LA Mayor Bass slams Vice President JD Vance’s remarks saying city encouraged illegal immigration

Mayor Karen Bass on Friday, June 20, sharply criticized visiting Vice President JD Vance’s remarks about Los Angeles, calling his depiction of the the city as inciting violent protests and encouraging illegal migration “utter nonsense” intended to “provoke division and conflict in our city.”

She accused Vance of failing to understand L.A.’s diversity and misrepresenting the city’s handling of recent unrest.

“Unfortunately, the Vice President did not take time to learn about our city,” Bass said, describing Vance’ comments as an attempt to justify “the hundreds of millions” of taxpayer dollars on what she called a political stunt involving the military.

Earlier in the day, Vance toured a multi-agency Federal Joint Operations Center and a Federal Mobile Command Center in L.A. and met with Marines amid the Trump administration’s continued and ramped-up immigration enforcement operations in the area.

Speaking to reporters following his tour, Vance lambasted Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, accusing them of having “actively encouraged illegal migration into this community, strained public services (and) strained law enforcement.”

“What a great American city L.A. is, and what a great tragedy it is that we’ve allowed illegal immigration and rioting to destroy one of the great gems of the American family,” Vance said.

Bass rejected Vance’s suggestion that state and local officials had encouraged violence, defending the response from local law enforcement.

She said LAPD, Sheriff’s Department, and other local agencies—not federal forces—were responsible for crowd control and kept the unrest largely contained.

“How dare you say that city officials encourage violence? We kept the peace,” she said.

The mayor further condemned Vance for referring to Sen. Alex Padilla as “Jose Padilla” during his remarks.

“How dare you disrespect him and call him Jose,” she said. “But I guess he just looked like anybody to you. Well, he’s not just anybody to us. He is our Senator.”