A thick haze hung over Los Angeles on Monday morning. While people in suits walked to their office jobs, the streets of downtown were marked with the remains of altercations between law enforcement and protestors – casings of rubber bullets and tear gas canisters, Waymo car carcasses, broken glass, graffiti and the National Guard in riot gear.
Beyond the glitz and glam of Hollywood, this city, this county, is built on the backs of working-class people – built by immigrants. It is a town of labor unions, a town of diversity, a town that stands united against hate. If Angelenos have made anything clear, it’s that when you come for one of us, you come for all of us.
“ICE is not welcome in Los Angeles,” said Rabbi Robin Podolsky, while demonstrating outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Monday. “Los Angeles is a world city. What makes it beautiful is that people come here from the four corners of the world to contribute. It’s a beautiful place of many cultures, many languages, many faiths, and we love it that way.”
Days of protests erupted across LA following multiple United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on Friday, June 6. Immigration officials descended on four businesses, including Ambiance Apparel in the downtown garment district and the Home Depot in Westlake, arresting more than 40 people on suspicion of immigration violations.
Teacher Ruth Reyes said she woke up Friday morning in high spirits, ready for her students’ graduation. Instead, four blocks away at the local Home Depot, she found day laborers running for their lives, trying to escape Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents.
“My school was on high alert. It seemed like less families showed up for my kids,” Reyes said, fighting back tears during a rally outside the federal building in downtown on Friday evening.
“Our friends, neighbors and family are being kidnapped,” she continued. “Our kids are scared.”
Federal officials have yet to confirm the number of people who have been detained this week in LA, but immigration rights activists estimate it to be several hundred.
Advocates further stated that conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center had become overcrowded, with over 200 people packed into a facility built to hold only 100. There have also been reports of some detainees already being deported.
ICE operations appeared to have intensified in recent weeks after the administration increased its arrest quota from 1,000 to 3,000 people per day.
Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, said in late May that ICE should pick up any immigration offenders and not worry about targeted operations that focus on criminals, encouraging agents to focus on sites where migrant workers often congregate.
Despite the Trump administration’s assertions that those being deported are the “worst of the worst,” raids across the nation are taking place at immigration courts, churches and work sites.
On Wednesday, Union del Barrio, an immigrant rights organization, said that ICE raided Downey Memorial Christian Church, shoved a pastor and pointed a rifle at them.
According to advocates, many people being detained and deported have no criminal records and are merely trying to earn a living to support their families.
Tensions Escalate and Violence Erupts
Raids and rallies continued throughout the weekend, and protestors, including the majority who were peacefully demonstrating, were met with overwhelming violence from local and federal law enforcement.
Tensions escalated on Saturday in Paramount, when protesters attempting to stop a raid were met with heavy force, and continued on Sunday, when thousands took to the streets in downtown.
“A lot of my people are getting taken away,” one protester said after being arrested for her bike colliding with a police officer in downtown. She added that she was there to defend immigrants like her parents, who came to this country undocumented in search of opportunities and a better life.
Some demonstrators vandalized the area with anti-ICE and anti-Trump graffiti, threw projectiles at law enforcement and set Waymo cars on fire. Several California Highway Patrol vehicles on the Hollywood (101) Freeway were also damaged by rocks, fireworks and scooters being thrown from the overpass.
Law enforcement fired hundreds of rounds of less-than-lethal projectiles, flash bangs and gas canisters to disperse both unruly and nonviolent protesters.
But “less lethal” ammunition can still cause severe damage. The “recommendations” under the Geneva conventions discourage police from aiming kinetic projectiles at protesters’ heads, as it could result in “skull fractures and brain damage, eye damage (including permanent blindness) and even death.” Targeting the torso can also cause damage to vital organs, especially when fired at close range.
Videos have emerged of officers shooting protesters in the head, firing at protesters at close range, beating them with batons and even trampling them with horses.
The press has also been targeted, with clearly marked reporters pelted by rubber bullets, hit in the head with tear gas canisters and forced to flee a hail of pepper balls.
“Instead of respecting First Amendment-protected press rights, police too often met journalists with violence,” the First Amendment Coalition wrote in a statement regarding the violence against reporters in LA.
LA Mayor Karen Bass announced a curfew for downtown on Tuesday, following several businesses being looted on Monday night. The curfew will be in effect from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and may continue for several days.
A Show of Force
Saturday’s confrontations with federal agents in Paramount and Compton prompted the Trump administration to deploy as many as 2,000 National Guard troops to LA. By Monday, federal officials announced that additional National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines were being deployed to the city.
Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the move, saying Marines “shouldn’t be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial president. This is un-American.”
Bass also called the federal reinforcements unnecessary and said the unrest was escalated by the Trump administration’s deployment of troops.
“Last Thursday, there was nothing happening in this town that called for the raids that took place Friday,” Bass said at a news conference on Monday.
“Stop the raids,” she continued. “This is creating fear and chaos in our city and it is unnecessary.”
In a social media post, Trump said the city had been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals,” further stating that “order will be restored, the illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free.”
Solidarity protests have been emerging in cities across the country, and nationwide protests are planned for Saturday, June 14, the same day as Trump’s military parade in Washington.
Trump threatened to use “heavy force” against any protesters who try to disrupt them from “celebrating big on Saturday.”
But it isn’t so easy to quell the resolve and spirit of Angelenos, who, though battered and bruised, say they will be out in the streets until ICE has been run out of town.
I studied Sociology, and I can understand the anxiety and frustration felt by many of my community. In show of solidarity, I attended the event on Saturday.
Keeping Families intact is important for many of us Latinos/Latinas.
It is so sad to see families being torn apart.
I have empathy for my community.
I stand in solidarity!