“Shut It Down!” LA Harbor Officials Join Community Demands to End ICE Operations at Terminal Island

LOS ANGELES — On July 11, a coalition of elected leaders of the Los Angeles Harbor area strongly condemned ongoing federal immigration enforcement operations using Terminal Island as a staging ground. They are calling for an immediate end to these actions and demanding that federal immigration enforcement agents including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection or CBP cease these disruptive and unlawful operations in the region.

Terminal Island, located at the Port of Los Angeles has been quietly used as a home base for federal immigration operations since the raids began. Councilmember McOsker recognized local San Pedro activist group, Harbor Area Peace Patrol, for raising awareness on this issue. 

“I really am humbled to say it is the actions of our local organizing groups that really have brought I as an elected official and I think all the elected officials would agree [to] this … moment of people power leadership,” said McOsker.

Terminal Island is located at the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere. Terminal Island plays a crucial role in the goods movement infrastructure that supports the entire nation. The location was once home to a thriving fishing village where 3,000 individuals of Japanese descent were forcibly removed by the federal government in 1942 following the signing of Executive Order 9066, which McOsker acknowledged.

“Why are we on Terminal Island? We are at the Japanese Fisherman’s Memorial because it was not long ago that Terminal Island was home to a vibrant community. It was called East San Pedro and about 2 to 3,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans by merit of their birth lived, worked, prayed, played right here 85 years ago. When the United States entered World War II and even before the executive order by President Roosevelt, officials descended upon this island and illegally and unconstitutionally deprived … residents and citizens on this island of their due process rights.”

Here again history repeats itself. Officials and community groups at the press conference warned that ICE and CBP on this site have been directly linked to raids and the detention of immigrants in cities across LA County.

The group issued a clear call:

ICE off of Terminal Island.

ICE out of Los Angeles.

Watch the video here: Immigration Enforcement Use of Terminal Island Press Conference 7/11/25

“The message is clear–Get off the island,” said Councilmember Tim McOsker. “The LA City Council is united with the Mayor, with County leadership, with our State legislators, and with our community leaders, in that we will not be complicit in the unconstitutional actions of ICE and CBP. The Constitution holds everyone accountable, including the federal agencies that are staging on Terminal Island, to accord due process under the law and to respect the protections to which everyone in the United States is entitled. Without those assurances today, we want ICE off Terminal Island.”

“This Administration is trying to break our economy, our sovereignty, and our spirit,” said Council President Marqueece Harrison Dawson (8th District). “By using this land that Japanese and Japanese-Americans were violently forced off of in 1942 as a staging ground for ICE they are trying to send a message. We heard it and our message back is hands off our land, our people, and our economy.”

“I was in a bipartisan Bible study with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. I’ve told her that she needs to go back and read her Bible. The violent attacks that her agents are launching on communities across LA County from right here on Terminal Island are ripping families and communities apart,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn. “Our communities need and deserve to go about their daily lives again, and we can’t do that while these masked thugs continue to terrorize our immigrant neighbors.”

“ICE agents working in the shadows do not belong in the San Pedro Bay. I join my colleagues, elected officials and community-based leaders alike, to demand a stop,” said Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson (D-Carson). “I proudly champion the many immigrant populations of the Harbor and, in my capacity as an Assemblymember, chair the Select Committee on Ports and Goods Movement. Make no mistake: Terminal Island is part of our port complex, and it serves a critical national infrastructure purpose – but Trump’s campaign of terror and deportations is not part of that purpose.”

“We want ICE out of Terminal Island.  ICE is going after hard working immigrants and their families, not criminals. They are being rounded up and incarcerated like the Japanese Americans who once lived on Terminal Island more than 80 years ago – hard-working immigrants who were scapegoated and wrongfully accused of being a threat to national security. As Chair of the Assembly Education Committee, I am fighting to keep ICE out of California public schools, and today, I join the fight to get ICE out of Terminal Island. Terminal Island should never again become a symbol of injustice,” said Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, who represents San Pedro and the South Bay.