Top CBP Official Said Troops Should Have Hit LA Protesters With Sticks

In June 2025, President Donald Trump ordered thousands of National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles, California — over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass — to quash protests of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns and deportations. Rather than quieting the unrest, the deployment spurred additional protests, in LA and the cities that followed, as federal immigration agents clashed with civilians. 

In October 2025, American Oversight sued the Department of Homeland Security for internal documents related to the federal occupation of LA, including communications from top officials. We obtained emails sent by then-DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara in June 2025. While Mazzara’s current status at DHS is unclear, he was most recently the deputy commissioner at Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).

“They should have, when they brought the [troops] in, just started hitting the rioters and arresting everyone that couldn’t get away from them,” Mazzara wrote.“No one likes being hit by a stick, and people tend to run when that starts happening in earnest.”

CBP has faced increased public scrutiny after a CBP agent killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year. But CBP has a much longer history of use-of-force incidents. The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) operates a database that identified 455 cases of alleged abusive or improper conduct by CBP agents from 2020 to 2024, and the Southern Border Communities Coalition has found that CBP officers have killed 364 people since 2010. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported 472 use-of-force incidents by CBP law enforcement officers in fiscal year 2023.

For months, we have been submitting FOIA requests for documents that tell us how federal agents and troops were trained to interact with civilians. We have obtained some crucial documents, including ICE training materials that advised agents that they could use “necessary and reasonable” force against “disruptive protesters” to make an arrest. However, it is clear based on footage of ICE officers and other immigration enforcement agents that the materials DHS has released so far are not telling the full story of what is happening inside the agency. Now, we have a clear statement that a high-level official gave the impression of encouraging violence.

The specific markings on the document – specifically the “b(5)” stamped on the text box – indicate that the Trump administration meant to redact this quote. B(5) is an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the public records law that we used to request these documents, that allows officials to withhold for “deliberative process” communications used in helping the agency arrive at a final decision.

Mazzara’s statement is not deliberative in any meaningful sense – it is a comment about his personal opinion. By intending to redact this statement, it appears that DHS was trying to hide Mazzara’s views towards assaulting protestors from the public. It also raises serious questions about what else the agency has inappropriately redacted. 

Mazzara’s emails are the latest example of an underlying crisis at the Department of Homeland Security. The agency has been escalating its use of force, and withholding information that Americans need about their government’s activities. Even if Mazzara has departed the Trump administration, his conduct is the result of the broader abusive policies created by the White House. Until the administration stops its immigration crackdowns and bullying tactics, the crisis will only get worse.