

On Friday, however, LAHSA executives said the audit is on track to meet the March 31 deadline.

“We have submitted all required documentation” to the auditors and “the field work has been completed,” Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy CFO, told the commission’s finance committee. “At this time, we do not anticipate any issues with meeting that timeline or allowing sufficient time for review."

Lim has been stepping into her boss’ role as the top finance official for the last several weeks, while CFO Janine Trejo has been on an extended leave. The reasons for her leave have not been made public, nor has the timing of how long she’s been out.

Even after Lim’s presentation, LAHSA Commissioner Amy Perkins said she doubts the audit will be done by the deadline.

“Based on everything I know and have seen, this is very unlikely,” she said in a statement Friday.

In response to a request to LAHSA CEO Gita O’Neill for comment, LAHSA spokesperson provided a statement Thursday that the audit is “on track” to meet the deadline.

“LAHSA has provided financial and organizational documentation to our external auditors, despite a key mid-level leadership transition that required adjustments to the document-gathering timeline,” the statement provided by spokesperson Paul Rubenstein said. “As the audit nears completion, LAHSA remains committed to being a responsible steward of public funds, and we expect the audit to be completed on time.”

Auditor raised concerns in January, February and March

Measley, LAHSA’s lead contracted auditor, told the auditing committee on Wednesday that LAHSA executives had agreed in October to provide the documents by Jan. 15. LAHSA staff then confirmed multiple times in December and January that they were on track to do so, he said.

But LAHSA blew that deadline, Measley said, adding that auditors gave multiple extensions.

Measley said the records were still not provided as of March 3, even after he raised concerns about the timing with O’Neill and LAHSA’s governing commission chair, Amber Sheikh, during a meeting in early February.

On March 3, the audit firm contacted LAHSA’s governing commission about the overdue documents, Measley said.

“I felt like I exhausted my ability to work solely within management, and I needed to alert governance of the delays, which is when I sent the letter of the potential for LAHSA to not meet its regulatory deadline,” Measley told the audit committee.

In a statement, Sheikh said she met with the auditor in early February “as part of the standard annual single audit process.”

“They shared that some steps were slightly behind schedule, but they did not express concern about delivering the audit on time,” Sheikh said.

Juistin Szlasa, LAHSA’s audit committee chair, said he was not informed of any problems with the audit until March 3, despite them being flagged nearly a month earlier to O’Neill and Sheikh.

Szlasa expressed concern about the remaining timeline, saying the agency’s governing commission would still need time to review the draft audit once it’s ready and ask questions before it’s finalized. He said the draft audit should be circulated at least a week before it’s finalized.

“I don’t see how this is going to happen in a way that makes sense,” he said during Wednesday’s meeting. “I’m very disappointed,” Szlasa said. He did not fault the auditors, who he said were handling the review “with integrity and care.”

The mayor’s take

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is the only elected official on LAHSA’s governing commission, and was one of the three members of its audit committee from Aug. 22 until Jan. 23, which overlapped with the first few months of the audit. She did not attend any of the committee's four meetings during that time, according to official records.

Bass did not respond to an interview request through a spokesperson.

“Mayor Bass has been a champion for reforming L.A.’s broken homelessness system, and wants this audit done,” a statement provided by Ilana Morales, the mayor’s spokesperson, said. “She is tasking the City’s appointed LAHSA commissioners to work closely with the agency’s leadership to get this moving. After years of increases before she took office, Mayor Bass brought homelessness down, and she will not let bureaucratic failures stand in her way.”

Designers working on the logo, design and mascot for the LA 28 Olympics gave a sneak peek on Monday of what those may look like by the time the games begin in just over two years.

“We looked to the city for inspiration and we were inspired by different thematics and stories that really make this city great,” said Geoff Engelhardt, LA28's head of brand design.

One striking image stood out to them in particular: the flower super-blooms that appear in Southern California after particularly strong winter storms.

California poppies bloom next to the California State Route 138 near the Antelope Valley.

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That led to the choice of vibrant colors like pink, orange and blue, and designs to create 13 “blooms,” representative of 13 stories and 13 thematics.

The design elements are inspired by the region's super blooms.

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Those include:

• World Stage (referring to the third time L.A. has hosted the Olympics)
• Hollywood
• LA Light
• First People

An artist rendering of preliminary colors and themes of the LA28 Olympics design.

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The final designs will be important as they will show up on everything related to the LA28 Olympics.

“It wraps every building, every sign, every broadcast, every piece of sport equipment. If you remember the games, you remember this visual wrapper,” said Ric Edwards, LA28's vice president of brand design and executive design director.

The graphics will also adorn tons and tons of apparel and swag, licensed and unlicensed, made to promote the L.A. Olympics.

While these aren't the final designs for the LA28 Summer Olympics, they are the colors and themes designers will be using to come up with those final designs and the much-anticipated mascot of the LA28 Olympics.

An artist rendering shows preliminary design schemes for the LA28 Olympics.

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Designers said they did not use artificial intelligence in this process because they wanted to make sure personal connections to the region informed design decisions.

Olympics designs and mascots can become iconic and endure for years after the last medal has been given out. Take Mexico, nearly 60 years after its summer Olympics in 1968, the op-art design motifs continue to inspire popular culture and visual imagery in the country.

The public rollout for the design concepts starts Monday night at Intuit Dome in Inglewood before and after the Clippers game. The colors and designs will fill digital displays at LA Clippers Plaza.