That Time When the Dodgers Swung at ICE and Struck Out – HotAir

The Dodgers tried to steal some virtue-signaling attention in the midst of the Los Angeles immigration enforcement wars yesterday, and I don’t think it’s turning out exactly the way they envisioned.





When word first broke on X, it was all staged in slightly hysterical terms. ICE, it was alleged, was setting up in the Dodgers Stadium parking lot in Chavez Ravine, the implication being they were either going to use it as a base for raids into that area of Los Angeles.

Or, even more sinister, be there, in order to be ready and waiting for when crowds arrived later in the evening for the baseball game, in order to haul off fans to their evil vans.

Perhaps just to intimidate fans?

Who knows. Whatever it was, obviously, it was all another vicious, oppressive government exercise in suppression.

The second they heard about it, local media hot-footed it down to the scene to report on the scoop.

By the time the ABC affiliate got there, most of the vehicles that their helo had captured on video had already left.

And it certainly wasn’t enough to stop a crowd from forming to PROTECT THE SANCTITY OF DODGER STADIUM nor prevent wellfed LA City Coucilwoman Eunissis Hernandez from hustling her butt down there in order to be able to sound off for the cameras.

…Eunisses Hernandez, a Los Angeles City Council member, told NBC News she got calls early in the morning that “federal agents were staging here at the entrance of Dodgers Stadium. We got pictures of dozens of vehicles and dozens of agents.”

She said residents asked her to come “check things out because this is Dodgers property right here and what’s happening is outrageous.”

Los Angeles police were called, Hernandez said. They arrived in tactical gear around 11:30 a.m. and started moving protesters out of the way.

“People are out here because they don’t want to see their families torn apart. They don’t want to see more workers taken from their jobs,” Hernandez said at the site of the protest.

Sources said the Dodgers have cooperated with law enforcement in the past, letting them use parking lots around the stadium for staging purposes.





Los Angeles police showed up a short while later. Now, I don’t know if that was in anticipation of even further problems from the crowd that was building, or what, but they wound up escorting the government vehicles out of the area. Probably not a bad solution all around.

But as I watched the news reports and saw pictures, I kept thinking, wait a minute – they’re not IN the stadium at all. In every single shot, you can see large signs that direct traffic on where to go to get to the stadium parking lots, and there’s a locked gate behind those. So, to me, it looked like they’d pulled into an offramp out of the public eye, or something that led to the stadium.

I will admit to being confused when the Dodgers issued a very stuffy public statement shortly thereafter, implying that ICE had asked for permission to use the stadium.

Now, the Dodgers had been planning on making a statement at last night’s game, announcing a program to assist illegals, but I guess that was postponed after the brouhaha.

The Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday blocked federal immigration agents from entering their stadium as dozens of ICE protesters gathered outside the venue, the team said.

The baseball organization said on social media that federal agents working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived at the stadium Thursday and “requested permission to access the parking lots.”

“They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization,” the Dodgers said. Their evening game against the San Diego Padres went ahead as scheduled.

…The Dodgers, the defending World Series champions, said Thursday they were postponing an announcement about an initiative expected to assist immigrant communities affected by recent ICE raids.

One of the team’s star players, Kike Hernández, released a statement this week to show his support.

“I am saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city,” the statement reads. “I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused, and ripped apart. All people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity, and human rights.”





But the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wasn’t going to let this sit quietly, particularly when it turns out to have been an inflammatory lie from the get-go.

And, as I had posited, it was a convenient place for them to take a moment to regroup.

…CBP teams went to Hollywood Home Depot to make apprehensions. They did, they were going to transfer them to transport vans off Sunset Blvd, but when things escalated outside of Home Depot they went to an open parking lot at Dodger Stadium to make the consolidated transfer. Agents say no one came over and told them to leave.

The Border Patrol agents were near the gate.

…Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), released a statement saying California Border Patrol agents were present at Dodger Stadium on Thursday but were not part of the ICE sweeps looking for criminal migrants across the Southland.

“This had nothing to do with the Dodgers. CBP vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement,” McLaughlin said in a statement.

Around 10 a.m. PST, approximately a dozen California Border Patrol vehicles approached the lot near Gate E at Dodger Stadium. 

At the same time, an anti-ICE protest erupted at Chavez Ravine early Thursday, with reports indicating a police car was called to check on the group of irate protesters. Activists on social media urged supporters to gather at the stadium by 10 a.m. One activist’s sign Thursday morning read, “I like my ICE crushed.”





Does it kind of appear that the Dodgers are taking sides? Kind of sort of.

Maybe it’s in self-defense, knowing what their lovely Mexican flag-waving fans can do to a business in short order.

Then again, the Dodgers have been known to be progressively woke and never minded in-your-face displays proving it.

There comes a fine line if the Dodgers choose to get in between the feds during a legitimate law enforcement activity, though, not some made-up exercise in publicity they hoped to score points with.

That could cause them real-world problems. 

Not just with people who already hate the Dodgers.







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