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Along the Klamath River in Northern California, where logging companies once cut ancient redwood trees, vast tracts of land have been returned to the Yurok Tribe in a years-long effort that tribal leaders say will enable the restoration of forests and the protection of a watershed that is vital for salmon.

The effort, which unfolded gradually over the last 23 years, culminated in May as Western Rivers Conservancy turned over 14,968 acres to the Yurok Tribe. It was the last portion of 47,097 acres that the nonprofit group acquired and transferred to the tribe in what is thought to be the largest “land back” deal in California history.

Members of the tribe say they are celebrating the return of their ancestral lands along Blue Creek, a major tributary that meets the Klamath about 40 miles south of the Oregon border. Blue Creek holds cultural and spiritual significance for the Yurok, and its cold, clear waters provide a refuge for salmon.

“We are salmon people,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “The river takes care of us, and it’s our job to take care of the river.”

In all, the tribe now owns an additional 73 square miles along the lower Klamath River, including much of the Blue Creek watershed. The conifer forests, which were heavily logged over the last century, will be managed by the tribal government as two protected areas, the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and the Yurok Tribal Community Forest.

Yurok leaders say regaining stewardship of these lands contributes to larger efforts to revive the ecological health of the Klamath watershed, where last year the removal of four dams farther upstream restored a free-flowing stretch of the river and enabled salmon to reach spawning areas that had been inaccessible for more than a century.

“This land is back home with us now, and we’ll continue that work that we have done as Yurok people to protect the land, protect the streams, provide for our people and provide for the environment,” James said.

In addition to Blue Creek, the land includes other streams that flow into the Klamath.

The tribe plans projects to create healthier stream habitats for fish, and to restore meadows and prairies. In the forests, they plan to use controlled burns to thin vegetation that has built up.

Some old logging roads are being decommissioned, while other roads are set to be upgraded.

“We’re going to continue to work to bring back our wildlife population, our fish population,” James said. “It’s going to take a lot of work, but a lot of people are going to benefit from this.”

Beyond the local benefits, James said the effort serves as an example for the Land Back movement, in which Native people in many areas are seeking to regain ancestral lands that were taken from them generations ago.

“This is what it looks like when we talk about land back,” James said. “Land back means giving the land back to its original people with no strings attached. Let them provide their traditional knowledge to heal the land, the environment.”

Climate & Environment

May 15, 2024

Members of the Yurok Tribe say this effort and others like it are a critically important step in grappling with the lasting effects of colonization.

During the 1800s, California’s Native population was decimated by diseases, displacement and violence, including state-sponsored killings.

The Yurok reservation was established by the federal government in 1855, confining the tribe to an area that covered only a tiny fraction of their ancestral territory. In the late 1800s, white settlers and speculators found ways to secure additional lands along the Klamath River where they could extract valuable redwood, in some cases by bribing U.S. General Land Office officials as they fraudulently acquired thousands of acres of timberlands.

Today, the Yurok Tribe is the largest tribe in California, with more than 6,400 enrolled members.

“We are trying to recover from colonization,” said Amy Bowers Cordalis, a lawyer for the tribe and executive director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group. “And we are just now getting into a place where we are starting to see some of the fruits of our efforts, between dam removal and now land back efforts.”

Regaining these lands enables the tribe “to start rebuilding and to start taking care of our land and our resources,” she said. “We are strongly committed to living in a balance with the natural world.”

She said for members of the tribe, visiting the cold, clear waters of Blue Creek is a spiritual experience. “It’s one of the most wild places in all of California, and it is glorious.”

It’s possible to see some of the area by boat, traveling from the Klamath River to the mouth of Blue Creek. But for now, access to the area is limited.

James said that could change in the future, once restoration and other work is completed.

“At some point in time, we have an opportunity to turn that into a big, beautiful park,” James said. “We’ve got to heal it first, put our resources in it, and it’s going to take some time.”

He said the tribe’s members feel delighted to be once again stewarding these lands and waterways, as their ancestors once did.

“It’s a beautiful feeling knowing that we’ll have this land in our hands moving forward for the next seven generations, for our Yurok people and our grandchildren.”

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Approximately 200 Marines arrived in Los Angeles to begin an assignment to guard the Wilshire Federal Building on Friday, according to an Army general, marking a rare occasion where military forces will be deployed on U.S. soil.

President Trump last weekend federalized and deployed more than 2,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines to L.A. after protests erupted in the light of immigration enforcement operations throughout the city and nearby areas. The move to send military has been described as "authoritarian" by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, while Mr. Trump said Friday morning that the "city would be burning to the ground right now" had he not activated the troops.

Newsom has challenged the decision in a lawsuit. A federal judge sided with Newsom and blocked Mr. Trump from sending troops on Thursday night, but an appeals court temporarily halted the order later that evening. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit scheduled another hearing on the case for June 17. The troops are allowed to stay in L.A. at least until that date.

During a news conference Friday morning, Maj. Gen. Scott M. Sherman said the Marines arrived in L.A. Thursday night. They began their assignment in Westwood around noon on Friday.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass denounced the military's presence and the ICE raids in the city.

"We are here today because the raids have caused fear and panic," she said during a Friday night news conference. "We're not going to solve anything by chasing people at car washes, by intimidating families in their schools or by sending troops into an American city."

Marines temporarily detained someone Friday outside the Wilshire Federal Building, a spokesperson for U.S. Northern Command confirmed to CBS News in a statement.

"Title 10 forces may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances," the spokesperson said. "As one of the photo shows, any temporary detention ends immediately when the individual(s) can be safely transferred to the custody of appropriate civilian law enforcement personnel."

The incident was captured by news photographers. According to Reuters, the detained man identified himself as 27-year-old Marcos Leao, an immigrant and U.S. Army veteran. Leao told reporters he was detained while on his way to the office of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Leao told reporters the Marines mistook him for a protester, but eventually released him.

"They treated me very fairly," said Leao, per Reuters, adding that he was told, "Understand, this is a whole stressful situation for everybody, and we all have a job."

Sherman said that the sole mission of the deployed Marines is to protect federal property and personnel, like the Federal Building. The Marines will be armed with weapons and wearing crowd control gear such as a riot shield, baton and gas masks.

"I would like to emphasize that the soldiers will not participate in law enforcement activities," Sherman said. "Rather, they'll be focused on protecting federal law enforcement personnel."

Sherman confirmed that the National Guard soldiers who have been deployed since Sunday have also not participated in law enforcement activity. No troops have been injured since arriving in L.A.

"They have watched federal law enforcement arrest personnel as they were protecting," Sherman said. "They have not had to detain anyone at this point."

It's not yet clear what assignments the other 500 deployed Marines will receive in L.A. Sherman said he couldn't speculate on future operations, but recent training has centered around defending federal property.

"That's the mission we've really focused on them to do," he said. "They've already started with the Wilshire [Federal] Building today, and we will progress from there."

As of Friday morning, there were 56,300 individuals in ICE detention centers across the country, a record for the agency, according to internal government data obtained by CBS News.

On Thursday and Wednesday, ICE recorded 1,400 and 1,600 nationwide immigration arrests, respectively, the statistics indicate.

ICE arrests have increased by more than 100% since President Trump's first 100 days in office, but they remain well below the 3,000 daily arrest rate demanded by the White House.

Eleanor Watson and Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed to this report.

Austin Turner

Austin Turner is a web producer at CBS Los Angeles. An Inland Empire native, Austin earned a degree in journalism from San Jose State University in 2020. Before joining CBS News in 2025, he worked at KTLA, the San Jose Mercury News, the Sedona Red Rock News and various other outlets as a freelance sports reporter.

At a news conference Thursday, Mayor Karen Bass made a startling claim.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had appeared at a homeless shelter that day, among other sensitive locations in Los Angeles, she said.

But what actually happened at the Whitsett West Tiny Home Village in North Hollywood remains murky. The shifting narratives reflect the anxiety of Angelenos amid ICE raids targeting immigrants at Home Depots, churches and retail centers.

In L.A., a “sanctuary city” where local officials do not participate in federal immigration enforcement, tensions with the federal government are at an all-time high. After some protests against the raids turned violent, the Trump administration called in the National Guard and the U.S. Marines.

With federal officials keeping the city in the dark on immigration enforcement actions, City Council members and the mayor sometimes rely on the rumor mill.

ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, quickly responded to Bass’ comments, saying they were “false.”

“[ICE] is not in homeless shelters,” the agency wrote on X. “This rhetoric from [the mayor] and California politicians demonizes the brave men and women of law enforcement.”

The Whitsett West Tiny Home Village, which is on city property and is run by the nonprofit Hope the Mission, has beds for about 150 people in shed-like structures off the 170 Freeway near Whitsett Avenue and Saticoy Street.

According to Laura Harwood, Hope the Mission’s deputy chief program officer, people in a car tried to get access to the tiny home village on Thursday afternoon, telling security guards that they were American citizens who wanted to see how their taxpayer dollars were being used. The guards did not admit the visitors, who were wearing civilian clothes.

“This is a really unusual situation. This really doesn’t happen,” Harwood said.

Other employees saw some men looking into the complex from different sides and taking pictures.

A worker at the tiny home village, who requested anonymity because he has family members who are undocumented, told The Times that he was returning from lunch when he spotted two DHS SUVs with tinted windows down the block.

Tiny home staffers were concerned enough that they reached out to City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, who came to the complex.

“We got reports that some ICE agents were around in the area viewing the location from both the front and the backside entryways,” Nazarian said on Instagram.

Nazarian said that immigration agents appearing at the tiny home village would be a “fear mongering” tactic.

The targeting of interim homeless housing could dissuade people from moving off the street, or push those in shelters to leave out of fear, said Rowan Vansleve, Hope the Mission’s president.

“Last Thursday, ICE entered our city, and provoked the city, by chasing people through Home Depots and car washes and showing up at schools. And today, showing up at emergency rooms and homeless shelters,” Bass said at the Thursday press conference.

Bass’ team confirmed to The Times that she was referring to the incident at the Whitsett West Tiny Home Village.

City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said that community organizations and local elected officials have been sorting through reports of DHS sightings to see if they are credible.

“We have seen situations where people say federal agents are here, and then when someone goes, it turns out they were never there or were gone an hour ago,” Hernandez said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday temporarily blocked a federal judge’s order that directed President Donald Trump to return control of National Guard troops to California after he deployed them there following protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids.

The court said it would hold a hearing on the matter on June 17. The ruling came only hours after a federal judge’s order was to take effect at noon Friday.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and both violated the Tenth Amendment and exceeded Trump’s statutory authority. The order applied only to the National Guard troops and not Marines who were also deployed to the LA protests. The judge said he would not rule on the Marines because they were not out on the streets yet.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had asked the judge for an emergency stop to troops helping carry out immigration raids, had praised the earlier ruling.

“Today was really about a test of democracy, and today we passed the test,” Newsom said in a news conference before the appeals court decision. The deployment of the Guard was illegal and both violated the Tenth Amendment and exceeded Trump’s statutory authority.

The White House had called Breyer’s order “unprecedented” and said it “puts our brave federal officials in danger.”

“The district court has no authority to usurp the President’s authority as Commander in Chief,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement. “The President exercised his lawful authority to mobilize the National Guard to protect federal buildings and personnel in Gavin Newsom’s lawless Los Angeles. The Trump Administration will immediately appeal this abuse of power and looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”

Newsom’s case was solely focused on the National Guard, and the judge said when the state attorney asked about whether this could apply to the Marines that he would not rule on that because they were not on the streets yet.

Marines in civil disturbance training at nearby base

About 700 Marines have been undergoing civil disturbance training at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach in Orange County, California. Nicholas Green, an attorney for the state, told the court: “I have been told by the office of the governor that within the next 24 hours, 140 Marines will replace and relieve National Guard members in Los Angeles.”

Typically the authority to call up the National Guard lies with governors, but there are limited circumstances under which the president can deploy those troops. Trump federalized members of the California National Guard under an authority known as Title 10.

Title 10 allows the president to call the National Guard into federal service under certain limited circumstances, such as when the country “is invaded,” when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government,” or when the president is unable “to execute the laws of the United States.”

Breyer said in his ruling that what is happening in Los Angeles does not meet the definition of a rebellion.

“The protests in Los Angeles fall far short of ‘rebellion,’” he wrote.

It was not immediately clear how that would change the situation on the ground.

California sued the federal government

Newsom sued to block the Guard’s deployment against his wishes. California later filed an emergency motion asking the judge to block the Guard from assisting with immigration raids.

The governor argued that the troops were originally deployed to protect federal buildings and wanted the court to block the troops from helping protect immigration agents during the raids, saying that involving the Guard would only escalate tensions and promote civil unrest.

Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, commander of Task Force 51, which is overseeing the Guard troops and Marines sent to Los Angeles, said that as of Wednesday about 500 of the Guard troops had been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations. Photos of Guard soldiers providing security for the agents have already been circulated by immigration officials.

None of the Marines have been trained to go on immigration raids, and it is not yet clear if they eventually will, Sherman said.

Trump improperly called up the Guard, judge says

In his broad ruling, the judge determined Trump had not properly called the Guard up in the first place.

The lawsuit argued that Title 10 also requires that the president go through governors when issuing orders to the National Guard.

Brett Shumate, an attorney for the federal government, said Trump complied with the statute by informing the general in charge of the troops of his decision and would have the authority to call in the Guard even if he had not.

In a brief filed ahead of the Thursday hearing, the Justice Department said Trump’s orders were not subject to judicial review.

“Courts did not interfere when President Eisenhower deployed the military to protect school desegregation. Courts did not interfere when President Nixon deployed the military to deliver the mail in the midst of a postal strike. And courts should not interfere here either,” the department said.

“Our position is this is not subject to judicial review,” Shumate told the judge.

Breyer, who at one point waved a copy of the constitution, said he disagreed.

“We’re talking about the president exercising his authority, and the president is of course limited in that authority. That’s the difference between a constitutional government and King George,” he said.

Protests intensified

The protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles intensified after Trump called up the Guard and have since spread to other cities, including Boston, Chicago and Seattle.

Trump has described Los Angeles in dire terms that Bass and Newsom say are nowhere close to the truth.

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