When it comes to illegal immigration, Los Angeles is... complicated

Like most of you, I'm watching the riots in L.A. with a feeling of disgust. And of course all the "California belongs to Mexico" nonsense the protestors keep chanting is based in pure historical ignorance.

But... the immigration situation there is complicated. I lived there for 28 years and I constantly marveled at the complexity of the immigration situation. You've got multi-generational families that have lived in L.A. for decades where part of the family is legal, and part is not. In most of these families, the older generations speak almost no English and the younger generation speaks almost no Spanish, The middle generation will be fluent in both languages. Most of the ones who are not legal have lived in L.A. openly and without fear of reprisal. In part the steady flow of illegal immigrants into the city is fueled by geography. It's only about 140 miles from Los Angeles to Mexico's northern border. The other driver is economic. There's a city full of gardeners, janitors, fruit pickers, nannies, maids, etc. who are Mexican and who are in the USA illegally, but they live and work openly. Almost all of them are paid in cash and the people who employ them probably know that there person is illegal. Some Mexicans who are in the USA legally end up marrying Mexicans who aren't here legally, so that increases the complexity of the reality for the Mexican families who live there. They attend regular L.A. churches, which usually have a Spanish-only service/mass, and their English speaking children and grandchildren attend local public schools.

Add to that the fact that L.A. is majority Hispanic and it's easy to see why the ICE raids are going sideways, even without the Soros-funded agitators..

I support what Trump is trying to do to clean up the immigration mess left behind by Joe Biden, but L.A. is not like other cities.