DHS attorney said agents in Los Angeles should have ‘started hitting’ protesters, emails show
WASHINGTON— A top attorney for the Department of Homeland Security suggested during an anti-ICE protest in Los Angeles last June that federal agents should “start attacking rioters and arresting anyone who cannot escape,” according to internal emails.
The memo was in an email chain obtained by the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act and shared exclusively with The Times.
Homeland Security lawyers appear to be disputing a lawsuit filed June 9 by California Governor Gavin Newsom over President Trump’s deployment of thousands of California National Guard troops to Los Angeles.
Under the subject heading “California Department of Defense Lawsuit,” officials coordinated legal filings defending the Trump administration, including a draft statement from the director of the Los Angeles Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office supporting the deployment of military forces.
The last email in the thread was from Joseph Mazzara, then DHS general counsel, and he appeared to be referring to an incident in which protesters attempted to breach a protective perimeter at a federal building.
“Every time I read about the battering ram incident, I realize how crazy it is,” he wrote on June 11.
Referring to law enforcement as “them,” he continued: “Once they got the line in, they should have started attacking the rioters and arresting anyone who couldn’t get away from them. No one likes being bludgeoned, and when that starts to happen seriously, people tend to run away.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
Mazzara was later appointed deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Politico, Mazzara among 10 employees He’s the one who followed former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to the State Department after she was fired from DHS this month and given a new role as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas.
The battering ram incident mentioned by Mazzara is detailed in court documents related to the case.
19 June order Judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel note that Trump administration lawyers presented evidence that protesters interfered with federal officers. Protesters threw objects at ICE vehicles, “pinned” several Federal Protective Service officers and threw “chunks of concrete, bottles of liquid, and other objects,” the order said.
Protesters also “used ‘large rolling commercial garbage bins as battering rams’ to violate the parking lot of a federal building,” the resolution states.
Mazzara’s comment, which appeared in an email thread with other Homeland Security lawyers, was provided to American Oversight with a watermark indicating that the agency intended to preserve the comment. American Oversight also obtained a version of the documents in which this statement was redacted.
Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, said it was no wonder the administration wanted to keep Mazzara’s comments private.
“They reveal a level of hostility toward protesters that is deeply at odds with the government’s obligation to protect civil liberties — and there is no FOIA exemption that would justify hiding them,” he said.
Kerry Doyle, ICE’s former top attorney during the Biden administration, said Mazzara’s comments showed a shocking disregard for the potential for harm both to the public and to the officers he is charged with protecting.
He said the email “encourages or at least supports constitutional violations by operators who must seek legal advice from him to avoid violating the law.” He also said commenting on operational strategy was outside the scope of his responsibilities.
“It hurts people who are on the front lines and giving themselves and their colleagues the parameters of what they can and can’t do,” Doyle added. “If you give them bad legal advice, you expose them to liability.”
Noem’s dismissal comes amid backlash against an escalation of violence during Trump’s crackdown on immigration, including the shooting deaths of U.S. citizen protesters by immigration officers.
Doyle said part of the secretary’s job is to set the tone for the agency so that lower-levels know what is expected of them. He said Mazzara’s comments show how that tone permeates all aspects of the agency.
The president began removing the National Guard from Los Angeles and other Democratic-led cities in December after the U.S. Supreme Court cast doubt on the Trump administration’s legal theory of using troops in domestic law enforcement operations.
Last summer’s protests caused significant property damage in a small section of downtown Los Angeles. But the grand jury declined to indict many demonstrators accused by federal prosecutors of attacking agents, and a Times review of the alleged attacks found that most of the incidents did not result in injuries.
