Topline:
Several California school districts and charter schools have been fined for violating state guidelines on average class size and/or staffing ratios in transitional kindergarten, a grade level that has been expanding to include all 4-year-olds by 2025.
Why it's happening: Based on the audit reports released, the nationwide teacher shortage seems to be a leading reason for districts being out of compliance.
Read more ... to see data on the violating school districts and charters.
This is the first in a series of stories on how inadequate staffing may be impeding California’s efforts to offer high-quality instruction to all 4-year-olds by 2025.
Several California school districts and charter schools have been fined for violating state guidelines on average class size and/or staffing ratios in transitional kindergarten, a grade level that has been expanding to include all 4-year-olds by 2025.
Through its universal pre-kindergarten initiative, the state intends to offer high-quality instruction to all 4-year-olds through TK, an additional year of public education prior to kindergarten. To do so, California has implemented legislation placing requirements on transitional kindergarten and adding fiscal penalties for noncompliance. State-set TK guidelines require classes to maintain an average student enrollment of 24 kids and to use a 1:12 adult-to-student ratio.
Here are the highlights from audit reports from the 2022-23 school year, the first school year since the state added the fiscal penalties for TK requirements:
Ten school districts and 22 charter schools were not compliant with the required average class size of not more than 24 students, resulting in fines ranging from $1,706 to more than $6.9 million.
Seven school districts and 16 charter schools will pay between $2,813 and over $1.1 million for failure to meet the 1:12 adult-to-student ratio for TK classes.
Three school districts and 12 charter schools were out of compliance in both class size and adult-to-child ratio.
District audits review compliance with a sample of schools.
Based on the audit reports released to EdSource, the nationwide teacher shortage seems to be a leading reason for districts being out of compliance.
While most districts blame the national staffing shortage, some districts are critical of the California Department of Education for not clearly outlining TK requirements as well as for fining districts unfairly.
“It is not typical,” Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in late January when the district released its audit findings at a board meeting. “It does not make sense.”
The following districts and charters have been named as noncompliant, and fiscal penalties they face:
For going over the 24-student average enrollment:
For not meeting 1:12 adult-student ratio:
Not all the districts, such as Aromas-San Juan Unified, Culver City Unified and LAUSD, disclosed the names of the penalized schools in the audit reports. They are not required to do so.
The school districts and charters will lose funding from the Local Control Funding Formula in the amount of their penalties.
Unlike the other charter schools penalized, those in LAUSD and Palm Springs are operated by their respective school districts, rather than by charter management organizations. The fines received for the charter schools operated by LAUSD and Palm Springs Unified will be paid at the charter school level, not at the district level, according to the California Department of Education (CDE).
The state Education Department has outlined several benefits of implementing smaller TK class sizes and adult-to-student ratios.
According to the department’s September 2022 TK requirement presentation, more attention and feedback from adults creates more opportunities for student learning and engagement. With a smaller class size, teachers form better relationships with students, and parent participation improves.
The lower adult-to-student ratios, the CDE has said, allow staff to provide individualized instruction as well as supervision at all times. Additional adult support, the department says, leads to increased cognitive and social-emotional development, lower rates of students being placed in special education and teachers experiencing less stress. Plus, the 1:12 ratio is closely aligned with 1:8 staffing practices in early education at licensed child care centers, private preschools and state preschool programs and the 1:10 ratio at Head Start.
State compliance with TK requirements is verified in a district’s annual audit at the end of the school year. The TK class size requirement is based on the average number of students while the 1:12 staffing ratio is based on the number of district staff dedicated and available to all TK students in each class. The numbers are counted on the last teaching day of each school month before April 15. For most school districts, that is August to March.
Depending on whether the violation is for average student enrollment or the staffing ratio, penalty calculations consider areas such as base funding, the TK funding rate add-on, average daily attendance and the statewide absence rate.
For average student enrollment violations, the penalty equals the grade span base funding for TK/K-3 multiplied by the Second Principal Apportionment (P-2) for TK Average Daily Attendance (ADA).
For TK staffing ratio violations, the penalty equals the product of:
Some district audits miscalculated the class average or staffing ratio penalties, reducing the expected fines by hundreds of thousands of dollars for some.
Penalty amounts changed from $369,347 to $125,129 for the class average penalty in Culver City Unified; went from $641,561 to $217,351 for the class average penalty in Rowland Unified; changed from $239,133 to $81,051 for the class average penalty in Lowell Joint School District; and decreased from $10,483 to $2,813 for the staffing ratio penalty in Los Olivos School District.
A school district or charter school must maintain an average TK class enrollment of not more than 24 students for each campus. Because the audit considers the number of students each month, it is possible for a school to have a TK class that exceeds the limit for a time and still maintain an average of 24 or less.
For example, Marcella Gutierrez, a Mountain View School District TK teacher, told EdSource that she received her 25th student in February because her class enrollment average was under 24. Based on active enrollment at the end of each month, the number of students in her class was 24 in August and September, 23 in October when a student moved, 23 in November and December and 22 in early January when another student left the program but 24 by the end of the month when two new students joined her class.
With her class average at 23.5, not the 24-student classroom average for TK, the district accepted a 25th student for Gutierrez’s class. The district also added a third aide to meet the 1:12 student-staff ratio, she said.
According to the state Education Department, to be counted in the staffing ratio, the “assigned” adult must be an employee who is dedicated and available to all TK students the entire school day.
The audit selects a representative sample of schools to review compliance. If districts or charter schools are found to have violated the TK guidelines, they will face penalties for each sampled school in violation.
School districts nationwide have struggled to hire paraprofessionals, such as aides, who work closely with teachers to support students in the classroom.
Legislation requires paraprofessionals to work alongside California teachers to lower class sizes and fulfill the 1:12 adult-to-student ratio requirement in TK classes.
According to the audit reports, districts and schools such as Scholarship Prep Charter School in Oceanside, Pomona Unified in eastern Los Angeles County and Culver City Unified, also in Los Angeles County, blame staffing shortages for their inability to comply with state guidelines.
But the staffing shortage isn’t limited to paraprofessionals. Based on state and regional hiring and vacancy data, state legislation has identified TK teachers as a high-need teaching position impacted by the teacher shortage.
Pomona Unified couldn’t maintain its staffing ratio at four schools that each needed the equivalent of 0.5 additional adults.
Culver City Unified was unable to hire enough teachers to stay within the class size enrollment or staffing ratio guidelines, resulting in noncompliance in two classes at two schools.
Even when staffing shortages played a role in noncompliance, some districts faulted the state Education Department.
The seven charter schools in KIPP SoCal Public Schools in Los Angeles that were penalized for being out of compliance for both class average and ratios said the state guidance about the TK program was not clear when their elementary schools planned their instruction and classroom models for the 2022-23 school year. Planning takes place before the school year starts.
Although July 2021 legislation introduced the TK requirements on average class size and staffing ratios, legislation in September 2022 added details to the requirements, at which time KIPP schools had already planned classroom instruction.
Historically, KIPP schools have created combination classes of TK and kindergarten students, with no more than five TK students in the class of 24, supervised by one teacher and an aide.
Because the students are educated in the same space, the TK adult-to-student ratio requirements must apply to all students in the combo class, according to the CDE. The class average has to be at or below 24 and the ratio at 1:12, even though only five TK students are in the class.
Similar to KIPP schools, Monroe Elementary School District in Fresno offered a combo class with TK and kindergarten students, resulting in an average enrollment of 29 kids.
The district acted under the incorrect assumption that the combo class would be considered two separate classes since the TK and kindergarten students had their own teachers. However, the class was considered one class and out of compliance.
KIPP schools have since implemented a monthly process to check student enrollment and ratios and will conduct more frequent audits.
Monroe Elementary School District also agreed to monitor enrollment numbers more closely; the school district will be annexed into Caruthers Unified by next school year.
Los Angeles Unified, California’s largest district, continues to struggle to fill vacant positions and achieve the required adult-to-student ratio.
District leaders called the penalties “egregious.” Los Angeles Unified incurred over $8.1 million in fines for being out of compliance with TK ratios and class size limits.
In the audit sampling of 88 schools, two exceeded the 24-student class size average and 20 did not maintain the 1:12 staffing ratio.
When the district’s audit results were released during a January LAUSD board meeting, district leaders, including Carvalho, said the district will work to ensure compliance but will push against schools incurring fines for lacking one additional adult.
The district received 20 fines, totaling $1,175,824, for not complying with the 1:12 ratio in its district schools, a fine they would have avoided if they had 19 additional adults in the TK classrooms.
“A small variance from the ratio brings about a significant fine,” Carvalho said, calling the penalties unfair and in need of fixing.
The district has already put mechanisms in place to track compliance this school year, including a TK toolkit for school and district administration, distributing specific revisions to TK legislation, and holding meetings with principals in the spring to review guidelines.
The school district will also host biweekly department meetings to monitor classes and have monthly meetings to identify schools that are not compliant with staffing ratios, according to its audit report.
Besides taking corrective action to address compliance with the transitional kindergarten requirement, penalized schools have two other options to respond to audit findings: an appeal or a payment plan. In March, the CDE issued letters to most of the penalized districts and charters asking them to choose what they plan to do.
Existing legislation does not allow districts to avoid penalties.
Under the appeals process, schools can challenge the finding based on “errors of fact or interpretation of law” including incorrect information in the audit findings or in the way the law is applied or interpreted.
They may also appeal on grounds that they were in substantial compliance with the law in which they can argue that, despite minor or unintentional noncompliance, they provided an educational benefit consistent with the purpose of the transitional kindergarten program.
According to CDE spokesperson Scott Roark via email, how soon the penalty is deducted from a district’s funding will depend on whether the school district or charter uses one of the options for resolving audit findings.
EdSource is an independent nonprofit organization that provides analysis on key education issues facing California and the nation. LAist republishes articles from EdSource with permission.
Topline:
Voters rejected a measure that would have weakened California’s landmark environmental law by fast-tracking reviews for some projects.
Details: With about 76% of votes counted, voters rejected Prop. 45 by 55.7% to 44.3%.
Why it matters: The vote maintains the status quo under the state’s Environmental Quality Act, which since 1970 has required public agencies to review project developments that could have harmful environmental impacts, and mitigate those harms.
Voters on Saturday rejected a measure that would have weakened California’s landmark environmental law by fast-tracking reviews for some projects.
With about 76% of votes counted, voters rejected Prop. 45 by 55.7% to 44.3%.
The vote maintains the status quo under the state’s Environmental Quality Act, which since 1970 has required public agencies to review project developments that could have harmful environmental impacts, and mitigate those harms.
“Californians have sent a clear message to corporate developers, utilities and data center builders that they will not stand for a broad assault at the ballot box on state law protecting our air, water and natural resources,” No on 45’s Woody Little said. “We were outspent but not outgunned.”
Supporters had said the changes would reduce building costs. The California Chamber of Commerce sponsored Proposition 45, the Building an Affordable California Act, which would limit the length of environmental reviews for projects deemed “essential” to 365 business days and require courts to resolve litigation in 270 calendar days. Those projects include housing, water, broadband and transit developments.
Proponents said the savings from building more quickly would pass to consumers and spent $41 million campaigning for the measure. The Building a Better California political action committee was the largest donor, giving $10 million to the campaign. The organization is funded partly by current and former Google executives Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt. Two of the largest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Edison, together donated $4.4 million.
Environmental groups argued the measure would go too far in weakening a law meant to protect people from environmental harms. Opponents, including a coalition of environmental, health and union organizations, spent $30 million trying to stop it. Wendy Schmidt, a Democratic philanthropist, was the largest donor, giving $10 million to the campaign. The political action committee Clean and Healthy California Sponsored by Environmental Organizations contributed $7 million.
The California Democratic Party opposed the measure. The California Republican Party supported it, while county Republican groups were split.
Deborah Sivas, an environmental law professor at Stanford University, said Prop. 45 would radically change current law. It would shift power “away from local governments and to developers by giving them some new tools … and limiting what courts can do in terms of reviewing decisions that agencies and local governments make,” she said.
California’s environmental review law, signed in 1970, requires agencies to assess the environmental impacts of developments and help mitigate them.
Over decades, developers have raised concerns about the process, arguing litigation and bureaucracy slow down construction.
State legislators have tried to fix the problem by passing laws that exempt or streamline certain projects from environmental review. In 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed laws that exempt many urban housing projects from the full review process.
But some supporters of Prop. 45, including the California Building Industry Association and the California Council for Affordable Housing, say those changes don’t go far enough.
“It’s an important piece of the puzzle, but (that type of housing) does not produce quickly or at scale,” said Jennifer Hernandez, an attorney who helped write the measure. “We need quicker, at scale, affordable housing.”
Supporters say Prop. 45 would help California redevelop large, unused sites like malls and parking lots into housing and make it easier to build away from urban areas.
Pro-housing and local government groups usually support CEQA reform, but Prop. 45 has divided many of them.
Housing advocates in the Bay Area, including East Bay for Everyone and the Greenbelt Alliance, oppose the measure. Other Yes in My Backyard groups are neutral, including Abundant Housing Los Angeles and both California YIMBY and YIMBY Action — the movement’s two flagship advocacy groups.
The split between pro-housing groups lies in whether California should keep building outward onto undeveloped land or promote construction in urban centers. Some supporters, including Oakland Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, have said the state needs all types of housing.
Others say building away from urban centers would make it harder to address climate change.
“We believe we can (and must) solve the housing and climate crises simultaneously. That means building communities with denser housing and alternatives to automobile dependence,” wrote Max Dubler of California YIMBY in a blog post explaining the group’s neutral stance on Prop. 45.
Public agencies and local governments that could benefit from the building rules were also divided.
The California Municipal Utilities Association opposes the measure. But most other groups representing local governments, including the League of California Cities and California State Association of Counties, remained neutral.
Prop. 45 supporters argued that streamlining development would make life more affordable for Californians, but the long-term financial benefits are unclear.
An analysis by Blue Sky Consulting Group, commissioned by the California Chamber of Commerce, estimated the measure would produce $1.5 billion in savings and additional revenues for public agencies over 10 years that would reduce overall housing costs.
But the measure would initially cost local governments and public agencies more as they adjust to the measure’s rules, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, a nonpartisan adviser to the Legislature.
Topline:
Democrats have done well in recent elections when they win young voters by a margin of at least 20 points. On Tuesday, they carried Gen Z — those under 30 — by nearly 50 points, according to exit polling.
Why it matters: It's a stunning shift from 2024, when the party lost critical ground with young people. Long seen as a part of the Democratic base, voters under 30 shifted right towards Donald Trump, motivated by his pledge to better their economic prospects.
Why now: But this week, the youngest generation of voters issued a strong rebuke of Republicans, taking another chance on Democrats and their change-focused message at a moment when many of them feel as though the American Dream is out of reach.
Democrats have done well in recent elections when they win young voters by a margin of at least 20 points. On Tuesday, they carried Gen Z — those under 30 — by nearly 50 points, according to exit polling.
It's a stunning shift from 2024, when the party lost critical ground with young people. Long seen as a part of the Democratic base, voters under 30 shifted right towards Donald Trump, motivated by his pledge to better their economic prospects.
But this week, the youngest generation of voters issued a strong rebuke of Republicans, taking another chance on Democrats and their change-focused message at a moment when many of them feel as though the American Dream is out of reach.
Americans ages 18-29 have a history of turning out at lower rates than older voters, and this year was no exception. Gen Z made up 11% of the total vote on Tuesday.
However, where young Americans may have made the greatest difference is on the margins in House and Senate races where Democrats flipped seats.
The Texas Senate race is a key example. Democrat James Talarico won the state by 12 percentage points; however, when looking at just Gen Z, he won it by 60 points.
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When assessing gains more broadly, Democrats argue the party's strong slate of candidates helped drum up increased enthusiasm.
But another motivating factor remains strong opposition to Trump. Throughout his second term, Gen Z increasingly soured on the president, with some arguing he failed to make good on a number of core campaign promises — from pledging to lower prices and repeatedly vowing "no new wars," to calling for a crackdown on federal corruption and the release of the Epstein files.
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Much of that disappointment was reflected in exit polling. Economic issues were the top concern for a plurality of 18- to 29-year-olds, at 43%, and these voters expressed broad frustrations with Trump's handling of the issue. More than eight in 10 said that Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions, with similar shares opposing his tariff strategy and the decision to go to war with Iran.
Early analysis from CIRCLE indicates that 15% of young people who backed Trump in 2024 voted for a Democratic House candidate in this year's midterms.
Democrats made gains with some young voters who backed Trump two years ago, including white men and Latino men, two blocs that narrowly voted Republican in 2024 and then voted blue on Tuesday by double digits. Democratic candidates also narrowed the margins with young rural voters and people without college degrees.
Some of those gains may have been helped by young Trump voters who chose to sit this election out, but it's unclear how many of them there were.
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The midterm results underscore how neither of the two major parties owns Gen Z, according to John Della Volpe, a left-leaning pollster who's extensively studied the politics of young Americans.
"The cohort of younger people in this cycle had a different set of experiences than the cohort of people two years ago, or four years before that," he said. "Every candidate, every party has to earn their votes."
Della Volpe, who runs the Harvard Youth Poll, notes that in the latest survey, released in October, there was a sizable enthusiasm gap between young Democrat and young Republican respondents. While half of Democrats said they definitely planned to vote, just a third of Republicans and less than a quarter of Independents said the same.
"I also think we shouldn't overread what's happened," he added. "Clearly a significant historic rebuke on the party in office — that's obvious — however, I think we need to more fully, kind of understand, the contour of the electorate, who showed up and who didn't show up."
By 2028, Gen Z and millennial voters will make up more than half of the electorate, a demographic shift with huge implications for Democrats and the GOP.
"Young adults can make a difference," said Elizabeth Matto, who serves as the director of the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University.
"They do care about politics. They can sway the outcome of elections. And they're a voting bloc worth paying attention to."
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the ICE surge in Minneapolis last winter was a pivotal moment for the country. After Democrats' sweeping wins this week, their deaths at the hands of immigration agents will likely be the targets of renewed investigations.
What's next: With a majority in Congress, Democrats can issue subpoenas to the major players in Trump's mass deportation plan, compelling them to testify under oath before the legislature.
The morning after Tuesday's midterms was gloomy and rainy in Minneapolis, but people still gathered at the place where Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a VA nurse and U.S. citizen, last January. All week, community members have come here to place their "I Voted" stickers at the memorial.
Nicki Adams, who dated Pretti and was his close friend for nearly 17 years, watched quietly as a woman added her sticker to a street lamp completely covered in the red decals.
"I wanted to see all the stickers. I just wanted to be here," she says. "It just means a lot to me. I think it would mean a lot to Alex, too."
A few blocks away, people left their stickers where an ICE officer killed Renee Good, a mom of three and a U.S. citizen, just a few weeks before Pretti's death. In Houston, they left them where an ICE officer killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three and a Mexican immigrant, in July.
Adams says these stickers, and the election results this week, send a clear message to Congress: "You work for us, and please carry on these values that we care about … We want to be seen and heard and taken care of and have our neighbors taken care of."
The deaths of Pretti and Good during the ICE surge in Minneapolis marked a pivotal moment for the country, sparking intense public backlash to President Trump's aggressive deportation efforts. But federal law enforcement officials have given little indication they're progressing in investigating their deaths, or the deaths of at least seven other people killed by federal immigration agents since Trump took office again last year. DHS did not respond to an NPR request for the status of those investigations.
Now, after Democrats' sweeping wins this week, their deaths at the hands of immigration agents will likely be the targets of renewed investigations. With a majority in Congress, Democrats can issue subpoenas to the major players in Trump's mass deportation plan, compelling them to testify under oath before the legislature.
That could include White House Border Czar Tom Homan, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, among others.
Congress can also demand internal documents, like use-of-force reports.
"They can dissect these individual shootings, and really unravel the story of what happened," says Naureen Shah, who leads the ACLU's immigration policy work.
Democrats have already held shadow hearings on the ICE shootings, during which they've called in family members and witnesses to testify.
But Shah says now Congress can ask key questions of top decision makers: What orders were given to immigration officers in the field? What was training like for these officers?
Who made the decision to paint Good and Pretti as threats, including calling Pretti a "would-be assassin" and a domestic terrorist, when video showed otherwise?
"It's like we can turn the faucet on and actually find out so much more," Shah says. "There's an aspect of this that is really about a kind of reckoning with how it's possible that things that seemed unthinkable could happen on American streets. How do you have that reckoning if you don't actually have the ability to force people to explain themselves?"
Democratic leaders have already said that's the plan.
Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, told NPR in a statement that Congress will use "every tool" at its disposal to investigate ICE and that it is time for the agency to "start answering to the American people."
California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, expected to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, vowed to take on DHS and ICE abuses in a two-word statement: "Lawyer Up."
Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, expected to lead the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter on Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, demanding the agency "comply with all document preservation requirements."
Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez wrote on social media that Noem, Miller, Homan, Bovino and Mullin should "clear" their schedules.
In response to that, DHS general counsel James Percival said Democrats are "more interested in political shenanigans than in governing" but said the agency is prepared to "deal with this nonsense."
There are key limitations to what Democrats in Congress can do with their majority when it comes to ICE accountability, says Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Major changes, like clawing back funding for the agency, would require a veto-proof majority, something the Democrats don't have.
"You still have a president who has shown a complete lack of interest in accountability for federal agents and in fact, a great deal of knee jerk defensiveness about their conduct," Moran says.
In a statement, a White House spokesperson told NPR "if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people."
Democrats, the statement added, "should be reminded that we still control the federal government and all of its powers."
But that's not true. Congress has its own powers, one of them being the ability to compel testimony. Moran says a deeper probe into the shootings could still serve important purposes, like making evidence available for states to use in their own criminal investigations.
Minnesota officials, for instance, have been fighting with the federal government to get evidence related to the Pretti and Good killings.
Brent Ganger, Renee Good's brother, says learning more information about his sister's death will be hard to hear, "but I think it's also super important for us to understand what happened that day. I don't want history to keep repeating itself."
It was painful, he says, to watch immigration agents kill more people after his sister. He thought her death would be a turning point. In a way, it might have been the start of one. After the surge in Minneapolis, most Americans said ICE had gone too far.
Ganger, who considers himself a moderate, was happy to see the Blue Wave this week. On election night, he was scrolling Instagram when he saw a photo of his sister's memorial site, with all the "I Voted" stickers.
"I was very grateful to see the repudiation of this administration from the country. It felt very supportive of my entire family," he says.
The next morning, in his home in Colorado, he got up and made biscuits and gravy, his sister's favorite breakfast.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
Residents, clergy and organizers faced off with federal immigration agents outside Adventist White Memorial on Friday night into Saturday morning, after reports of ICE presence at the Boyle Heights hospital.
Why it matters: Agents detained at least two people, according to rapid response groups. The confrontation and detention prompted a rally in front of the hospital Saturday afternoon.
Read on ... to learn how Boyle Heights neighbors and immigration activists mobilized on Friday night.
Abraham Zavala was born at Adventist White Memorial. So were his kids. So late Friday, when he heard federal immigration agents were at the Boyle Heights hospital, and that local youth were out blowing whistles to warn neighbors, he went.
“To me that’s sacred ground,” said Zavala, an organizer with Unión del Barrio.
“I’m a dad,” he said. “I wanted to be there to support the youth.”
He was among the Boyle Heights residents who converged on the hospital and stayed in a standoff with federal immigration agents into the early hours of Saturday. Agents detained at least two people, according to rapid response groups.
Neighbors alerted each other with noisemakers and fireworks. A woman pounded her pots and pans. Teenagers ran across Mariachi Plaza, shouting that ICE was in the area and urging residents to lock their doors.
“Even though we’re afraid, you know we’re still showing up,” said Myra Vasquez, a Boyle Heights resident who rushed to White Memorial after hearing reports of ICE in the area. “We’re not going to allow them to just come into our communities and terrorize us because they’re the real terrorists causing harm.”
The confrontation peaked around 11:30 p.m. Video shared with Boyle Heights Beat shows agents pushing back protesters who had moved toward them, and the two sides begin shoving. Agents appear to pepper-spray people on the sidewalk. One agent then tackles a man and pins him to the ground, while a second person is pulled from the crowd. Both were detained.
The standoff continued past midnight. Zavala said agents got out of their vehicles and formed a line in front of the parking lot where paramedics enter, blocking an emergency exit. “They literally became White Memorial’s private security detail,” he said. Zavala said he and another person were sprayed with Mace.
The Dept. of Homeland Security declined to comment about the incident in Boyle Heights, and, in a statement, the agency said they would “not disclose or discuss law enforcement operations.”
The spokesperson instead said that obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime.
“ICE does not target hospitals, schools, or churches,” the statement said, despite the large turnout of protesters who encountered the masked agents at the hospital.
Father Brendan Busse, who pastors nearby Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, rushed to White Memorial after seeing reports from the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network of ICE at the hospital.
Busse, a Jesuit priest, said he witnessed people caring for each other and tending to those suffering from pepper spray. People there advocated for them to find treatment at White Memorial, Busse said. Community members, he said, “were obviously doing their best, not just to communicate their feelings, but to push, to instigate the dispersal of this ICE presence.”
As clergy, Busse said their presence can help combat a narrative of those advocating for immigrants as “somehow dangerous, or violent, or vulgar.”
“Just to be there is a sign that that’s not the only version of what this looks like,” he said.
Initially, Busse showed up wearing a hoodie, but he decided to change into his green stole he had in his car as things appeared to get tense. “Just try to do what I could to bring a presence of maybe a little moral authority,” he said.
“It’s bad enough that people have to lift up their voices to say something so obvious, that their lives matter, that our communities are sacred, that families belong together,” Busse said. “It’s bad enough that they have to be out at 3 a.m. in the morning to tell anybody that.”
“It’s even worse if they would have to suffer the consequences of retribution and violence that comes from speaking out in that way,” Busse added.
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