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ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz hit the Los Angeles mayor with a surprising fact-check on the success of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda on Sunday.
After airing an interview that she had with Democratic Mayor Karen Bass, Raddatz disputed her claim that Trump’s immigration crackdown hasn’t been successful.
“And whatever they’re doing is certainly working at the border itself,” the reporter said on ABC News, responding to Bass’ take.
‘TRUMP EFFECT’ TOUTED AS SOUTHERN BORDER NUMBERS STAY LOW, INCLUDING NEW RECORD
ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz admitted on-air Sunday that the Trump administration’s immigration policies have been effective. (REUTERS/Jim Bourg)
The network aired a segment of the interview where Raddatz asked the mayor about Trump’s use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain illegal immigrants in the major California city.
“Los Angeles is a city of immigrants, 3.8 million people, and about 50% of our population is Latino,” Bass said. “And so, when the raids started, fear spread. Fear spread like a virus around the entire county.”
Raddatz followed up, asking, “Is there anything good you think the administration has done in these six months at the border?”
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LA Mayor Karen Bass has been highly critical of President Trump’s immigration agenda in recent months. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
The mayor replied by saying that the administration did well when responding to the L.A. fires that ravaged the county near the start of 2025.
“[But] if you ask me, is there anything that they have done good in terms of immigration? I don’t know, I don’t think so. I think that the viewpoint has been punitive, has been, ‘Let’s make it as miserable as possible so that these people don’t come,'” Bass said.
Following the interview clip, Raddatz disputed Bass’ statement, saying that the Trump administration’s crackdown has produced dramatic results on the U.S. southern border.
“We were down on that border, and it is dramatically, dramatically different than it was a year ago,” she declared.
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As U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported earlier this month, June 2025 saw the lowest number of southern border crossings in U.S. history.
Nationwide, there were 25,228 CBP encounters, the lowest monthly number the agency has recorded, including a “historical low” of 8,024 apprehensions. Encounters include legal ports of entry, whereas apprehensions are arrests of those coming into the United States illegally.
The Biden administration, on the other hand, saw record numbers of illegal border crossings during its term. Dec. 2023 was the “worst month for encounters of inadmissible aliens on the southern border in U.S. history – 251,178,” The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center senior research fellow Simon Hankinson wrote last week.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Cameron Arcand contributed to this report.
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