In the News

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Amid increasingly strict immigration enforcement, U.S. House of Representative Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., warns that the federal government is inching more and more toward authoritarianism.

Rep. Gomez has been on the ground in LA, attempting to gain access to federal detention facilities, confronting both bureaucratic obstruction and a mounting sense of crisis among his constituents.

“I think the country is facing a really stark choice between a federal government that is sending in ICE agents, National Guard, and sending in even the Marines to communities to really tear families apart — to go after not criminals but hard working individuals,” said Gomez in an exclusive interview with Spectrum News on the ground of the "No Kings Day" protest in downtown LA. “There’s no MS-13 gang member working a day job. What the [federal government] is really doing is terrorizing families.”

The congressman described a growing effort to normalize such tactics, warning that public complacency could push the nation further into what he says is “an authoritarian state.”

“We need to fight back and make our voices heard,” he added. “We have to show up and fight in Congress. we have to show up and fight in courts and we have to show up and fight in the streets.”