Militarized Raids Against Migrants Spark Mass Protests in Los Angeles

Since Friday afternoon, mass protests have been taking place across Los Angeles in response to raids carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The mass raids carried out by federal agents in military gear at three workplaces in Los Angeles on Friday, June 6 resulted in the detention of dozens of migrants. The intensified raids in the city are taking place as the Trump administration is scrambling to meet mass deportation quotas.

Protests calling for an end to ICE raids continued into Monday, June 9, despite facing heavy repression from the Los Angeles police and the deployment of the National Guard at the request of President Donald Trump. The mass public outcry in Los Angeles to ICE operations reflect a growing popular discontent towards Trump’s immigration policies.

Activist arrests in anti-ICE protests spark further outcry
Protests began on Friday afternoon after news broke that heavy militarized agents from ICE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), were carrying out raids at workplaces in LA’s Fashion District and mass arresting immigrant workers. Concerned community members, trade union leaders, and progressive activists gathered in the area to call for the detained migrants’ release, while some attempted to stop vans filled with the detainees from leaving the area. Federal agents in riot gear confronted protesters in order to allow the vans to proceed through the crowd.

David Huerta, President of SEIU California and SEIU-United Service Workers West, was one of the dozens who had gathered to observe the raids in the Fashion District and was arrested by federal agents. Huerta was hospitalized due to injuries he sustained during his arrest, and was held in federal custody until Monday, June 9.

“What happened to me is not about me; This is about something much bigger,” Huerta said in a statement following his arrest. “This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that’s happening. Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals. We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice. This is injustice. And we all have to stand on the right side of justice.”

Later in the afternoon, hundreds gathered outside of the Los Angeles Federal Building, where the city’s ICE office is located. There, agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used pepper spray against protesters and more protesters faced arrest. Police arrested dozens of protesters on Friday, including Huerta. Huerta has since been charged with conspiracy to impede an officer which is a felony carrying a maximum sentence of six years in federal prison.

On Monday, SEIU locals and other unions held demonstrations in cities across the US including Chicago, New York City, Washington, DC, and Seattle, calling for Huerta’s release, for charges against him to be dropped, and for an end to ICE raids.

Are We Wrong?

National Guard called in over the weekend
On Saturday, protests against ICE raids continued, despite escalating repression and arrests. In Paramount, a small city south of Los Angeles, protests broke out after rumors circulated of an immigration raid at Home Depot. In the city center, protests continued calling for an end to the ICE raids.

Around 6 pm that day, Trump signed a memo to deploy 2,000 National Guard officers to protect agents conducting ICE raids, against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom. This is the first time that a president has deployed the National Guard without the cooperation of the governor of a state since 1965, when 36th President Lyndon B. Johnon sent National Guard troops to protect civil rights demonstrators in Alabama, while ultra-racist segregationist George Wallace was governing the state.

On Sunday, over 10,000 protesters marched through the heart of downtown Los Angeles to again call for an end to the raids, and protest the deployment of the National Guard and the escalating repression of demonstrators.

On Monday, the Trump administration ordered the deployment of 700 Marines to Los Angeles.

Trump administration attempts to smear anti-ICE protests
In response to the outpouring of resistance against the attacks on immigrant communities, the Trump administration has resorted to a media campaign in an attempt to delegitimize and stigmatize the movement on the streets and justify the deployment of more federal forces.

Several top figures in the Trump administration have bizarrely characterized the protests as an “invasion” by immigrants in posts on social media and in comments to the media.

Trump himself wrote on his social media account Truth Social, “A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals. Now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations.” He added that he called on members of his administration to “to take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots. Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free.”

Top Trump official and immigration hawk Stephen Miller spent the weekend condemning the protests and California’s Democratic leadership. On Monday he wrote on X, “Los Angeles is all the proof you need that mass migration unravels societies.”

However, the mass mobilizations in Los Angeles which have had participation of a cross-section of Los Angeles’ diverse communities to reject the abduction of their neighbors tells a different story.

Priscilla, an independent journalist who runs the popular account @communalpress on Instagram, was on the ground at Los Angeles protests throughout the weekend and says that the ICE agents are the real perpetrators of violence. “They are the ones who are causing terror. They are terrorizing our community,” Priscilla told Peoples Dispatch. “The ICE raids are the most violent thing.”

(People’s Dispatch)