Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing intense backlash for making racially-charged comments about Hispanic Americans serving with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Bass, a Democrat, was speaking with CNN’s “The Situation Room” on a recent network feature that profiled Border Patrol and ICE agents training to work along the southern border. CNN noted that a large percentage of recruits were of Hispanic heritage and at one point asked whether they had any reservations about apprehending their “own kind.”
“They didn’t come in the right way so they aren’t my kind,” one recruit said without hesitation. Border Patrol Agent Claudio Herrera echoed this sentiment in the same segment, saying, “I’m not going after my own kind because my own kind will do it legally.”
When asked about the segment by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Mayor Bass said she found it “sad.”
“I think that those Border Patrol agents are going to have a difficult time when they’re out in the field and they see what actually happens in real life, separate from their training,” she added.
The mayor went on to claim that Hispanic Americans — many of whom live in areas among the most impacted by illegal immigration — are only joining federal immigration agencies because they are desperate for cash.
“I do understand that their primary incentive is financial,” Bass said. “I think it just speaks to the financial situation that millions of Americans find themselves in,” she added.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said applications have risen 70 percent compared with a year ago, according to a report from Newsmax. The surge comes as the Trump Administration has increased incentives to attract more applicants for border security goals.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, more than half of Border Patrol agents are Hispanic.
