The Brief

There’s nothing grand about Santa Ana Immigration Court. Tucked in the corner of an office park between two county health agencies, you’d hardly know it was there. Which is why a group of volunteer court observers shows up on a daily basis — to keep tabs on immigration policies that seem to change by the week, and to channel resources to people facing deportation.

“People feel comforted by just seeing us there, especially that we are people of faith,” said Jennifer Coria, who coordinates the immigration court observer program for the group Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or CLUE. Observers come from churches and other religious entities across Orange County and L.A. They're encouraged to wear something that signals their faith, or, if they’re clergy, to show up in religious attire.

“We want the judges to know that we are coming from a faith community and they see that there's moral presence in these spaces,” Coria said.

Why now?

The immigration court observer program is among dozens of grassroots efforts that have popped up around Southern California and across the country in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Other groups are patrolling neighborhoods to alert residents of ICE raids, delivering food boxes to immigrant families scared to leave their homes, and posting up at Home Depots to accompany day laborers who have been a frequent target of the raids.

LAist recently spent a morning inside Santa Ana Immigration Court with a group of observers to get a peek into the legal side of the federal deportation campaign. After President Donald Trump’s first full year in office, his administration continues its rapid pace of removals, in fulfillment of his campaign promises.

In an email to LAist, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said more than 700,000 immigrants had been arrested under Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, 70% of them with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the U.S. That statistic doesn't account for those wanted in their home countries for suspected crimes, the spokesperson added.

LAist has requested clarification on the government’s figures, which contrasts with other sources. For example, the Deportation Data Project estimates that the Trump administration deported fewer than 300,000 from the interior of the country during its first year, not counting immigrants caught or turned away at the border. The project is run largely by a group of law professors and lawyers who publish reports based on government datasets.

Why it matters

In immigration court, the administration’s deportation campaign has meant faster proceedings, and fewer immigrants allowed to remain in the United States, according to data maintained by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a project of Syracuse University. The data also shows that less than 2% of new deportation cases filed in 2026 allege that the person was involved in criminal activity beyond entering the country illegally.

The court observers in Santa Ana aren’t there to protest inside courtrooms or try to block deportation orders. But they say they’ll keep showing up to offer pro bono legal resources and, at the least, moral support for vulnerable members of their community.

“They're my neighbors. It's like, why wouldn't I defend them?” said Diedre Gaffney, one of the court observers.

Immigration court is an administrative court within the Department of Justice.

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A day in immigration court

For court observers, the morning starts in the lobby, scanning a wall of electronic displays with the day’s docket. They usually look for courtrooms holding what’s known as master calendar hearings — rapid-fire, preliminary hearings that can have life-changing outcomes for people fighting deportation or seeking asylum.

The observers are familiar with the judges by now, and know which ones might not welcome their presence. Members of the public are generally allowed to attend immigration court hearings. But judges can close hearings or limit attendance at their discretion.

After a brief discussion, the observers decided to head to Judge Wilbur Lee’s courtroom. The room is small and sparse. A flag stands in one corner. A big screen for virtual appearances takes up the other.

The judge sits behind a computer monitor at the front of the room, flanked by a copy machine and a Spanish language interpreter.

Lee had more than 20 cases on his docket for the morning. Some people were seeking asylum; others hoped to adjust their status, which provides a pathway to legal residency, for example, for immigrants who have married a U.S. citizen. Most of the hearings lasted only a few minutes, either postponed to another date, or scheduled for a subsequent hearing. Sometimes language, and the lack of an interpreter, delayed the hearing — there was a Nicaraguan man who spoke only Miskito, an indigenous language, and another from Kazakhstan who spoke Kazakh.

Respondents — that’s the official term for people facing immigration proceedings — had traveled, or video-conferenced in, from Irvine, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Riverside, San Fernando, Eastvale and Rialto.

One of the court observers spotted something new in the courtroom that day: a bright blue flyer on the desk where respondents sit to answer questions from the judge. It read, in all caps, “MESSAGE TO ILLEGAL ALIENS: A WARNING TO SELF-DEPORT.”

The flyer, which was also posted in the courtroom lobby, laid out benefits (“leave on your own terms,”) and consequences (“immediate deportation,” “no opportunity to get your affairs in order”) of taking or not taking the government’s advice. A QR code on the flyer led to a website for the government’s self-deportation incentive program, which includes a bonus for immigrants who choose to self-deport. The amount was upped in January from $1,000 to $2,600. Some news outlets have reported problems with the program, including people not receiving the promised bonus once back in their home country.

The observers’ evolving mission

The fliers are the latest example of how quickly policies and procedures are changing, often without warning, adding to the dizzying nature of the proceedings.

Last summer, when the Trump administration began its crackdown in earnest, ICE officers would often sit inside, or just outside courtrooms, and take people into custody as soon as their case was dismissed. At the time, the court observers concentrated on getting personal information from the detainees so they could contact their families and help them locate their loved ones in ICE facilities.

These days, observers say they haven’t seen ICE agents in courtrooms since the fall. So the observers’ mission has shifted to trying to get legal representation for people facing deportation proceedings without a lawyer.

About half the people facing deportation proceedings in California do not have a lawyer, according to data compiled by TRAC at Syracuse University. Without a lawyer, respondents are more than three times more likely to face a deportation order than those who have one, according to the data. By law, there is no requirement to provide legal representation.

Now, when the volunteer court observers notice that a respondent is facing the judge alone, they follow them out of the courtroom and text or hand them a list of pro bono attorneys — often with an explanation aided by Google translate, or a few memorized lines in Spanish.

“I tell them to call everyone on the list,” said Erin Moncure, a court observer from Lake Forest, noting that immigration lawyers are overwhelmed with the onslaught of cases over the past year.

Moncure, who doesn’t speak Spanish, said she’s nevertheless talked to hundreds of strangers at immigration court to try and connect them with pro bono attorneys. Often she asks for their cell phone number so she can text them a list.

“There really is no reason for them to trust me,” she said. “That’s how desperate people are.”

Rapidly changing policies

The new flyer in immigration courtrooms urging people to self-deport is just one of many changes court observers have noted since they’ve been attending immigration hearings in Santa Ana over the past six months.

Now, rather than detaining people at courthouses, the Trump administration is focusing on other ways to speed up deportation. One of them is by increasingly sending asylum seekers already in the U.S. to third-party countries to seek asylum there instead. The first Trump administration signed deals in 2019 with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to re-route people seeking asylum in the U.S. to those countries.

The Biden administration ended these agreements, and Trump reinstated them again last year. He’s also made new agreements with other countries to take asylum seekers and deportees, including with Ecuador, Paraguay, Belize and Uganda. In DHS’s statement to LAist, a spokesperson wrote that the third country agreements “ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution” and “ are essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people.”

Government attorneys and immigration judges are facing increasing pressure to use this option to cut off asylum cases early in the process, said Blaine Bookey,  legal director at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Law San Francisco. Many of the cases on Lee’s morning docket involved a request from the DHS lawyer to remove the person to a country other than the one they had left to come to the U.S.

What this actually means

In one case, a woman and her teenage daughter were seeking asylum after they said their lives were threatened in Guatemala stemming from their relatives’ involvement in local politics.

They hadn’t yet had a chance to plead their asylum case to remain in the U.S. when the judge began to ask them hard questions: if they feared returning to Guatemala, what about being sent instead to Honduras? The women seemed caught off guard.

Ultimately, the judge determined that the two didn’t have a legally valid fear of being sent to Honduras, and ordered them deported there to seek asylum.

The DHS spokesperson told LAist that ending cases before they have a hearing, called pretermission, “is nothing new or unusual” and that the mechanism prevents prolonged custody for immigrants who have been detained while they await the outcome of their legal case.

"We are applying the law as written,” the spokesperson wrote. “If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period. All aliens in ICE custody receive due process and have any claims heard before a judge.”

Outside the courtroom, the two women from Guatemala fought to contain tears as they digested the news.

“What kind of life can we expect in Honduras? It’s pretty much the same as Guatemala,” the mom said in Spanish.

Bookey, from the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, said the women's concern was a legitimate one, especially with regards to third-country asylum deals with Central American countries.

“Given the sort of porous borders in that area … you're basically returning someone to their home country directly because their persecutor can easily track them down or find them there,” she said.

Now, the only recourse for the two women from Guatemala is to appeal their case, normally a costly and lengthy process. But even that right might be curbed in the future: the Department of Justice plans to implement a rule next month that will shorten the amount of time respondents have to file an appeal, and raise the bar for granting them.

A judge’s perspective

In the highly politicized climate over immigration, judges are in a tough spot. Immigration courts are under the executive, not the judicial branch of government. Immigration judges have the legal authority to make independent decisions, but some say that independence is being challenged by the current administration.

Judge Jeremiah Johnson was one of around 100 immigration judges abruptly fired last year. He told LAist judges are under intense pressure from the Trump administration to fall in line with its policies.

“Judges are terrified of losing their job,” said Johnson, who still serves as the executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, a voluntary labor organization.

The loss of judges, and the administration’s shifting priorities, has meant a constant shuffling of case dockets among remaining judges, causing delays and backlogs, and also, increasing pressure to end cases quickly, Johnson said. Currently, there are more than 3 million immigration cases pending across the country, according to TRAC, around six times more than courts were facing a decade ago.

Johnson said the pressure to close cases, including by sending asylum seekers to other countries, threatens people’s right to due process.

“Due process to me is a full and fair hearing,” he said. “These are life or death claims, and so you really need to make sure you get this right.”

Recently, the administration began recruiting for “deportation judges,” including a signing bonus, to replace the immigration judges who were fired or resigned. Johnson called the change in job title “insulting” and a mischaracterization of the role.

“It's not an enforcement position, it's to adjudicate the laws fairly,” Johnson said. “I took the job to uphold the law. That oath was very solemn to me and all the judges on that bench,” he said.

What the observers are trying to accomplish

Court observers have seen some positive changes at Santa Ana Immigration Court since they started observing last summer. On the day LAist visited Lee’s courtroom, many of the respondents had lawyers — a big change, observers said, from just a few months ago.

CLUE also started a fund to pay bonds for non-criminal immigration detainees, and they’ve been able to release more than a 100 people from detention while they wait for their day in court.

Jennifer Caria, Diedre Gaffney, and Nate Hadinata, immigration court observers with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, CLUE.

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Nate Hadinata, from Saddleback Church, sees his role as a “ministry of presence,” and not just for immigrants at risk of deportation.

“ I'm actually here for everybody in the courtroom,” Hadinata said, “because I start to see that the judges are frustrated with the remote lawyers on WebEx, where the internet connection for some reason is shoddy, … the DHS attorneys, I could see they’ve got cough drops on the table, so they're working through illness,” he said.

Earlier this month, a DHS lawyer in Minnesota, exhausted by the avalanche of work, made headlines after telling a judge, “This job sucks.”

Hadinata said attending court proceedings has also allowed him to share his first-hand observations about the current immigration crackdown with his fellow parishioners.  

“When you think that people are criminals in here and you actually get firsthand accounts, you actually start to realize, ‘Oh, I just see families,'" he said. “And aren't we all about strong family?”

Biweekly vigil for the 'disappeared'

Besides the court watching and the bond fund, CLUE holds a bi-weekly prayer vigil in front of Santa Ana Immigration Court. Last Thursday, Nathan Hill, pastor at Church of the Foothills in North Tustin, stood in front of the courthouse next to a sign that read, “We are people of faith praying for the disappeared.”

Hill, wearing a cream-colored stole with brightly embroidered crosses, led a group of nearly 30 people in prayer and song. Some of the attendees wore pink bandanas, an homage, they said, to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, women who demonstrated during Argentina’s so-called “Dirty War” to pressure the military dictatorship for information about their disappeared children.

Hill began the vigil:

María Elena Perales,  with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, said she helped start the prayer vigils in June as a way to show public support for local families targeted in the immigration raids.

“Many of them do not go grocery shopping, many of them do not send their kids to school. Kids are being traumatized as we speak,” she said of the raids’ effect on immigrant families. “A lot of people do not understand, maybe, what our families are suffering. This is an opportunity to engage people and say, ‘come and join us in prayer, and hear about the stories.’”

As the prayer vigil wound down, people began to trickle through the doors of immigration court. The afternoon session would soon begin, and with it, dozens more lives in the balance.

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A recent social media post from an account belonging to President Donald Trump prompted enough outcry over its use of a familiar racist trope that the White House deleted it. The Truth Social post included an image of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. Despite removing the post, Trump has deflected blame to an aide.

The former president commented on it over the weekend, calling it "deeply troubling" behavior.

For scholars and civil rights advocates steeped in the language and aesthetics of white nationalism, Trump's post was remarkable only because of how overtly racist the trope is. But they say that it fits into a pattern of extremist rhetoric, visual material and other media that have overtaken public messaging from federal agencies over the past year. They say that much of that messaging may not have been detectable to most Americans who are not immersed in the study of extremism. But to those who are, the dog whistles and coded words have been unmistakable.

"If this were just one racist image or one bad post, it wouldn't matter much," said Eric Ward, executive vice president of Race Forward, a civil rights organization. "What matters is that over the last year, the Trump administration [is] abusing federal authority, and the federal government has increasingly learned to speak in the emotional language of white nationalism."

While the latest controversy is over a post from a Trump social media account, Ward and others say the Department of Homeland Security has been behind the most, and the most notable, examples of extremist themes in federal messaging. In its effort to recruit large numbers of new immigration enforcement agents, the federal agency has generated a body of propaganda that has raised alarm over its echoes of extremist movements.

"A lot of this was very much wrapped up in this kind of Norman Rockwell-style imagery of white Americana and … this idea that we need to 'defend the homeland' from migrants arriving from the Global South," said Caleb Kieffer, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center. "And I think that one thing it's worth noting, and what we really were alarmed by, [is] that we've seen this rhetoric for decades be prevalent in white nationalist circles, in anti-immigrant circles, claiming that there's this migrant invasion happening and that we need to stop it."

Plausible deniability

In general, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department have dismissed the links between messages they have issued and white nationalist movements. A DHS spokesperson responded to questions from NPR about this with the suggestion that NPR is "manufacturing outrage." A White House spokesperson has called journalists' questions "bizarre" and suggested that coverage of the pattern of extremist rhetoric in federal messaging is "leftwing advocacy." But Pete Simi, a professor of sociology at Chapman University, said this response, in itself, reflects a communication strategy that is also a mainstay of extremist movements: plausible deniability.

"It is a widespread communication style, but it's certainly very prevalent in far-right extremist propaganda and broader types of communication," Simi said. "And what it does is it allows you to communicate a message, but with a built-in defense that if it's interpreted the way that it might [be] ... it allows you then to turn around and say … 'You're just … misreading it. You're misinterpreting it.'"

Since Trump returned to office, Simi has tracked social media output from federal agencies that echo extremist propaganda. He said he has collected a number of examples that he considers "double speak."

"It's a type of communication … where you have dual meanings, for folks that are in the know — and they will understand exactly the true intent of the meaning. But also another aspect is for outsiders," Simi said. "They may not fully understand or appreciate the meaning that's meant for insiders. And that in and of itself is a way to establish plausible deniability."

One of the most notable examples Simi cites of this is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment ad that DHS posted in August, showing a graphic of Uncle Sam and the caption "Which way, American man?" To Simi, Kieffer and others who study white nationalism, it called back to a racist, antisemitic book titled Which Way Western Man? that is largely read within neo-Nazi circles. In a written statement, DHS did not offer comment on a question about the similarities between the post and the book title.

A DHS spokesperson wrote, "By NPR's standards every American who posts patriotic imagery on the Fourth of July should be cancelled and labeled a Nazi. Not everything you dislike is 'Nazi propaganda.'"

"Folks that are familiar with white supremacist propaganda would undoubtedly be familiar with that book and would see that it's referencing the book with the slight change in the one word for outsiders, [who] probably never heard of the book," Simi said. "And so that would not mean much to them."

Ward said the table was set for extremism-infused public messaging before Trump began his second term. Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Trump and many Republican lawmakers' unsubstantiated claim that Democrats were intentionally bringing in undocumented immigrants to vote illegally echoed the "great replacement" conspiracy theory.

NPR asked the White House for comment on similarities between claims from Trump and the administration's claims about immigrants and "replacement" theory. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded in writing, saying: "There is nothing racist about wanting to ensure only American citizens vote in American elections."

Nevertheless, the characterization of immigration as an "invasion," federal calls to "protect" or "defend the homeland," and the promotion of "remigration" are among the examples that researchers cite when they claim that the administration has mainstreamed once-fringe concepts.

"It's very much signaling to a lot of these white nationalist groups that their policy goals are being actualized and that they're seeing kind of their rhetoric now showing up in the Twitter feed of a government agency," Kieffer said.

What purpose can extremist messaging serve

While the pattern of callbacks to extremist concepts, aesthetics and language has been clear to those tracking federal propaganda over the last year, there is less clarity around what purpose it serves. Kieffer said it is possible that DHS hopes to recruit individuals affiliated with extremist groups or movements into the ranks of immigration enforcement agents. So far, however, there has been no clear evidence that this is occurring in significant numbers. DHS did not respond to a question from NPR asking whether it is using this messaging intentionally to recruit extremists to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection.

In fact, Ward said the number of Americans who fall into this category is so small that it would be a disproportionate focus for relatively small gain. Instead, he said he sees this messaging as accomplishing something with a much wider and lasting impact on the country.

"Propaganda doesn't change minds. It trains reflexes," he said. "Donald Trump is signaling because he wants to normalize this type of rhetoric both within MAGA, but he also wants the American public to become more accustomed [to it]. It is a way of testing normalization and tolerance in the larger American society."

Simi said the propaganda is all part of an effort to create a "mood" about present-day conditions in the country.

"I think it's important here to think about: What is the mood that's being conveyed by these messages?" he said. "More than anything, I think they're trying to normalize different ideas associated with the messaging that immigration is an 'invasion,' that we've been overrun by these criminal immigrants, that we face an existential crisis, we are under violent attack and that requires self-defense. And in this case, because it's a violent attack that we're facing, then that legitimizes the use of violence."

Ward said that as discouraging as it may be to resist radicalizing messages from the seat of power, there are still steps that everyday Americans can take.

"The first is, don't circulate dehumanizing content — even to criticize it," he said. Second, Ward said, people should look critically at who is labeled as a "threat" and who is labeled as "the real people" in messages issued by federal agencies. He said people should try to understand the emotions that propaganda is trying to attach to different groups of people, such as the counterfactual effort to associate immigrants with disproportionate criminality.

"And then third is: Defend democracy locally," he said. "And that means standing up for your most vulnerable neighbors. ... Countries don't fall because people disagree. They fall when people are taught who no longer counts."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Some of the nation's leading defense lawyers have been trying to wrap their heads around what they consider abnormal behavior by the U.S. Department of Justice over the past year.

Now, they're debuting a tool to help track criminal cases that appear to involve irregular charging practices, including aggressive legal theories and possible political retribution against President Donald Trump's foes.

"We created the Case Tracker because you cannot defend against an enemy you cannot see," said Steven Salky, a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area who oversees the project. "The Tracker is intended to spotlight for the next several years the unusual cases being prosecuted by the Department of Justice."

The new database includes the federal cases against Sean Charles Dunn, who threw a sub sandwich at a federal immigration officer, and Jacob Samuel Winkler, a homeless man accused of directing a laser pointer toward the Marine One presidential helicopter. Juries in Washington, D.C., acquitted both men.

The tracker, sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), also monitors cases where government charges of resisting federal law enforcement have been undercut by videos and eyewitness accounts from protesters.

Last week, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Pam Bondi batted away allegations that politics have motivated federal law enforcement decisions.

"I came into office with the goal of refocusing the Department of Justice on its core mission after years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization," Bondi said. "The Department of Justice's core mission is to fight violent crime; protect the American people; and defend the rule of law above all else. While our work is never done, we have made tremendous progress to make America safe again."

But judges and juries have been turning a skeptical eye toward the work of the Justice Department. Federal jurists have questioned whether the executive branch is complying with court orders on immigration and other issues at the heart of Trump's agenda — giving rise to concerns that federal prosecutors will no longer get the benefit of the doubt in court.

Grand juries across the U.S. have rejected efforts by prosecutors to bring indictments, once considered to be a cinch because of the low bar to charge defendants at that early stage in the criminal process.

The new tracker features a map that allows people to follow some of these trends across states, a way to search for specific statutes, and links to key court filings and judges' decisions.

"This tracker is an essential tool for an era where federal overreach has become the standard operating procedure," said NACDL Executive Director Lisa Wayne.
Copyright 2026 NPR

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has entered the fray around the fate of embattled Olympics head Casey Wasserman, saying he should resign for his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The comments, made on CNN Monday, turn up the heat on Wasserman, who has been under fire since a series of flirty 2003 emails between him and Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell surfaced in files released by the Justice Department. Wasserman said last week he would sell his namesake talent agency but remain in his role leading the Olympic Games.

"My opinion is that he should step down," Bass told CNN's Dana Bash.

It was a shift for Bass, who at first declined to weigh in on whether Wasserman should stay or go. And it comes after councilmember Nithya Raman entered the mayoral race — she and four other other councilmembers have said the Olympics head should step down.

But even the mayor of Los Angeles has only limited ability to influence the make-up of the private organizing committee tasked with putting on the Olympics in two years' time.

Despite its role as host city and financial guarantor of the coming mega-event, the city of Los Angeles isn't the one calling the shots on the Olympic Games. LA28 is in charge, with Wasserman at the helm.

And last week, the executive committee of LA28's board of directors said it was keeping Wasserman on top.

"LA28, which is the committee that is involved with the Olympics, has the discretion. The board made a decision," Bass said on CNN. "I think that decision was unfortunate."

LA28 operates mainly behind closed doors

The board's decision — and Bass's comments — highlight a dynamic that has some in the city increasingly uncomfortable as the Games draw nearer.

When the city of Los Angeles made a deal to play host for the 2028 Olympics, it agreed to cover cost overruns — exposing taxpayers to an essentially unlimited amount of risk. But it handed LA28 the reins to fundraise, execute and finance a privately run Games.

" Now we're seeing the perils of hiding an Olympic bid behind a private curtain," said Jules Boykoff, a politics professor at Pacific University who studies the Olympics.

LA28 has to report to the city council periodically, and the mayor has six appointees on LA28’s board. But beyond that, the organizing committee mainly operates behind closed doors and without the transparency required of government agencies.

LA28 has not said which of its 35 board members are on the executive committee that determined Wasserman’s fate. The meeting was private. A statement from the board's executive committee said that it had brought in outside counsel to review Wasserman's past interactions with both Maxwell and Epstein, and that Wasserman had cooperated with the review.

"The Executive Committee of the Board has determined that based on these facts, as well as the strong leadership he has exhibited over the past ten years, Mr. Wasserman should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful Games,” the statement read, in part.

Bass's office confirmed that three of her appointees are on the executive committee: lawyer Matt Johnson, real estate developer Jaime Lee, and labor leader Yvonne Wheeler.

Mike Bonin, head of Cal State L.A.'s Pat Brown Institute and a former L.A. city councilmember, told LAist that those appointees present a potential source of leverage for the city.

"I think a lot of people are beginning to feel more like, 'Alright, where is our voice in this? How is it being heard?'" Bonin said. "People probably want to know more about what the mayor is saying to her appointees. And what are her appointees saying to the broader board?"

LAist reached out to the three board members for their comments. Wheeler declined to comment. Johnson and Lee did not respond before publication. The mayor's office also did not respond to a request for more information on how Bass is corresponding with city-appointed board members and whether she spoke with them before the Wasserman vote.

The LA28 board also has several prominent allies of President Donald Trump, who were quietly added to the roster late last year.

Richard Grenell, the former director of national intelligence in the Trump Administration, said in a post on X that Bass's statements against Wasserman spelled trouble for the city.

"Karen vs Casey is very troubling for the Olympics," he wrote. "The LA Olympics are now in turmoil — and the city is facing questions about being able to pull them off."

Calls for transparency grow

The storm around Wasserman comes as some in the city have already been demanding more transparency from Olympics organizers.

Citing fears around how ramped up immigration enforcement might affect the Games, the city council passed a motion requesting that LA28 produce a detailed report on President Donald Trump's federal Olympics task force on security. But the council has no way to enforce the motion, and LA28 hasn't yet produced such a document.

Others have expressed alarm that a key agreement between the city and LA28 over what extra city resources Olympics organizers will need to pay for — like policing — is more than four months overdue. If the agreement leaves L.A. exposed to unexpected or additional expenses, taxpayers could end up paying many millions.

Los Angeles civil rights attorney Connie Rice told LAist that's where local officials, including the mayor's lead on special events Paul Krekorian, should be focusing their energy.

" Casey Wasserman's resignation is a red herring," she said. "What the mayor, the city attorney, and the council and Mr. Krekorian need to be focused on is making sure that taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles aren't left holding a billion dollar bag of cost payments that they shouldn't have to pay."