Key congressman urges DOJ, Congress to identify potential funding, organizing of Los Angeles riots

Congressman Mark Harris, R-N.C., said Congress and the Department of Justice should investigate who is behind the Los Angeles riots and if there is anyone or any group funding them. 

"I do think it's important for Congress to raise those questions and do that...looking into it and finding out what we can," Harris said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "I also think the Justice Department will play an important role in trying to see these kinds of things, because, again, these ICE agents are there simply carrying out their responsibility."

Protests and riots have broken out across Los Angeles in response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents' arrests of illegal migrants.

In response to the protests, President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 National Guardsmen to the city, despite objections from California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

"For these people, these rioters who, again, I believe a lot of them are paid...it's also that it's very clear that Antifa had shown up," Harris said.  

Earlier this week, it was reported that an advocacy group with a history of organizing efforts for the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles has long raised money through ActBlue, the controversial Democratic Party-oriented non-profit entity that is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and Congress.

According to the social media pages of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), the group was formed in 1986 to "advance the human and civil rights of immigrants and refugees."