Did Progressive Government Set the Stage for the L.A. Riots?

How Progressive Government Set the Stage for the L.A. Riots

The city’s failed policies on crime, economics and schools hurt immigrants more than anyone else.

By Allysia Finley, WSJ

June 15, 2025 1:29 pm ET

On Saturday night before Memorial Day, more than 1,000 revelers took over an abandoned warehouse just south of downtown Los Angeles. When police tried to break up the illegal party, the trouble-makers spilled into the streets and spray-painted graffiti on businesses, police cars and light-rail trains.

As police attempted to restore order, the delinquents turned violent. Police in riot gear eventually moved in and fired rubber bullets to disperse the mob, though no arrests were made. “It was just pandemonium. Everybody, just, you know, went berserk,” Mayor Karen Bass said. “We cannot do this in our city, and it has to be stopped.”

Two weeks later, pandemonium broke out again as agitators used the cover of protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids to create mayhem. “We will not stand for this,” Ms. Bass tweeted on the afternoon of June 6—this time referring to the raids. Ruffians then grew more aggressive, vandalizing federal buildings and assaulting ICE officers.

Local police took nearly an hour that evening to respond to a call for help by officers under attack. As demonstrations spread on Saturday, albeit less violent than the day before, President Trump federalized the California National Guard to protect federal property and personnel.

You can understand why Gov. Gavin Newsom would be piqued by the president’s assertion that the state and city couldn’t be trusted to protect the peace. It’s human nature to take more offense at slights grounded in truth than those that aren’t. Mr. Newsom accused Mr. Trump of inflaming a “combustible” situation. Why was the city prone to ignite?

Because progressive government policies, which ironically harm immigrants most of all, created a tinderbox. If Mr. Newsom and Ms. Bass cared about the welfare of immigrants, they’d clean up Los Angeles’s lawless streets, fix its atrocious public schools, and stop their assault on businesses.

Start with public safety. The Los Angeles Police Department has about 1,300 fewer officers than a decade ago—and about half as many per capita and nearly 90% fewer per square mile than New York City. An overstretched police force almost certainly explains why it took officers so long to respond to the call from ICE officers.

Blame city leaders. The mayor this spring proposed eliminating another 400 police positions to close the city’s $800 million budget hole, caused by ballooning pension costs and lawsuit payouts. The LAPD has also struggled with low morale and recruitment owing to lax enforcement policies that let lawbreakers run free. Crimes such as shoplifting, vandalism, disorderly conduct and trespassing are rarely prosecuted. How many of the rioters have a history of looting businesses and vandalizing buildings with impunity?

The police recruiting pool has also shrunk alongside L.A.’s working class as blue-collar families leave for locales with better schools and a lower cost of living. Los Angeles County has lost some 1.4 million people due to domestic out-migration since 2010, which has been offset in part by an influx of 530,000 immigrants.

But many of those immigrants lack the qualifications—a high school diploma and legal authorization to work—to serve in the city’s police force. Many immigrants find work as day laborers, busboys or stock hands. But high minimum wages are pricing unskilled workers out of jobs, to the detriment of immigrants, young people and public safety.

The minimum wage in L.A. is $17.28, and the state requires fast-food restaurants to pay $20 an hour. The Employment Policies Institute’s Michael Saltsman calculates that California’s unemployment rate for teens was 21.2% in April—about double the nationwide figure—and 9.7% for adults 20 to 24, vs. 7.2% on average in the rest of the country.

How many of the rioters were unemployed or underemployed young people? How many have been failed by the city’s union-controlled public schools? Nearly a third of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District last school year were chronically absent—defined as missing 1 in 10 school days or more—up from 10% in 2018.

Only 21% of the city’s eighth-graders scored proficient or higher in reading last year on the Nation’s Report Card, and 19% in math. Scores were lower among Hispanics, who make up three-quarters of students. Parents are expressing their displeasure with the schools by moving, causing district enrollment to fall by a third since 2010.

While Los Angeles County’s population has declined by about 60,000 since 2010, the number under 18 has plunged by some 500,000, according to Census Bureau data. Population flight presents a problem for L.A.’s profligate politicians because federal funding for schools and sundry programs is based on population.

A cynic might wonder if the underlying goal of L.A.’s “sanctuary” policy—which prohibits local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement—is to boost population and federal funding. No matter that immigrants are often victims of the criminal aliens the city shields from deportation. Mr. Trump’s raids may be unduly harsh, but Democratic policies are cruel to immigrants in many other ways.