Operation Excalibur: Authoritarian Theater in the Heart of Los Angeles

A Drill Without a Purpose—Or One It Won’t Admit

On July 7, 2025, MacArthur Park in Los Angeles was the stage for a surprise joint “readiness” operation called Operation Excalibur. The drill included participation from nearly a dozen federal and state agencies: ICE, CBP, ATF, DEA, FBI, IRS-CI, U.S. Marshals, Homeland Security Investigations, and the California National Guard. A CBP press release described the event as a “static interagency site protection drill focused on readiness and coordinated response capabilities.” ¹

But what actually took place went far beyond an administrative test. Uniformed agents with long guns staged around the park. Armored vehicles and mobile surveillance units were visible to bystanders. Helicopters were briefly overhead. Local LAPD officers, who reportedly were not informed in advance, later told journalists the city was only notified once the drill was already underway. ²

There were no arrests, no warrants, no known targets, and no stated objective—just a show of overwhelming force in one of the city’s most historically marginalized neighborhoods.

Why MacArthur Park? Why Now?

MacArthur Park is no random staging ground. It sits in the heart of Westlake, a densely populated neighborhood home to tens of thousands of working-class immigrants—mostly Central American and Mexican—many of whom live in precarious legal or housing situations.

It’s also a historic site of protest, repression, and resistance. In 2007, LAPD violently dispersed peaceful immigrants’ rights marchers at the park in an event still remembered as the “May Day Melee.” In 2020, during the George Floyd uprisings, MacArthur Park was again a staging ground for demonstrators—and a target of aggressive police responses.

To choose this location for an unannounced federal exercise in 2025, amid a volatile election year and increasing federal crackdowns on immigrants and dissenters, is no coincidence. The message is clear: federal power can appear anywhere, uninvited and unaccountable.

Excalibur and the Logic of Authoritarian Readiness

Operation Excalibur was framed as a drill—but a drill for what?

CBP’s press release stated it was meant to ensure “readiness for potential multi-agency operations in urban settings.” But in the absence of an actual emergency, drills like these function as testing grounds for authoritarian norms. They serve four overlapping purposes:

1. Normalize the military occupation of public space.
2. Blur the lines between civil policing and military enforcement.
3. Intimidate vulnerable communities into compliance or silence.
4. Gauge public reaction to visible shows of force.

If these sound like counterinsurgency tactics, it’s because they are. The federal government has increasingly applied counterterror and foreign occupation strategies domestically, especially in urban zones with high concentrations of poor, racialized, and immigrant populations. ³

From Spectacle to Strategy

Excalibur was not the first such drill—but it was among the most explicitly theatrical. Similar exercises have taken place under Trump-aligned DHS policy frameworks, including Operation Lone Star in Texas and recent “riot suppression” joint drills in Phoenix and Atlanta. ⁴⁵

But Excalibur marks an escalation. By choosing a symbolic urban park, deploying visibly militarized forces, and doing so without public warning, the operation reads more like a political performance than a logistical rehearsal.

Authoritarian states around the world have used the language of readiness to justify psychological warfare: they deploy uniformed troops in civilian spaces not to respond to emergencies, but to preempt resistance. It’s intimidation disguised as coordination.

Who’s Coordinating—and Toward What End?

What makes Excalibur especially chilling is how it fits into a broader political agenda. Project 2025, the right-wing transition plan crafted by the Heritage Foundation and other Trump-aligned think tanks, outlines a sweeping remapping of federal power—centralizing executive control over DOJ, DHS, and the military. ⁶

Under this vision, agencies like ICE, CBP, and the National Guard aren’t just border enforcement—they’re tools of domestic political order. They can be deployed internally for crowd control, protest suppression, and neighborhood intimidation.

Operation Excalibur shows us how these tools will be used: not only against migrants, but against any population deemed disorderly, radical, or undesirable.

Local Officials Caught Flat-Footed

One of the most telling details is that local Los Angeles officials had no role in the planning or execution of Excalibur. The LAPD reportedly received only minimal information during the drill itself. Community groups in Westlake and Koreatown said they were blindsided. ⁷

This federal incursion on municipal turf without consent echoes Trump-era policies of “sanctuary city bypassing,” where ICE raids were conducted in defiance of local non-cooperation ordinances. It reflects the growing erosion of local autonomy in the face of centralized federal power.

What Comes Next?

If left unchallenged, operations like Excalibur will become the norm—not the exception. Already, Homeland Security has indicated that it is planning similar multi-agency readiness events in Chicago, Miami, and Phoenix later this year. These are test runs for a federal policing model with no accountability and no democratic oversight.

We must treat these events not as isolated curiosities, but as early-stage authoritarian muscle-flexing.

A Movement Response Must Include:

• Community Surveillance of Federal Activity: Establish rapid-response legal and documentation teams in at-risk neighborhoods.
• Transparency Demands: Pressure local and state governments to disclose communications with DHS and demand prior notice for all future drills.
• Municipal Resistance: Strengthen city-level ordinances that restrict cooperation with federal immigration and military operations.
• Political Education: Raise awareness that “drills” like Excalibur are not neutral—they are tools of power consolidation.

“Operation Excalibur wasn’t a rehearsal. It was an announcement.”

The only question is whether we’re listening—and whether we’re ready to respond.