U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli exposed the Democrats for their horrific and dangerous anti-ICE rhetoric in a bombshell interview, calling out woke Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for joining a lawsuit that demands that ICE agents be unmasked, putting their lives at an even greater risk.
For background, on July 9, 2025, Bill Essayli, U.S. Attorney for Central California, appeared on “Fox and Friends” and exposed the harmful rhetoric used by blue state politicians that has been correlated with a dramatic uptick in violence against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, with the Department of Homeland Security reporting that assaults on immigration officers are tragically up by 690%.
Moreover, U.S. Attorney Essayli specifically zeroed in on LA Mayor Karen Bass, who joined Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ) in a lawsuit against ICE that calls for the agency’s personnel to be restricted from wearing masks. Announcing that she was joining the lawsuit, Mayor Bass stated, “The [Trump] Administration is treating Los Angeles as a test case for how far it can go in driving its political agenda…we will not be intimidated.”
In response to Mayor Bass, U.S. Attorney Essayli said, “Let me be very clear what’s going on here: you have the politicians in California who are being openly hostile to the federal government.” He added, “We are doing our job; we are enforcing federal immigration laws as written by Congress.”
Continuing, Essayli called out Mayor Bass for contesting the law after her tenure as a congresswoman, saying, “If Karen Bass didn’t like the law, she should’ve changed it when she was in Congress.” He added, “But instead, what she’s doing is she’s signalling to the public that it’s okay to stand up to federal agents, to obstruct them, to impede them, and yes, in some cases, to attack them.”
Doubling down, U.S. Attorney Essayli made it clear that the lawsuit would not stop the Trump Administration from cracking down on illegal immigration, saying, “So, we are not gonna be dissuaded. This is why the military’s here [in Los Angeles]. It’s so critical that we have the military here protecting our agents.” He concluded, “And, to Ms. Bass: we will not be intimidated, and we will not be deterred from accomplishing our mission.”
Additionally, when asked to comment on the rising threats facing ICE agents and Border Patrol officers, Essayli said, “Well, no doubt; when you look at the number of assaults that my office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, has charged, it’s exploded.” He continued, “Almost every day, we’re arresting people for assaulting our agents, damaging our vehicles, getting in our way. And then, you saw over the weekend in Texas, you have ICE officers and federal agents get ambushed; officers were shot, and you saw ten people get arrested and indicted by the federal government.”
"*" indicates required fields
Essayli’s appearance on Fox came less than a month after the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release stating that ICE agents were, at the time, facing a 500% increase in “assaults against them while carrying out enforcement operations.” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin weighed in on the violence, saying, “Democrat politicians like Hakeem Jeffries, Mayor Wu of Boston, Governor Tim Walz, and Mayor Bass of Los Angeles are contributing to the surge in assaults of our ICE officers through their repeated vilification and demonization of ICE.”
Watch Bill Essayli on Fox:
Featured image credit: video screengrab