The Brief

Recent immigration raids carried out by the Trump administration across Southern California have routinely violated detainees’ constitutional rights, according to allegations in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the federal government.

The lawsuit was brought by five workers who’ve been detained and four community organizations that focus on immigrant and worker rights. They allege federal agents have disregarded Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure and Fifth Amendment rights guaranteeing access to an attorney.

Attorneys for the workers say they hope the case will become a class action.

Mohammad Tajsar, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said at a news conference that his clients want a judge to stop federal agents from continuing to arrest people based solely on the color of their skin.

“Armed, masked goons in unmarked cars have descended in our communities and have stopped and rounded people up from all walks of life, often at gunpoint and without any justification,” Tajsar said. “To them, if you are brown, they will hunt you down. To them, if you have dark skin, they will take you in.”

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security told LAist that federal immigration agents are not racially profiling people for arrest and are not holding detainees in substandard conditions.

Detainment conditions called ‘deplorable’

The lawsuit alleges the government is holding hundreds of people in the basement of a downtown L.A. federal building that lacks beds, showers and medical facilities. The suit also claims that detainees are being held in cramped, windowless rooms where they often cannot sit or lie down.

Alvaro Huerta, an attorney with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said his firm “has attempted to get a hold of people who are being held at the basement of the federal building downtown… and we have been denied access to those people.”

Tricia McLaughlin, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, said in an email to LAist that federal agents do their due diligence when conducting immigration enforcement, and they are “highly targeted.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members,” McLaughlin said.

Her husband went to work and never came back

Maria, the wife of a man arrested by federal agents while he was working at a car wash in Pomona, said medical care has been inadequate for her husband. She said he wasn’t given his diabetes medication when he was first detained.

“They just barely gave it to him after two weeks,” said Maria, who asked that her full name not be used because she is concerned about her personal safety. “He's there, holding on.”

Maria says her husband was arrested by federal immigration officials while working at a car wash in Pomona.

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Maria said she doesn’t know why her husband was singled out for arrest.

“He's not a criminal,” she said. “He just went out to provide for his family. And you never think that these things would happen to your family, until it does.

“It's heartbreaking,” she continued. “My grandkids asked for him, and I just don't know what to tell them.”

What the plaintiffs hope to achieve

The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to certify this case as a class action lawsuit, covering all people subject to "suspicionless" stops and warrantless arrests by unidentifiable federal agents.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, said her group and the other plaintiffs hope to be in court within days. She said they plan to ask the judge to issue a temporary restraining order barring the federal government from arresting people without probable cause or holding detainees without access to a lawyer.

“Our community is asserting their rights, and ICE and all of these federal agents don't care,” Salas said. “It's super simple. Follow the Constitution.”

It is the final hoorah for the 119th Congress. Republicans have just weeks left in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The main thing on the agenda: keeping the federal government open. Funding is set to run out on December 11, when a stop-gap measure passed about a month ahead of the midterms expires.

Any funding extension is all but certain to be done through another short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution. The typical government funding process — 12 carefully negotiated appropriations bills — would take time and political will that lawmakers currently lack.

Congress will also need to find a path forward on the National Defense Authorization Act, long considered a must-pass annual military funding package. This year, the bill is quagmired in the unforgiving politics of the Iran war. The conflict is opposed by a majority of Americans — something President Trump has acknowledged was a key force in driving his party out of power.

The House is also likely to vote on an impeachment effort targeting Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Introduced by Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a key figure in forcing the administration's release of the Epstein files, the impeachment measure lists a number of charges, including that the administration failed to properly consult Congress on the military campaign.

Democrats are unlikely to be in a compromising mood on legislation, just weeks away from taking control of both chambers. That means continued work on big-ticket items like the Protect College Sports Act, meant to introduce new regulations around college athlete compensation, and a bipartisan energy permitting overhaul will likely wait until the new term.

With slim majorities in both chambers, they could also have to contend with some attendance problems after a demoralizing performance in last week's midterm elections. That further complicates passing legislation through chambers already governed by the thinnest of majorities.

Mike Ricci, a Republican strategist with the group Seven Letter and aide to former Speakers of the House John Boehner and Paul Ryan, told NPR that a number of forces could help draw reluctant lame duck legislators back to Washington, including winding down their offices, finding new work and attending the White House Christmas party.

Copyright 2026 NPR

As he campaigned for California governor, Xavier Becerra reflected on the way his Catholic upbringing informs his politics. “The sanctity of life is something that’s really ingrained in you,” the Democrat and former U.S. health and human services secretary said earlier this year.

He then explained his rationale, confounding to some, for supporting abortion rights. Becerra exemplifies how Catholicism’s deep roots often go hand in hand with California’s progressive reputation. That complexity is a snapshot of a larger reality — that American Catholics are in many ways a politically mixed bag.

“There is no Catholic vote,” said David Gibson, the director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture. White evangelicals for Republicans or Black Protestants for Democrats are more politically reliable religious groups, he said.

With Becerra’s win this week, California has elected five consecutive Catholic governors — a remarkable streak indicative of Catholicism’s enduring influence. “Catholicism is part of the fabric of California culture the way Puritan Protestantism is part of the New England regions,” Gibson said.

Catholic voters — especially Latinos — helped elect Becerra, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters. He became the state’s first elected Latino governor.

Beginning with Gray Davis, who took office in 1999, four of those five governors also have been Democrats. Some have been more vocal about their faith than others — notably Jerry Brown, who was a seminarian in the 1950s.

California is home to more Catholics than any other U.S. state. A Pew Research Center poll in 2024 found that 25% of adults in California identify as Catholic, accounting for almost half of the state’s Christians.

But numbers aside, Catholicism has been woven into the fabric of the state for centuries.

California Catholics are politically diverse

From economically progressive strains of Catholic social teaching and explicit rejections of the death penalty to official teachings against abortion and in vitro fertilization, Catholic theology rarely fits neatly into political categories, which helps explain the unpredictable voting habits.

Take Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose strong support of abortion rights is at odds with Catholic leadership. Yet his announcement this week that he planned to change more than 500 death sentences in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole was celebrated by the California Catholic Conference, the public policy organization representing the church in California.

“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom said in a public letter.

Some leaders within the church have subverted Trump administration policies, like San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas, who last year formally excused parishioners from their weekly obligation to attend Mass following immigration detentions on parish properties in the diocese.

Others have taken high-profile conservative stances, like San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who in 2022 barred U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, from receiving Communion over her support of abortion rights.

About 2 in 10 voters in the California governor’s race were Catholic, and they mostly voted for Becerra, according to The AP Voter Poll. About 6 in 10 Catholic voters supported Becerra, while about 4 in 10 voted for his Republican opponent Steve Hilton.

About 7 in 10 Latino Catholics voted for Becerra, while white Catholics were split between Becerra and Hilton.

Those complex political patterns are also reflected nationally. Catholics were split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

That’s a modest shift from 2024, when just over half of U.S. Catholics voted for Trump, according to AP VoteCast.

California Catholics are ethnically diverse

Catholics in California are also ethnically diverse. Many are immigrants from Latin America and the Philippines. Resident Tracy Creighton’s ancestry goes back to the missions founded more than two centuries ago by Spanish Franciscan priests.

As the mother of teenagers, Creighton has sought to pass on the importance of serving others and respecting nature — values she believes are both deeply Catholic and Californian.

“I feel in the last several years we have lost our way in terms of being of service to others,” she said, citing Saint Francis of Assisi as a model. “That is why I stay Catholic.”

Catholic faith, history and culture contribute to many Californians’ understanding of themselves, such as their relationship to the 21 missions founded between 1769 and 1823.

“Obviously, the legacy of the missions is a mixed one and has problematic implications,” said Cecilia González-Andrieu, a theology professor at Loyola Marymount University. “For Latina theologians like myself, there’s a need for us to be able to hold that in tension, the fact that within our very selves we have this mix of cultures and bloods.”

Leaders are increasingly reckoning with that tension and how it should be communicated to young people. The history of the missions is included in the statewide public fourth-grade curriculum, which is often accompanied by a field trip to one.

A law signed by Newsom went into effect last year that requires schools to teach in social studies class about how missionaries mistreated Native Americans, and to share Native perspectives.

But mistreatment isn’t the only fraught legacy of the missionaries who arrived in the late 18th century.

“The mission system spread disease and was ill-equipped to deal with the immunological effects of old-world people and their immunities,” said William Deverell, a historian at the University of Southern California. “It’s your major consequential institutional moment which brings with it a horrible demographic decline of the Indigenous population.”

California Catholicism is about more than faith

Despite their complicated legacy, the missions are landmarks. Many still operate as Catholic parishes.

The missions also helped influence the Spanish Colonial Revival style of homes that became signatures of California architecture. “Why I love California so much is the architecture and the beauty of it. And I think Catholicism plays a lot into that,” Creighton said.

Creighton says it’s difficult to overstate the significance of Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside, near San Diego, where she lives.

“Everyone does their homecoming pictures, their Christmas pictures. It’s just ingrained in us,” she said, adding that even non-Catholics will often take photos there. “It’s a landmark that’s important in who we are here.”

Beyond architecture, Catholic influence is all over many California homes.

Between the crucifixes and votive candles on display, Brian Murillo’s Fresno home is a testament to his Catholic upbringing. The state employee describes himself as a lapsed Catholic who stopped going to Mass because he felt the American church’s leadership was too aligned with Republican politics.

But Murillo, whose father is from Mexico, still says a Hail Mary or an Our Father prayer whenever he leaves the house.

“Sometimes I’ll be cleaning the house and I’ll be doing a prayer or in the car by myself,” he said. “It’s been such a part of my growing up, even to this day.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

In the home-stretch of the L.A. mayor’s race, Mayor Karen Bass and her former ally-turned-challenger Nithya Raman met for the only televised debate of the campaign.

They traded jabs over public safety, homelessness and other core issues for Angelenos. But one dig was particularly eyebrow-raising. It came toward the end of the debate, when Bass chided Raman for her support from bike lane advocates.

“There’s very influential people who are supporting your campaign who are very, very much advocates for bike lanes,” Bass, who conceded the race Thursday, said in the Oct. 13 debate hosted by NBCLA and Telemundo.

“Um, yes,” Mayor-elect Raman can be heard quietly saying as one of the moderators tries to move the conversation along.

While it represented just a moment in the race, the brief exchange encapsulated what was at stake for public transit and bike champions: Maintain the status quo with the current mayor, or take a chance on a candidate who made improving transportation and mobility across L.A. a centerpiece of her campaign.

Since the race was called for Raman by the Associated Press, public transit supporters have been cheering her win.

“I’m just on Cloud 9 right now,” said Jonathan Hale, street safety activist and founder of the grassroots group People’s Vision Zero.

 ”It is time for a cultural shift towards a city that prioritizes pedestrians and cyclists and people who take public transit,” Hale added. “We finally have a mayor who believes that.”

It’s not just bike lanes. Raman’s successful campaign hinged on a policy platform that viewed broken sidewalks, streetlights in disrepair and pothole-ridden roads not as intractable issues, but urgent crises that can be addressed with better governance.

Raman, who has said she used trains and buses to commute to work in the past, also has her eyes on L.A.’s larger transportation network. On election eve, while riding the L.A. Metro B Line with supporters, Raman said the region can buck its car-centric reputation and be home to a fast, safe and connected transit system.

“That vision is totally achievable, if you have the will. I have the will,” Raman said.

The will of the people meets political will

For years, L.A. voters have signaled their support for better public transit and improved mobility.

More than 70% of L.A. city residents voted in favor of countywide sales tax measures in 2008 and 2016 to fund transportation projects, which have resulted in transit projects like the first section of the D Line extension.

In 2024, two-thirds of voters passed Measure HLA requiring bike, pedestrian and transit improvements throughout L.A.

Streets for All, the influential transportation advocacy group that put up Measure HLA, has supported Raman throughout her political career. Its political action committee buoyed the mayor-elect’s run with nearly $1.7 million in ad spending opposing Bass, according to campaign finance filings.

Its founder and chief executive officer, Michael Schneider, said Raman’s victory further solidifies the sense that Angelenos want to see their built environment improve.

“It's a mainstream moment for safe streets advocacy,” Schneider said.

In her policy platform, Raman promised to “fast track safety improvements by delivering on HLA.” Progress on the voter-approved initiative has been slow and the subject of ongoing legal battles.

Damian Kevitt, the executive director of the street safety nonprofit Streets Are For Everyone, is also optimistic. Kevitt said the nonprofit tried its best to engage Bass and “multiple council members” on the issue of traffic violence, which, in recent years, has killed more Angelenos than homicides.

“Raman's office was one of the few that engaged,” Kevitt said. “Time will tell, but we think that the future looks brighter.”

Raman has said she wants to create a Vision Zero director in the mayor’s office to “make safety the governing lens for every decision made related to our streets.” In 2015, then-Mayor Eric Garcetti adopted a policy framework known as Vision Zero to zero out traffic deaths by 2025.

Now that Raman’s been elected mayor, the future of a contentious road project near Griffith Park could shift. The project emerged as a flashpoint about street safety during the campaign. Raman had pushed for a long-studied lane reduction plan along Forest Lawn Drive. Bass canned that proposal just a few months before the project’s groundbreaking and adopted a design to widen the roadway’s lanes instead.

Reinstating her vision for Forest Lawn Drive will require Raman to work with her colleagues on L.A. City Council, nearly all of whom endorsed Bass in the mayoral election. Most have said they’re ready to work with her. 

A powerful voice on Metro’s board 

The mayor of L.A. has a dedicated seat on the 13-person Metro Board and can appoint three of its members. That accounts for roughly a third of the voting power on the powerful body that makes countywide transportation planning decisions. The rest of the board is made up of all five L.A. County supervisors and non-L.A. city representatives.

Nick Andert, a documentary filmmaker and transit advocate YouTuber, said he wants to see Raman appoint people who use Metro “at least from time to time” and also someone with relevant expertise to transit planning.

Bass' current appointments include the founding member of a faith-based development group in South L.A., Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker, as well as L.A. City Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Imelda Padilla. When Raman joins the board in December, she’ll have the power to change those appointments.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the mayor’s appointees often vote as a bloc. She said disagreements with the L.A. mayor often mean disagreeing with “potentially four votes on the board,” as was the case earlier this year during deliberations over how to extend a Metro rail line into West Hollywood.

Horvath, who endorsed Raman for mayor in October, said she’s looking forward to working with someone who has demonstrated interest in transit. She pointed to Raman’s support of projects like the Sepulveda Transit Corridor and K-Line Northern Extension, and making day-to-day operations of the transit system more reliable.

“Raman has really listened to what people are looking for,” Horvath said. “If we listen to our riders more and make those improvements, those are the things that help bring people into the system.”

The mayor-elect has signaled her support for extending Metro’s operations later into the night, a proposal that Cassy Horton, co-founder of the Downtown L.A. Residents Association, hopes materializes.

“Downtown is a nightlife hub,” Horton said. “It would be a huge game changer, probably reviving nightlife, if trains were running until bars and restaurants close.”

In a statement, Metro congratulated Raman on her victory.

“We look forward to welcoming her to the Board,” Metro said, adding its gratitude to Bass for making Metro a “safer, more welcoming and equitable agency.”

Workers repair potholes and skim a large portion of street in Los Angeles on Jan. 13, 2026.

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Quick-turn improvements promised in Raman’s first 100 days

As the incoming mayor, Raman will lead city departments that impact transportation and mobility. In her first 100 days in office, Raman has pledged to begin addressing urgent road repairs and potholes. She also said she’ll make public when broken streetlights in the city will be fixed.

“ I love the fact that Nithya Raman has built her agenda on making cities work from the sidewalks up,” said Hilary Norton, executive director of FastLink DTLA.

Norton said cities are successful when residents, including those with disabilities, can travel through local infrastructure with ease.

“ We meet on the sidewalks and we travel together and we interact together, we're bringing our democracy back,” Norton said.

It's been a feature of campaign ads and stump speeches for months: grocery prices are out of control.

Affordability concerns, including high food costs, were top of mind for voters heading into the midterms, as the Trump administration's tariffs and the war in Iran continued to drive up prices. That economic strain helped Democrats win control of both houses of Congress on Tuesday.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the incoming majority would make tackling high prices a priority come January. "It was a tremendous victory for the American people and a strong rebuke of MAGA extremism, which has made life more expensive for everyday Americans despite their promises to lower the high cost of living on day one," he told NPR on Friday.

The question is how Democrats will do that with President Trump still in the Oval Office, willing to wield his veto pen. Senate Democrats won't have a filibuster-proof majority, and Trump may have little appetite to roll back his signature tariffs or reverse course on the Iran war, two of the main causes of high food prices.

Lael Brainard, who leads a public policy group called The Kitchen Table Project, said Americans are nevertheless expecting relief from Washington — and quickly.

"They are feeling like they are getting squeezed by high prices that don't need to be that high," she said.

What Democrats plan to do to lower food prices

Despite the political hurdles, Democrats said they intend to move ahead with plans to cut grocery bills, including by rolling back Trump's tariffs. Those tariffs have not only raised the cost of certain foods and drinks imported to the U.S., but also created other pressures on the food industry by making it more expensive to import things like machine parts and packaging.

The Iran war has led to a surge in energy prices, which has made it more expensive to transport just about everything. Fertilizer costs also grew when the closure of the Strait of Hormuz cut off a significant portion of the global fertilizer trade.

But getting Trump to backtrack on tariffs or the Iran war — or his immigration crackdown, which has led to labor shortages on U.S. farms — could prove tricky for Democrats.

"I think the president would certainly want to find ways to reduce the cost of groceries. Democrats [also] see that in their interest," said Lehigh University political science professor Chris Borick. "The mechanisms, the tools, the levers that would be most readily available to do that — there's quite a bit of distance between the president and Democrats that'll be taking over both the House and the Senate."

Several incoming Democratic senators also floated other proposals during their campaigns that aim to make groceries more affordable.

James Talarico of Texas said he would push back against "attacks" on the federal food assistance programs WIC and SNAP, the latter of which is undergoing a major overhaul by the Trump administration and has seen a precipitous drop in participation since last summer. Kansas' Adam Hamilton announced his support for a national ban on "dynamic pricing" in grocery stores. And multiple candidates, including Roy Cooper of North Carolina, vowed to block food industry mergers they say would raise consumer prices.

Democratic governors take a piece of the affordability pie

Beyond the blue wave in Congress, Democrats also made gains in state capitals across the U.S. on Tuesday. At least 28 states will have Democratic governors beginning next year, and ten state legislative chambers flipped to Democrats, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Incoming state governors have floated their own ideas for how to give residents relief in the grocery aisle.

Keisha Lance Bottoms proposed allowing municipalities in Georgia to suspend or fully eliminate their local sales tax on groceries, baby formula, diapers and more. Gina Hinojosa, the governor-elect of Texas, promised to outlaw "predatory surveillance pricing" and price gouging in grocery stores. In New Mexico, Deb Haaland said the state would explore a policy similar to one in Albuquerque that temporarily waives permitting fees for markets that sell healthy and affordable food in so-called "food deserts," the Albuquerque Journal reported.

However state and federal officials decide to go about lowering prices, Americans say they want to see cheaper groceries soon. According to a poll released by the Kitchen Table Project and Global Strategy Group in September, nearly half of respondents said their most important goal was seeing their grocery bills lowered within six months.
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