The Brief

In July, federal immigration agents took Milagro Solis-Portillo to Glendale Memorial Hospital just outside Los Angeles after she suffered a medical emergency while being detained. They didn’t leave.

For two weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractors sat guard in the hospital lobby 24 hours a day, working in shifts to monitor her movements, her attorney Ming Tanigawa-Lau said.

ICE later transferred the Salvadoran woman to Anaheim Global Medical Center, against her doctor’s orders and without explanation, her attorney said. There, Tanigawa-Lau said, ICE agents were allowed to stay in Solis-Portillo’s hospital room round-the-clock, listening to what should have been private conversations with providers. Solis-Portillo told her attorney that agents pressured her to say she was well enough to leave the hospital, telling her she wouldn’t be able to speak to her family or her attorney until she complied.

“She described it to me as feeling like she was being tortured,” Tanigawa-Lau said.

Legal experts say ICE agents can be in public areas of a hospital, such as a lobby, and can accompany already-detained patients as they receive care, illustrating the scope of federal authority. Detained patients, however, have rights and can try to advocate for themselves or seek legal recourse.

Earlier this year, California set aside $25 million to fund legal services for immigrants, and some local jurisdictions — including Orange County, Long Beach, and San Francisco — have put money toward legal aid efforts. The California Department of Social Services lists some legal defense nonprofits that have received funds.

Sophia Genovese, a supervising attorney and clinical teaching fellow at Georgetown Law, said law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, can guard and even restrain a person in their custody who is receiving health care, but they must follow constitutional and health privacy laws regardless of the person’s immigration status. Under those laws, patients can ask to speak with medical providers in private and to seek and speak confidentially with legal counsel, she said.

“ICE should be stationed outside of the room or outside of earshot during any communication between the patient and their doctor or medical provider,” Genovese said, adding that the same applies to a patient’s communication with lawyers. “That’s what they’re supposed to do.”

ICE Guidelines

When it comes to communication and visits, ICE’s standards state that detainees should have access to a phone and be able to receive visits from family and friends, “within security and operational constraints.” However, these guidelines are not enforceable, Genovese said.

If immigration agents arrest someone without a warrant, they must tell them why they’ve been detained and generally can’t hold them for more than 48 hours without making a custody determination. A federal judge recently granted a temporary restraining order in a case in which a man named Bayron Rovidio Marin was monitored by immigration agents in a Los Angeles hospital for 37 days without being charged and was registered under a pseudonym.

In the past, perceived violations by agents could be reported to ICE leadership at local field offices, to the agency’s headquarters, or to an oversight body, Genovese said. But earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security cut staffing at ombudsman offices that investigate civil rights complaints, saying they “obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles.”

The assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, said that agents arrested Marin for being in the country illegally and that he admitted his lack of legal status to ICE agents. She said agents took him to the hospital after he injured his leg while trying to evade federal officers during a raid. She said officers did not prevent him from seeing his family or from using the phone.

“All detainees have access to phones they can use to contact their families and lawyers,” she said.

McLaughlin said the temporary restraining order was issued by an “activist” judge. She did not address questions about staffing cuts at the ombudsman offices.

DHS also said Solis-Portillo was in the country illegally. The department said she had been removed from the United States twice and arrested for the crimes of false identification, theft, and burglary.

“ICE takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously,” McLaughlin said. “It is a long-standing practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody. This includes access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”

Protections in California

Anaheim Global Medical Center did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Dignity Health, which operates Glendale Memorial Hospital, said it “cannot legally restrict law enforcement or security personnel from being present in public areas which include the hospital lobby/waiting area.”

California enacted a law in September that prohibits medical establishments from allowing federal agents without a valid search warrant or court order into private areas, including places where patients receive treatment or discuss health matters. But many of the most high-profile news reports of immigration agents at health care facilities have involved detained patients brought in for care.

Erika Frank, vice president of legal counsel for the California Hospital Association, said hospitals have always had law enforcement, including federal agents, bring in people they’ve detained who need medical attention.

Hospitals will defer to law enforcement on whether a patient needs to be monitored at all times, according to association spokesperson Jan Emerson-Shea. If law enforcement officers overhear medical information about a patient while they’re in the hospital, it doesn’t constitute a patient-privacy violation, she added.

“This is no different, legally, from a patient or visitor overhearing information about another patient in a nearby bed or emergency department bay,” Emerson-Shea said in a statement.

She didn’t address whether patients can demand privacy with providers and attorneys, and she said hospitals don’t tell family and friends about the detained patient’s location, for safety reasons.

Sandy Reding, who is president of the California Nurses Association and visited the Glendale facility when Solis-Portillo was there, said nurses and patients were frightened to see masked immigration agents in the hospital’s lobby. She said she saw them sitting behind a registration desk where they could hear people discuss private health information.

“Hospitals used to be a sanctuary place, and now they’re not,” she said. “And it seems like ICE has just been running rampant.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote Nov. 18 on a proposal to provide more protections for detainees at county-operated health facilities. These include limiting the ability of immigration officials to hide patients’ identities, allowing patients to consent to the release of information to family members and legal counsel, and directing staff to insist immigration agents leave the room at times to protect patient privacy. The county would also defend employees who try to uphold its policies.

Solis-Portillo’s lawyer, Tanigawa-Lau, said her client ultimately decided to self-deport to El Salvador rather than fight her case, because she felt she couldn’t get the medical care she needed in ICE custody.

“Even though Milagro’s case is really terrible, I’m glad that there’s more awareness now about this issue,” Tanigawa-Lau said.

In a major about-face, President Donald Trump has called on House Republicans to vote to release the files of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after months of refusing to do so and mounting pressure from Republicans and Democrats alike.

Epstein was found dead in 2019 in the Manhattan facility where he was being held on charges that he operated a sex-trafficking ring preying on young women and underage girls. Officials later concluded he died by suicide.

But public skepticism about his death — and allegations that his wealthy, powerful network helped facilitate and cover up his crimes — persist, dogging the Trump administration in particular.

The names of a number of powerful figures have appeared in already-released documents related to Epstein's case, including Trump and former President Bill Clinton, both of whom socialized with Epstein. Appearing in Epstein's flight logs and other records, however, is not an indication of wrongdoing.

Trump has long resisted the release of additional files from the Justice Department's investigation into Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, despite promising on the campaign trail that he would do so if reelected. That unfulfilled promise has been the center of growing public controversy, conspiracy theories and pressure from Congress in the months since he took office.

Prominent Republicans from House Speaker Mike Johnson to former Vice President Mike Pence have called for more transparency on the Epstein case, along with influential right-wing conspiracy promoters, including media figures such as Tucker Carlson and Laura Loomer.

And Democrats on the House Oversight Committee continue to apply pressure by subpoenaing and releasing thousands of pages of records from the Justice Department, many of which spotlight Epstein's onetime friendship with Trump.

The White House has consistently downplayed that relationship — which Trump says ended before Epstein was indicted for soliciting prostitution in 2006 — and dismissed the controversy as a hoax pushed by Democrats.

But after months of opposing the files' release, Trump said on Sunday that "we have nothing to hide" and that it was time to move on from what he says is a "Democrat hoax … to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party."

A House vote is expected on Tuesday, but it would be just the first step in a longer process. The House and Senate would both need to vote to release the unclassified files in order for the matter to reach his desk for a signature.

Here's a timeline of the Trump administration's shifting tone and actions on the Epstein case.

A demonstrator holds a sign quoting U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi about the Epstein files during a protest against the Trump administration in Los Angeles in July.

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Feb. 21: Attorney General Pam Bondi says the Epstein client list is "sitting on my desk" in an appearance on Fox News, in response to a question from John Roberts.

"The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients? Will that really happen?" Roberts asks Bondi.

"It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that," the attorney general replies.

Bondi later says she was referring to the Epstein files, not a client list. But her remark has echoed through discussions of the Epstein story so far this year.

Political commentator Rogan O'Handley, aka DC Draino (left), TikToker Chaya Raichik, commentator Liz Wheeler and conservative activist Scott Presler carry binders bearing the seal of the U.S. Justice Department reading "The Epstein Files: Phase 1" as they walk out of the West Wing of the White House on Feb. 27.

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Feb. 27: The White House gives binders to far-right influencers bearing a Department of Justice seal and labels reading, "Epstein Files: Phase 1" and "Declassified." But much of the information turns out to have been released before, and Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, chairwoman of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, calls it "old info."

July 7: The Justice Department releases a memo saying it has found "no incriminating 'client list'" for Epstein, contradicting Bondi's February statement. The agency says it turned up more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence. It also states that "Epstein harmed over one thousand victims." But the DOJ says those victims' sensitive information is "intertwined" in the materials and it concludes "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted."

The memo addresses several hot topics on social media. In addition to rebutting the notion of a client list, it says there's no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent figures or that his death was anything other than a case of suicide.

July 12: "We're on one Team, MAGA, and I don't like what's happening," Trump says on Truth Social in response to his supporters' criticisms of Bondi. The president accuses critics of trying to hurt his administration, "all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein."

People should let Bondi do her job, Trump says, "and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about."

July 15: Bondi refuses to address questions about her handling of the Epstein files. Trump voices his support, saying his attorney general has "really done a very good job."

Trump also suggests people who are fixated on Epstein should move on: "He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is, I really don't. And the credible information's been given."

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks at a news conference in Arlington, Va., on July 15.

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July 16: Trump lashes out at fellow Republicans for fixating on Epstein, calling it a hoax.

"It's all been a big hoax. It's perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net. And so they try and do the Democrats' work," Trump tells reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump also suggests he would approve of Bondi releasing some Epstein documents if they meet a standard: "Whatever's credible, she can release. If a document is credible, if a document's there that is credible, she can release."

As NPR's Dominico Montanaro later reports, it's one of many instances of Trump emphasizing that "credible evidence" from the Epstein records should be shared.

July 17: Trump slams The Wall Street Journal after the paper publishes what it says is a risqué birthday note Trump wrote to celebrate Epstein's 50th birthday, stating, "the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE."

"These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don't draw pictures," Trump writes on Truth Social.

July 18: Trump files a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its coverage of his relationship with Epstein, including the birthday note that Trump says he didn't write.

On the same day, the DOJ files a motion in the Southern District of New York to unseal grand jury testimony related to Epstein's 2019 indictment charging him with sex trafficking offenses, citing "extensive public interest" following the agency's July 6 memo.

The DOJ later asks to unseal related exhibits, including a PowerPoint presentation and four pages of call logs.

The agency files similar motions in New York regarding the criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's longtime partner who was sentenced to a 20-year prison term, as well as in Florida, where Epstein agreed to a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors in 2007 over the abuse of minor girls.

July 19: Trump posts on Truth Social about his administration's grand jury request, saying he "asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval."

July 22: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says he is talking with Maxwell's lawyer and expects to meet with her, at Bondi's direction. Trump says he thinks the plan "sounds appropriate."

July 23: The Wall Street Journal reports that Bondi and other Justice Department officials told Trump in May that his name "is among many in the Epstein files." The newspaper says the officials feel the files contain "unverified hearsay" about hundreds of people, including Trump, who were in the same social orbit as Epstein.

The same day, federal judge Robin Rosenberg in Florida denies release of grand jury transcripts related to Epstein.

Donald Trump and his girlfriend at the time, Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 12, 2000.

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July 24: Blanche meets with Maxwell in prison for two days, according to Democratic senators. The DOJ says it's mulling whether to release transcripts of their meeting.

July 29: Trump says he and Epstein had a falling out over Epstein hiring girls from his Mar-a-Lago resort, resulting in Epstein being kicked out. A prominent Epstein accuser, the late Virginia Giuffre, had said she was a teenager working at Mar-a-Lago when she first met Maxwell and Epstein.

Aug. 1: The Bureau of Prisons says it has moved Maxwell from a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Fla., to a women's minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas.

Aug. 5: The House Oversight Committee subpoenas the Department of Justice for records related to Epstein and Maxwell. It seeks "all documents and communications relating or referring to" the pair and their respective court cases, setting a deadline of Aug. 19.

Aug. 11: Federal judge Paul Engelmayer in New York denies Bondi's request to unseal grand jury materials from the Maxwell case, saying most of the records are already public. In a rebuke to the DOJ, the judge adds that an observer "might conclude that the Government's motion for their unsealing was aimed not at 'transparency' but at diversion — aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such."

Aug. 18: House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., says the DOJ will send the first batch of Epstein documents to the panel on Aug. 22, three days after the committee's original deadline. "It will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted," Comer says.

Aug. 20: Federal judge Richard M. Berman denies Bondi's request to unseal records related to the Epstein case in New York, citing longstanding precedents of keeping grand jury proceedings secret and stating that the government did not prove "special circumstances" that might justify unsealing the records.

Aug. 22: The House Oversight Committee receives the first batch of thousands of Epstein-related files from the Justice Department's investigation, some of which it says will eventually become public.

Sept. 8: House Democrats release a copy of Epstein's 50th birthday book with notes from friends and associates, including the tawdry note — framed by a hand-drawn outline of a woman's body — that appears to bear Trump's signature, despite his denial in July. The White House again dismisses that claim, calling it "FAKE NEWS to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax!"

Sept. 23: A statue of Epstein and Trump skipping hand-in-hand, above a satirical plaque honoring their friendship, appears on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson tells NPR that "it's not news that Epstein knew Donald Trump, because Donald Trump kicked Epstein out of his club for being a creep."

U.S. Park Police abruptly removed the statue for what the Department of Interior later said was permit noncompliance. The protest group behind the bronze installation has since displayed it two more times, on the Mall in October and in front of a D.C. restaurant in November.

Oct. 6: On the same day that the Supreme Court declines to hear Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal of her 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, Trump leaves the door open to potentially granting her a pardon — which he previously told reporters he was "allowed" to do.

"I haven't heard the name in so long. I can say that, that I'd have to take a look at it," Trump said. "I will speak to the DOJ."

Nov. 12: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rules out a Trump pardon of Maxwell, telling reporters, "It's not something he's talking about or even thinking about at this moment in time."

That same day, the federal government reopens after a record 43-day shutdown. The House returns to session to swear in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of New Mexico, seven weeks after she won a special election to succeed her late father. Grijalva had promised to support forcing a vote on the Epstein files' release, and became the decisive final signature that same day.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee release three new emails from Epstein's estate that specifically mention Trump. In one from 2011, Epstein referred to Trump as "the dog that hasn't barked" and says he spent "hours at my house" with one of the alleged sex trafficking victims.

A billboard shown in Times Square on Monday highlights Jeffrey Epstein's 2019 comment about Donald Trump that "of course he knew about the girls."

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The White House downplays the emails, with Leavitt saying they were "selectively leaked" and "prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong." Later that day, Republicans release another 20,000 documents, which include emails from Epstein expressing displeasure with Trump and his presidency.

Nov. 14: At Trump's public urging, Bondi confirms that the Justice Department will investigate Epstein's alleged "involvement and relationship" with banks and several prominent Democrats, including Clinton.

That same day, Trump withdraws his support of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a longtime ally of the president who publicly broke with him over the Epstein issue. She was one of three Republican women to sign the petition to force a vote on the files' release. Another, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, had met with White House officials earlier in the week, apparently about Epstein, but was not persuaded to change course.

Nov. 16: In a late-night Truth Social post, Trump says House Republicans should vote to release the files.

He stresses that the Justice Department has already turned over tens of thousands of pages of records and opened an investigation into Epstein's links to Democrats, and urges Republicans to get "back on point."

"Nobody cared about Jeffrey Epstein when he was alive and, if the Democrats had anything, they would have released it before our Landslide Election Victory," he adds.
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A beef over which organization should manage the U.S. Olympic surfing team ended when one of the groups, U.S. Ski and Snowboard, withdrew its bid ahead of a scheduled Tuesday hearing.

The backstory

Two organizations — Utah-based U.S. Ski and Snowboard and San Clemente-based USA Surfing — were vying for control over the Olympic surfing team heading into the LA28 Games. The snow group had hoped to turn itself into an action sports juggernaut by adding several off-the-slopes sports — surfing and skateboarding — to its roster to maximize the potential for sponsorships and advertising. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee was set to hear their arguments on Tuesday and then make a decision.

What’s really behind the squabble?

Money, pretty much. The Olympic Committee doles out funding to the organizations that oversee Olympic sports for expenses including athlete training, travel expenses and competition fees. And there's private advertising and sponsorships on top of that.

Also prestige — USA Surfing and its numerous supporters in Southern California were livid over what they saw as an effort by the Utah-based group to encroach on their territory at a time when the world’s biggest sporting spotlight will be turned on San Clemente for the Olympic surfing event at Lower Trestles.

Why did US Ski and Snowboard withdraw?

In a statement on the organization’s website, U.S. Ski and Snowboard blamed USA Surfing for not wanting to collaborate for the benefit of surfers: “U.S. Ski & Snowboard has concluded that our energy and expertise are best used in service to our athletes as they prepare for the upcoming Winter Games."

What’s next for USA Surfing?

USA Surfing still has to convince the U.S. Olympic Committee that it can properly manage the surf team. The organization relinquished control over the team for the 2024 Paris Games because of a negative audit that found sloppy oversight of funds and failure to disclose conflicts of interest. The committee will hear USA Surfing’s bid at a hearing on Tuesday.

What’s next for U.S. Ski and Snowboard?

The group still hopes to manage Olympic skateboarding for the LA28 Games. The Olympic committee will hear its pitch, which unlike surfing, is unopposed, at a separate hearing on Thursday.

How to watch the hearings — and get involved

Surfing

1 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18

You can watch via Zoom at this link.

Skateboarding

9 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 20

You can watch via Zoom at this link.

You can also provide written comments for either hearing to Mark Storey, senior director of compliance operations, at Mark.Storey@usopc.org

Go deeper

Here's how you can volunteer at the Olympics
The LA Olympics schedule is out. Here's a breakdown
The Olympics are a multi-billion dollar business. Here's what that means for LA taxpayers

To many locals, the Los Angeles River — hugged by concrete embankments and heavy vehicle traffic — hardly seems like a river at all.

The waterway bisecting the city was converted to a giant storm drain nearly a century ago to contain flood waters. Today, it's an extension of the urban network of concrete, running beneath freeways and bridges as it collects all kinds of refuse: spent tires, scrap metal, trash thrown from car windows.

But when Doug Rosenberg came upon a shopping cart tipped over in the river's shallow waters back in 2020, he saw the potential to meet nature halfway.

"It had begun to bloom some greenery around it, and there was a great blue heron perched on the cart, hunting in this little spot," Rosenberg recalled. "That was when it clicked for me — that any 3D geometry at all in that river channel will trap sediment, will begin a micro-bloom of ecosystem."

Doug Rosenberg is trying to push the grassroots guerrilla gardening movement forward in Los Angeles.

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The 36-year-old artist saw an amusing paradox — life sprouting from the metal cart — that planted the seed for his next project: a pop-up wetland in the middle of the LA River.

In a desolate part of downtown, he pushed large rocks from the riverbanks into the water and arranged them in loose, concentric circles. The structure would trap sediment, allowing life to take root.

In other words, Rosenberg produced a patch of watery land — like a marsh or swamp — to support plants and animals.

Over the course of 10 weeks, the simple assemblage of rocks spawned a totally new 10-by-20-foot green island in the middle of the 100-foot-wide channel.

Rosenberg calls it performance art: a visual statement that carries a call to action. The wetland installation isn't quite what he'd call "impactful ecology," but rather a work of art to show environmental good can be low-tech and small-scale.

"The impetus behind this project is to show that the barrier to entry doesn't exist. To basically provide a simple format for action," he said.

Guerrilla gardeners

It's not so much that the barriers don't exist — they do — he's just flouting them, city officials say. Despite his good intentions, none of this is legal. He's a guerrilla gardener: someone who plants where they're not supposed to. The federal government deems this flood control channel "navigable water," providing protections under the Clean Water Act and making any unauthorized changes to its course illegal. That includes obstructions and modifications in the channel, such as dredging or disposal of materials like rocks.

Across the country, as urban development replaces tree cover and natural landscapes with buildings and parking lots, guerrilla gardeners flout local ordinances to disperse seeds or otherwise alter their environment, usually with an overriding mission to reclaim underused public spaces. They seek to grow healthy produce in urban food deserts, capture greenhouse gases and beautify their neighborhoods.

The movement has taken many forms, from creating a verdant oasis for the nation's largest housing project in New York City, to planting a front-yard vegetable garden in defiance of state law in Florida, to grooming a busy bike path in Seattle.

Here in LA, Rosenberg's guerrilla tactics include trespassing and planting without permits in the publicly managed waterway. Getting to his wetland requires jumping railroad tracks and scaling down the steep side of the channel to the riverbed. But as far as he's concerned, it's open to the public.

Rosenberg (right) and a few volunteers walk past railroad tracks to get to the river.

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"I feel like it's possible to relate to a city the way we're used to relating to nature — or as we imagine we could relate to unspoiled wilderness," he said.

But officials and longtime river advocates say people can't plant wherever they want, and that guerrilla actors have the potential to do more harm than good.

"Even small changes can affect water quality, habitat, and safety downstream," said Ben Orbison, a spokesman for Friends of the LA River, an advocacy group focused on revitalization efforts, including cleanups along the waterway. "Restoration is incredibly important, but works best when guided by ecology and collaboration," with local and federal agencies to prioritize safety, he added.

Chief among the concerns is flooding.

"If you have rocks, if you have vegetation, if you have other things that slow the water down then it builds up faster. That's where you get the overtopping of the channel," said Ben Harris, an attorney with Los Angeles Waterkeeper, an environmental watchdog group.

Crews place rock on the LA River's banks during channelization in 1938.

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The whole reason the Los Angeles River became a concrete straightjacket was to prevent a repeat of the city's devastating floods in the 1930s. The Army Corps of Engineers channelized and paved the once-meandering river. The roughly 51-mile channel continues to serve as a hydro-highway shuttling stormwater runoff from the mountains to the sea.

Generally, local officials and river advocates are far ahead of Rosenberg in revitalizing the channel. In recent years, the city has built several projects under a master plan designed to resurrect some of the river's natural habitat and expand public access. But progress is slow. Legal roadblocks and budget constraints have delayed the implementation of many proposals.

Beyond the bike paths and trails lining the waterway, the efforts are most visible in parts of the river where the soil was left unpaved. Willows, egrets and frogs populate soft-bottom sections where springs and a high water table would reject a concrete casing. And, upstream from Rosenberg's wetland, there's a plan in the works to build what's essentially a larger, permanent version of the artist's project. Long before Rosenberg plunked his first rock into its waters, the city adopted a plan to turn an 11-mile section of the river into a wetland to allow the safe passage of salmon.

Still, some city staff give guerrilla artists a lot of credit for laying the groundwork.

"The biggest shift points in the river's history were made, in my opinion, not necessarily the legal way," said Kat Superfisky, an urban ecologist with the city, but from "the community advocate, artist, guerrilla kind of efforts."

'He's onto something'

On social media, Rosenberg shares his art with a wider audience than was made available to his artist-activist predecessors. People curious about his project have reached out to him, asking how they can help support it. He's invited them to join him on his visits to the wetland, where he's put them to work. Others have taken issue with Rosenberg's accommodation of an invasive plant species in his wetland. It's mostly populated by Goodding's willow, a native species, and creeping water primrose, a non-native invasive. Those non-native plants tend to crowd out native habitat, drink more water and lead to increased use of toxic pesticides.

Some people accustomed to reading the river's currents say the wetland will be gone before it can cause any lasting harm to the river. In the likely event of a heavy rain, the rising tide in the river channel could wipe out the wetland, washing it into the ocean.

Canadian geese come in for a landing near the mini-wetland, in a downtown section of the LA River.

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From an ecological standpoint, Superfisky says "he's onto something," in terms of thinking about how to recreate conditions found in a natural, sprawling river using the impractical medium he's given.

The channel functions like a straight, unobstructed tube, she said. But the placement of rocks allow sediment buildup and produce varied flow patterns — much like grooves in braiding streams — to set up stiller pockets where wildlife can thrive.

But it all falls apart if he's not accounting for flood risk, the ecologist said.

Harris, of the watchdog LA Waterkeeper, thinks flood management and ecological values can coexist in a concrete channel.

Removing the concrete would open up more possibilities, he said, adding that there are "a variety of nature-based solutions" for the channel that support flood management.

Volunteer Isaac Cohen places more rocks around the guerrilla wetland.

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But an overhaul of the existing concrete flood management system would also require big shifts in mindset.

"It's kind of a scary thought," he said. "If you imagine being a policymaker in government and you're trying to do that, you have to turn things on its head."

The Army Corps of Engineers has not responded to requests for comment. According to its website, the agency works to clear vegetation it warns can clog the channel and hamper flood control. But the agency has recently prioritized the removal of non-native species due to lack of funding, the site notes.

"They probably would just talk to him and explain rather than prosecute anything, or they might just go in and take it away," said Felicia Marcus, a fellow at Stanford University's Water in the West program and a former head of the city of Los Angeles' public works department.

Rosenberg says he understands the consequences.

"If they throw a book at me, it'll be quite a big book, but I'm at the point where that's less urgent to me than making art that obviously deserves to get made," he said.

Guerrillas lay the groundwork to rewrite the rules

Passersby who look down from nearby bridges can spot the pop-up wetland.

Artists have long exploited that legal gray area around what's considered public land.

Historically, it was the late Lewis MacAdams, a poet and activist, whose guerrilla tactics expanded public access to the LA River. In 1985, MacAdams and friends cut open a fence blocking its entry and declared the river open to the people.

Through Friends of the LA River, the advocacy group he founded, MacAdams made sure the city wouldn't forget the river that birthed it. He promoted it as a resource that people should protect, restore and enjoy.

During a meeting with the county, as MacAdams told it, whenever the head of the public works department referred to the waterway as a "flood control channel," he would shoot back with "river." In 2008, kayakers carried the baton, when writer George Wolfe led a scofflaw fleet of paddlers down the entire waterway to prove that it was "navigable waters" so it could keep its Clean Water Act protections. Two years later, the Environmental Protection Agency agreed with what MacAdams had started and designated the river as navigable.

"He didn't know jack doodle scratch about the river or river ecosystems at that time. He led with his artistic passion," Superfisky said. "But then, my golly, he is the one guy that really got us to start calling it a river again."

Superfisky says Rosenberg is having his "Lewis MacAdams moment."

Knowing his wetland experiment could wash away in an instant, Rosenberg said he feels there's some wiggle room to experiment and make mistakes.

Rosenberg acknowledges the dangers that can spring from an uneducated approach. "I wouldn't push back on someone calling it reckless, to be honest," he said.

But he's more focused on the good he says can come from "vigorous action." He says that, among his millennial peers and younger generations, "a sense of attainability and agency" is lacking when it comes to helping chip away at big-picture issues like climate change.

Rosenberg acknowledges the dangers that can spring from a freewheeling approach to ecological art. But he says there's also value in "vigorous action," adding: "There's a long history in ecological actions of perfect being an argument against the good happening at all."

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He's aware that there are legal avenues available to produce ecological art. He appreciates that artist Lauren Bon, for example, has secured more than 70 permits as part of an ongoing project to divert water from the river that could irrigate a state park nearby. But Rosenberg thinks there's room for some freewheeling.

"Maybe it's not about waiting for permits or even about waiting to feel like you've mastered the material," he said. "There's a long history in ecological actions of perfect being an argument against the good happening at all."

Nature bats last

On a recent Saturday evening, during one of his public tours, Rosenberg handed out scythes and an agenda to whack away the invasive plants.

Allie Baron, a lifelong LA resident, brought her two sons with her after reaching out to Rosenberg on Instagram.

Allie Baron brought her two sons with her to help Rosenberg tend to the guerrilla wetland.

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As she gleefully tore out a creeping primrose, the 36-year-old said, "All I can do is try to make my community better and make the river pretty. You do what you can to try to restore life to things that need help."

Caught in the wetland brush was a blue rubber bullet — just like the ones LAPD officers had deployed during the anti-ICE protests held in downtown LA this summer, over immigration raids.

"One of the cool things about a structure like this is that it's trapping that stuff," Rosenberg said. "The rubber bullet was here and not in the ocean yet."

That and some oily sheen on the watery patch of willows were another reminder of the intensely urban environment.

Later, the guerrilla group witnessed a hawk snatch its dinner from the water.

A few days after that, the forecast from river pundits proved accurate. It rained, filling the channel with a fast-moving current.

"The garden is gone," Rosenberg said.

He says he'll start gardening again in the spring.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Allie Baron's son Robert carries a bunch of invasive water primrose pruned from the guerrilla wetland.

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