Libby Rainey
has been reporting on L.A.'s preparations for World Cup games this year.
Published February 13, 2026 8:52 AM
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood is the Los Angeles venue for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
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Topline:
The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week addressed growing questions about the presence of ICE agents during World Cup games hosted in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities this summer.
What he said: At a congressional hearing, Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said that ICE would play a key role in security for the tournament — but it's investigatory, not enforcement branch.
Why now? Observers concerned about the combination of millions of international visitors and stepped up immigration enforcement in L.A. and other host cities, also point out that host cities have not released required human rights action plans.
Read on... for what we know about the report and why advocates are worried.
The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week addressed growing questions about the presence of ICE agents during World Cup games hosted in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities this summer.
Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said at a congressional hearing that ICE will play a key role in security for the tournament. But he said it would be ICE’s investigatory branch — not it's enforcement division.
The answer did not satisfy Congressmember Nellie Pou (D-NJ) of New Jersey. Pou asked Lyons to publicly commit to ICE pausing operations at FIFA matches and related public events.
"You realize that if they feel that they're going to be wrongfully incarcerated or wrongfully pulled out," Pou said of potential World Cup visitors. "That's going to hurt this entire process."
Lyons responded: "ICE is dedicated to ensuring that everyone that visits the facilities will have a safe and secure event."
Why it matters
The exchange laid bare growing concerns from some lawmakers and community groups about the combination of millions of international visitors coming to the soccer spectacle and aggressive immigration enforcement in L.A. and other host cities.
Kathryn Schloessman, L.A. host committee head, called the matter "above my pay grade" when asked to address concerns about potential ICE activity at FIFA's fan festival, which is scheduled for June 11 to 15.
" We are working very closely with our public safety and security partners," Schloessman told LAist. "That's their job to make sure we're delivering a safe and secure event."
Every host city committee including Los Angeles is supposed to release a "human rights action plan" ahead of the games. Those plans should outline how the host city is planning to protect freedom of expression and handle security and workers' rights.
But those plans have not yet been finalized and made public, less than five month out. That has some critics ringing an alarm.
" It's a very poor report card on turning in your homework for Los Angeles and all other host cities," said Minky Worden with Human Rights Watch.
FIFA declined to comment on the status of the local reports. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles World Cup 2026 Host Committee said that the L.A. action plan is under review with community stakeholders.
What we know about World Cup security
The World Cup will be staged across Mexico, Canada and eleven U.S. cities including Los Angeles, where eight matches will take place at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The tournament is expected to attract up to 7 million international visitors to the U.S., and the federal government has allocated $625 million in funding for security tied to the event.
At a briefing in December, Andrew Giuliani, the executive director for the White House's World Cup task force, told reporters that the Department of Homeland Security is "coordinating daily" with host cities on security for fan zones, stadiums and base camps — where athletes will train throughout the tournament.
Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Todd Lyons testifies during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Feb. 10, 2026 in Washington, DC.
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What we know about ICE's role in security
Lyons, the ICE leader who addressed Congress this week, said it would be the agency's Homeland Security Investigations that would take on a key role. That's the department's criminal investigation unit, which is separate from its "Enforcement and Removal Operations" branch that has been conducting escalated immigration sweeps across Los Angeles — and the nation — since June.
That said, the federal government has not promised that immigration enforcement will stay away from the tournament.
“International visitors who legally come to the United States for the World Cup have nothing to worry about," Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security spokesperson, told the Athletic. "What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is whether or not they are illegally in the U.S. — full stop.”
DHS did not respond to LAist's requests for more information on the role ICE specifically will play in World Cup security.
Human rights concerns
These open questions and the ongoing immigration raids have alarmed human rights advocates. A group of leading advocacy organizations in December called on FIFA and local host cities to commit to "ensuring effective protections against racial profiling, arbitrary detention, and unlawful immigration enforcement during the tournament."
Jamil Dakwar, the ACLU's human rights director, pointed to the deployment of the National Guard in cities including Los Angeles last year.
“The Trump administration has aggressively pursued a systematic anti-human rights campaign to target, detain, and disappear immigrants in communities across the US," he said in a statement. "We call on FIFA to honor its human rights commitments, not capitulate to Trump’s authoritarianism.”
FIFA put out a Human Rights framework for the coming World Cup in 2024. That guide, outlining a focus on inclusivity, workers rights, and a grievance procedure for human rights concerns, is intended to be a structure for each host city's own human rights action plan.
Details about the games in L.A.
L.A. will be the first U.S. city to host a World Cup match. The U.S. Men's National Team will play its first game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on June 12, with a 6 p.m. kickoff.
Makenna Cramer
covers the daily drumbeat of Southern California — events, processes and nuances making it a unique place to call home.
Published April 29, 2026 5:01 PM
Workers repair potholes and skim a large portion of street in Los Angeles on Jan. 13.
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Topline:
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, had a makeover last year, but since then, some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems. City officials say they're working to make fixes.
Why now: Councilmembers Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues concerning the system’s overall functionality and accountability. The City Council approved that motion Wednesday.
Why it matters: “Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during the council meeting.
The backstory: MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
What's next: The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, got a makeover last year, but since then some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems.
The city has received “numerous complaints” about the updated website and app, including issues with GPS and logging work, according to officials.
MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
Staffers within the city’s Department of Public Works have said they’ve been frustrated by the rollout, according to city officials. They say it now takes longer to add their responses to service requests, and the city can’t record completed work that doesn’t have a service request connected to it.
City Council members Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues, saying they’ve caused concerns about the system’s overall functionality and accountability.
“Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during Wednesday’s council meeting.
The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
It was approved in a 12-0 vote Wednesday. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Eunisses Hernandez and Adrin Nazarian were absent.
How we got here
Bass announced the launch of the new MyLA311 last year, saying the previous website and app were outdated and had lasted years past their lifecycle.
In a 2023 directive, she’d called for the system to be modernized with the goal of providing better customer service and communication about the status of residents’ requests.
“This new and improved way to request and receive city services is another example of how we are breaking away from the old way of doing things to make our neighborhoods cleaner and safer,” Bass said in a March 2025 statement.
But some people say the new system is falling short.
The Sylmar Neighborhood Council agreed the system needs improvements, writing in a community impact statement that MyLA311 fails to serve L.A. taxpayers effectively if it’s difficult to use or inaccurate.
In public comments, some residents cited “major issues” with the system, including GPS and location accuracy, invalid addresses and missing or incomplete service categories. One commenter wrote that addresses were being routed to other areas, some of them outside the city.
“As a result, they frequently lead to confusion in the field, delays in response and, in some cases, requests going unaddressed due to the difficulty in locating the reported issue or misdirection caused by inaccurate data,” the commenter said.
What’s ahead
The City Council approved several instructions aimed at improving MyLA311, including the following:
Public Works is expected to report back on its issues with the system.
The city’s Information Technology Agency is expected to report on system performance, including operational issues, and provide solutions as needed.
Public Works and IT are expected to provide quarterly reports on service request data, including backlogs, average response times and requests received and closed.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
How we got here: Until now these individuals have been accorded temporary legal status because their safety is imperiled by war or natural disasters in their home countries. Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Trump, however, is trying to end it. On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either.
Read on . . . for more on today's court proceedings.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Donald Trump, however, is trying to end it.
On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either. Pressed by the court's three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.
"None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That's your position?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"Correct," responded Sauer.
"What you're basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose," Sotomayor said.
Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn't do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: "Wasn't that baseball game last night great!"
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?
To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: "Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a 'filthy, dirty, and disgusting s--thole country.' I'm quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don't see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision."
Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, "So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren't allowed to look at all the context."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration's position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.
Sauer appeared to concede the point.
Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration's review as "a sham."
"The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president's racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular," Pipoly said. "The secretary herself described people from Haiti" and from other non-white countries as "killers, leeches, saying, 'We don't want them, not one,'" while "simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans."
That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, "Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?"
An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.
"How about southern Italians?" Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Responded Pipoly: "Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time."
At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court's 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.
Copyright 2026 NPR
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Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published April 29, 2026 4:14 PM
Artemis the German Shepherd is the last dog from Eaton Fire at Pasadena Humane to get adopted.
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Topline:
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Why it matters: The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the first broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
The backstory: Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
"The silver lining to all of that is — with all this tragedy — this incredible story of hope where we were able to help foster these animals we’re returning home," said Sarie Hooker, communications manager at Pasadena Humane.
During his stay at Pasadena Humane, the cream-color pup won over many hearts.
"He's just such a striking boy. He's got this really fun, loving personality. He's very regal," Hooker said.
Hooker said Artemis was adopted by a family through the shelter's foster-to-adopt program.
"He just did amazingly. And the next thing we knew, he was adopted," Hooker said. "So it's a happy story."
Artemis says hello to a new family.
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Courtesy Pasadena Humane
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The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the fire broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
By the second week of the fire, the shelter had taken in some 600 pets, Hooker said.
" In totality, we were able to help with thousands of animals specifically for emergency boarding," Hooker said, including every kind of pet you can think of, as well as wild animals.
" We were seeing skunks, squirrels, hawks, owls, peacocks, raccoons, possums," she said.
Artemis isn't just the last dog to find a home — or return home — from the Eaton Fire.
He is the last animal.
" Artemis was our final, final animal — like dog, cat, critter. Anything else under the sun. He was the last boy. So we're very happy," she said.
Mariana Dale
reports on K-12 education, including how students exercise their civic power.
Published April 29, 2026 2:31 PM
People gathered in downtown L.A. for May Day in 2025.
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Topline:
Southern California and national organizers are calling on communities to abstain from work, school and shopping Friday in recognition of May Day.
The backstory: May Day started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
What's new: This year’s “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens. “ Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
Find a rally: What’s typically the region’s largest May Day gathering starts Friday morning at MacArthur Park, and events are planned throughout the region.
The “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens.
“Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
The organization is one of more than 100 involved in planning a Los Angeles May Day rally with the theme, “solo el pueblo shuts it down: no school, no work, no shopping.”
“Starting there really sends a message that we're here,” said Kristal Romero, press secretary for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “We're standing with this community, and if you take on one of us, you take on all of us.”
May Day’s history in LA
May Day, sometimes called International Workers' Day, started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
Romero said the Federation has offered training on de-escalation, conflict resolution and non-violent protests and that hundreds of people will act as “peacekeepers” during Friday’s rally and march.
“ A lot of times, folks can get caught in echo chambers and it may really feel hopeless,” Romero said. “The big point of these events is to inspire hope to show people we're all here, we're all fighting for the same thing.”
