Ontario Mayor Paul Leon has walked back his comments about ongoing immigration raids in Southern California, which some residents felt minimized their fears.

“I feel bad about how bad you feel about the things I said. That wasn’t my intent, not at all,” Leon told attendees at the Tuesday meeting of the Ontario City Council. “I take responsibility for what I said and for hurting you. I’m sorry.”

Leon and the council had just gotten an earful from more than two dozen people during the public comment portion of the meeting, many of them blasting Leon for his comments at the council’s June 17 meeting.

At that meeting, Leon had said fears expressed by Ontario residents over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity were overblown and were the fault of “legacy media” and social media.

“To think that they’re coming after you, just profiling you on the way that you look, I just haven’t seen that happen in this town yet,” Leon said at the earlier meeting. “I don’t live in fear,