Without warning — even to local police — masked federal agents have been captured on video descending on Southern California businesses, getting out of unmarked or lightly marked vehicles and, swiftly, detaining who they suspect are immigrants without legal status.

The videos show officers, also wearing T-shirts, jeans and hats with the only indication at times of their law enforcement status an olive green vest with “Police” or “Border Patrol” written in small yellow letters on the back.

On June 22, more than a dozen agents, mostly in plainclothes, arrived at the Bubble Bath Car Wash in Torrance, California, and quickly put two employees in handcuffs before shoving the owner and questioning a third employee, according to videos posted on social-media and news reports.

Police agencies in Southern California say during these immigration raids even they aren’t always getting any warning.

Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo said the lack of identifying logos and communication with local officers creates potential problems.

“To have federal agents come into our city and not notify our Police Department, draw their weapon for taking a picture and do so without identifying themselves as law enforcement in unmarked vehicles and out of uniform creates a dangerous situation,” he said.

The mayor was reacting to this: On June 18, cellphone video shows an apparent immigration officer stepping out of an unmarked car and pointing a handgun at a person just for taking pictures. Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, posted a video of the confrontation on YouTube.

“This is potentially going to cause, and is causing, very dangerous situations for municipal police officers,” Gordo said. “It’s unacceptable and must stop. We can’t put the public in danger like that.”

Local police agencies have maintained that they are not involved in any immigration enforcement, but some, like the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and others have been out for anti-immigration-enforcement protests.

“They show up without uniforms,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said during a news briefing last week outside Dodger Stadium, which was momentarily visited by Border Patrol agents before the team said it shooed them away. “They show up completely masked. They refuse to give ID. Who are these people?

“Are they bounty hunters?” the mayor said. “Are they vigilantes? If they are federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?

“You can imagine the fear and the terror that that has created in our city when you have cars driving around, people jumping out of those cars with guns and rifles and pulling people off the street,” she said.

ICE director Todd Lyons has defended his agents’ wearing of masks during raids citing safety concerns — primarily the uploading of names and photos online with death threats to agents and their families.

“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks,” Lyons said during a press conference in Boston earlier this month, “but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their families on the line because people don’t like their immigration enforcements.”

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As for how the agents dress, it’s a decision to wear street clothes so they don’t give away their presence before an arrest, John Fabbricatore, former director of ICE’s Denver field office, told the New York Times for a March story “As soon as people see ICE branding, they get in the way, they start protesting.”

ICE, Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations agents have all carried out raids in Southern California in recent weeks.

“When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by highly sophisticated gangs … criminal rings, murderers and rapists,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary with the Department of Homeland Security. “Attacks and demonization of our brave law enforcement is contributing to our officers now facing a 500% increase in assaults.”

Richard Beam, an ICE spokesman, said that when he’s gone out with agents, they’ve verbally and visually identified themselves to prevent confusion.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell, speaking this week to the Board of Police Commissioners, acknowledged concerns among officers for “blue-on-blue actions,” between federal and local officers, as well as concerns from the general public regarding whether such plainclothes officers are actually federal agents — or possibly impostors.

“It’s unprecedented territory to be very honest,” the chief said. “There’s a lot of conversation around it. There are perceptions that people out there are not who they purport to be.”

McDonnell encouraged residents unsure if who they are dealing with are federal agents to call 911.

“Generally, (LAPD) officers will respond to a call like this and get a supervisor out there,” McDonnell said. “Their goal is to make sure the people in the agency are who they say they are. … If there is a complaint, it’s taken up with that agency.”

In the past, federal authorities at least sometimes notified local police when they were armed and on an active case in town.

“What we are seeing day in and day out, we have no knowledge of that,” said Mike Lyster, a spokesman for the city of Anaheim in Southern California. “We are not getting any notification of it, and we’re finding out like everyone else.

“We have not gotten a surveillance notice in the past few weeks that says another agency will be out there,” he said. “You don’t want two potential law enforcement agencies who may be armed to have any misunderstanding.”

In South Los Angeles last week, protesters surrounded a team of Los Angeles County deputies serving a search warrant in relation to a homicide under the belief they were ICE agents.

Luna, during an interview with ABC Los Angeles, acknowledged the fear and anxiety those in the communities the department serves are facing.

“We’re still doing our day jobs, which means we’re still doing search warrants and going after bad people who aren’t immigration-related at all,” Luna said. “We were serving a warrant for somebody involved in a murder and when we got out there, the anxiety that we see out there was immediately in the neighborhood.

“We’re trying to get ahead of this, trying to put out as much information as we can that we are still running normal operations,” added Luna, who encouraged the public to ask questions of the deputies to make sure they aren’t there for immigration-related reasons.

“There’s so much misinformation out there,” Luna said. “We don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”

Staff writer Ryan Carter contributed to this report.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’s immediately suspending trade talks with Canada over its plans to continue with its tax on technology firms, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our country.”

Trump, in a post on his social media network on Friday, said that Canada had just informed the U.S. that it was sticking to its plan to impose the tax set to take effect Monday.

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“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period,” Trump said in his post.

Canada’s digital services tax requires Canadian and foreign businesses that engage with online users in Canada.

The digital services tax will hit companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users. It will apply retroactively, leaving U.S. companies with a $2 billion US bill due at the end of the month.

Canada and the U.S. have been discussing easing a series of steep tariffs Trump imposed on goods from America’s neighbor.

The Republican president earlier told reporters that the U.S. was soon preparing to send letters to different countries, informing them of the new tariff rate his administration would impose on them.

The Forest Lake School Board voted late Thursday to revisit the district’s dress code in the fall after a proposal to remove the policy’s bans on specific symbols brought significant backlash from community members and students.

A proposed version of Policy No. 515 that was read in May would have followed Minnesota School Board Association model language and removed specific bans on symbols like swastikas, the KKK and the Confederate flag on clothing. Leading up to Thursday’s meeting, policy changes considered by the board had brought the district significant criticism as board members were split on removing the specific bans.

Community members filled the boardroom Thursday, overflowing into the lobby or sitting on the floor. Several people were asked to leave the meeting – one for speaking after the public comment period and another for carrying a sign that showed the symbols in question.

Forest Lake School Board Chairman Curt Rebelein, left, and Mayor Blake Roberts. (Courtesy of Rebelein and Roberts)

Chairman Curt Rebelein said Thursday he did not expect creating a policy in line with model language would be so contentious. Rebelein and Forest Lake Mayor Blake Roberts, who has publicly opposed removal of the specific bans, met with each other last week.

“One key topic that we agreed upon is that we should always avoid the extremes, and that we should not be an outlier among our peers,” Rebelein said. “Our current policy is an extreme outlier, and although I will support the notion that sometimes it’s good to be a trailblazer, any critical thinker quickly concludes that attempting to find offensive items is an exercise in futility.”

Superintendent Steve Massey told the board in May that the ban was implemented in 1997 after an African-American student was surrounded by a group of students after school and physically assaulted. The next day, a group of students wore white T-shirts to school to show their support of the racial assault.

Massey told that board at the time that it is important that the specific ban of the three symbols remain in Policy No. 515.

‘Counterproductive’

About 25 people spoke during the open-forum portion of the meeting, including former Mayor Mara Bain, who said she could not believe she had to attend the meeting.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” Bain said. “I kept telling myself, ‘This is going to die down. Someone is going to stand up and is going to say, ‘No, wait, this isn’t what we meant. This isn’t the path that we want to be on. This isn’t the path that we should be on here in 2025.’ And yet, here we are again. … I keep telling myself that no elected official is possibly going to vote to remove language that prohibits hate speech. This just isn’t something that elected officials who are in tune with their hearts and their community are going to do. And yet, here we are.”

Roberts also spoke during the open-forum portion of the meeting.

“I find it necessary to speak out against the potential removal of the language of the dress-code policy that takes out symbols of hate, genocide and lynching,” Roberts said. “The current policy has served Forest Lake well since it was put in place over 25 years ago. The idea, in 2025, that we are even considering taking those symbols out of this policy is absolutely sickening. How the potential change affects students is most important, but even consideration of this is absolutely counterproductive to everything we do to promote and celebrate Forest Lake. People and businesses do not want to live and do business in communities that are not welcoming and don’t discourage hate and racism.”

Bans remain into coming school year

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Following a motion by Rebelien, board members voted 6-1 that the policy be sent back to the district’s policy committee. The committee, which is expected to meet in September, will return to the board either with a recommendation to remove the specific bans or a more comprehensive list of objectionable items to be banned. Because the committee does not meet until the fall, specific bans on the Confederate flag, swastikas and KKK signs or symbols will remain in the policy in the coming school year, Rebelien said.

Rebelein, who has said he has read all 331 dress codes across Minnesota school districts, said there is one district in the state that has a list of prohibited items in its policy.

“And so there may be a good middle ground there, but it seems to me that the prerogative of the board and the community is that they want to keep these in here,” Rebelein said. “And if they want to keep these in here, I respect that, and I can support that, but we can’t just cherry-pick a couple of things off the top. I think we need to be clear with our intent.”

Mary Divine contributed to this report. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday to curb nationwide injunctions that challenge the Trump administration‘s policies left the fate of birthright citizenship — and other challenges California has mounted to White House policies — a bit unclear.

Here’s what the Supreme Court justices said in the birthright citizenship case:

View this document on Scribd

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Fate of birthright citizenship order unclear

A divided Supreme Court on Friday ruled that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, but the decision left unclear the fate of President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship.

The outcome was a victory for the Republican president, who has complained about individual judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda.

But a conservative majority left open the possibility that the birthright citizenship changes could remain blocked nationwide. Trump’s order would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally.

The cases now return to lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the high court ruling, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion. Enforcement of the policy can’t take place for another 30 days, Barrett wrote.

The justices agreed with the Trump administration, as well as President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration before it, that judges are overreaching by issuing orders that apply to everyone instead of just the parties before the court.

What is birthright citizenship?

Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

In a notable Supreme Court decision from 1898, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the court held that the only children who did not automatically receive U.S. citizenship upon being born on U.S. soil were the children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the U.S. during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.

The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.

Trump and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen, which he called “a priceless and profound gift” in the executive order he signed on his first day in office.

The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, a phrase used in the amendment, and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

But states, immigrants and rights groups that have sued to block the executive order have accused the administration of trying to unsettle the broader understanding of birthright citizenship that has been accepted since the amendment’s adoption.

Contributing: Associated Press and Southern California News Group