LA Dodgers say ICE agents were blocked from its stadium – but Homeland Security insist they weren’t there

The LA Dodgers said it blocked ICE agents from entering the parking lot at Dodger Stadium on Thursday morning in what appeared a defiant stand against President Donald Trump’s mission to round up suspected undocumented immigrants.

The move was hailed by some as a significant turnaround from a prominent organization that so far had had little to say publicly about Trump’s crackdown on anti-ICE protests in downtown Los Angeles, that had seen not just the National Guard deployed – over the head of California’s governor – but also US Marines.

However, the Department of Homeland Security insisted that the agents at the scene were not ICE but Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers for “unrelated” but so far unspecified reasons.

Dozens of federal agents clad in tactical gear, most hiding their faces, were using the stadium exterior as a meeting place before fanning out in the surrounding neighborhoods.

According to ABC7, Los Angeles elected officials alerted the stadium to ICE's presence, prompting the owners of the LA Dodgers organization to tell the agents to leave the property.

As of 11am local time, only a few federal officers were still at the site, according to ABC7.

"We've been in communication with the mayor's office, with the Dodgers, with Dodgers security, about seeing if they can get them moved off their private property," Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez told the outlet.

The Dodgers issued a statement on Thursday afternoon confirming that it asked the ICE agents to leave their property.

“This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots. They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization,” the team said on X. “Tonight’s game will be played as scheduled.”

The Department of Homeland Security responded, saying that its vehicles staging near the area and then leaving had “nothing to do with the Dodgers.”

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

ICE tweeted: “False. We were never there.”

The Dodgers as an organization have been largely silent on the ongoing ICE raids and the protests and subsequent crackdown they inspired in Los Angeles.

The organization had already been reportedly planning to announce initiatives meant to support immigrant communities impacted by the raids on Thursday before federal agents had turned up.

The controversy over Trump’s crackdown on immigrants – and what many saw as the heavy-handed response to relatively minor protests – was brought into the national spotlight again on Saturday, when the singer Nezza shrugged off the team's reported request to perform the National Anthem in English. Instead, she sang in Spanish.

“I just felt like I needed to do it. Para mi gente,” she said. “Safe to say I’m never allowed in that stadium ever again," she said in a video explaining what happened.

The Dodgers released a statement after the incident saying there we "no hard feelings" and that the team "would be happy to have her back."

The incident occurred before a game against the team's longtime rival, the San Francisco Giants, and on the same day as the "No Kings" protests against Trump.

Referring to the Dodgers’ reaction to the federal agents who arrived on Thursday, Mike Madrid, a GOP strategist, said people critical of the franchise’s silence may have spoken too soon. “The Hot Takes attacking the Dodger organization appear to have been wrong - or misguided at best. This is a big move by a major organization with a global brand. Haven’t seen this from any comparable entity,” he wrote on X.

That may come as a disappointment for conservative sports writer Clay Travis, who — in response to Nezza’s Spanish National Anthem — told Fox News earlier this week that it would be “amazing” if ICE carried out a raid at Dodgers Stadium. "Could you imagine if they did an ICE raid in the parking lot of the LA Dodgers stadium,” he said. “That would be kind of amazing."

ICE’s raids in LA earlier this month were a flashpoint that kicked off protests in the city, which then spun off into nation-wide demonstrations.

Trump mobilized the National Guard — against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom — and sent the federalized soldiers alongside U.S. Marines into the city to crush the protests.

The president announced late on Tuesday that he was sending another 2,000 federalized troops to LA to try to stamp out the protests.

A spokesperson for the LAPD told CNBC that there have been no protester arrests since Saturday.

LA Mayor Karen Bass said that crime prevention efforts paired with a curfew in parts of the city have been successful in cutting down on violent encounters between federal agents and protesters.

“The curfew, coupled with ongoing crime prevention efforts, have been largely successful in protecting stores, restaurants, businesses and residential communities from bad actors who do not care about the immigrant community,” Bass said in a press statement on Tuesday.