The Los Angeles Dodgers announced Thursday that they had blocked federal immigration enforcement officers from entering the stadium. At that time, dozens of protesters against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gathered outside the stadium to protest.
According to NBC News, the Major League Baseball (MLB) team said on social media that after the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff arrived at the stadium, they “requested to enter the parking lot”, but “the club denied their request to enter the venue.” The Dodgers added that the game against the San Diego Padres will be held at the stadium as planned.
ICE later responded on social media: “Not true. We have never been there.”
Protesters gathered outside the gate of the stadium, holding signs and shouting slogans such as “ICE Get out of Los Angeles” and “ICE Go Home”. Several dark SUVs were parked on the other side of the scene, and some federal personnel seemed to be wearing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uniforms.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told NBC News in an email: “This incident has nothing to do with the Dodgers.”
McLaughlin said the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) vehicles “were only briefly in the ballpark parking lot and were not related to any enforcement or action.”
Two people familiar with the matter told NBC News that the federal agents who arrived in the vehicles were stopped when they tried to enter the ballpark gates.
It was unclear if the federal agents’ presence was related to immigration enforcement actions reported throughout the city that day, the sources said.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez told NBC News that she received a call early that morning saying that “federal law enforcement officers were gathering at the entrance to Dodger Stadium. We took pictures of dozens of vehicles and dozens of law enforcement officers.”
She said that constituents asked her to go to the scene “to see the situation because this is private land of the Dodgers and what happened is so outrageous.”
Hernandez said that the Los Angeles police were then called to the scene, and around 2:25 p.m. (EST) that day, the police arrived in tactical gear and began to evacuate the demonstrators.
“People are standing here because they don’t want to see families torn apart, they don’t want to see more workers taken away,” Hernandez said at the protest site.
People familiar with the matter told NBC News that the Dodgers have cooperated with law enforcement in the past and allowed police to use the parking lot around the stadium as a gathering point.
“Businesses and companies have every right to say, ‘Don’t do this here,’ so we’re just waiting to see the Dodgers actually make such a statement,” Hernandez told NBC Los Angeles.
