Los Angeles has risen up in rebellion against Donald Trump and a brutal effort to round up undocumented migrants for deportation.
The protests began on 6 June, when ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents launched a 30-day operation aimed at kidnapping undocumented migrants from workplaces across the city.
They began by raiding Home Depot stores and the fashion district. “The response from our side was swift. Activists and nearby community members began an immediate protest,” immigrant rights activist and Marx21 member Victor Fernandez explained. Protests marched from the site of the initial raid at Home Depot on the federal detention centre where those arrested were being held, blocking ICE agents inside the building.
For several days ICE raids across the city faced ongoing protests. “Some neighborhoods looked like warzones as the LAPD used their ‘less-lethal’ stun grenades and tear gas against protesters”, Marx 21 reported.
Tens of thousands took to the streets, clashing with ICE and the LAPD. Trump responded by sending in 4000 National Guard troops as well as 700 Marines, threatening to use the Insurrection Act and claiming that LA had been, “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals.”
But Juan Jose Gutierrez of the Full Immigrants Rights Coalition told Socialist Worker, “The vast majority of people protesting are US citizens who are the children of migrants. They are sick and tired of the abuse, the racism and elitist policies. That is why people are on the streets.”
Grassroots networks involving unionists and community activists have organised alert systems involving roaming patrols of activists, so that when ICE is spotted in an area there can be a swift response.
David Huerta, President of SEIU California—one of the state’s largest unions representing nearly a million public sector workers—was beaten and arrested during one of the first community mobilisations, responding as part of a community defence coalition against the raids.
Workers’ resistance to ICE also came through other channels. As Marx21 reported, “the community held protests outside the AC hotel in Pasadena. Ice agents were not only staying but demanding hotel workers present identity documents based on racial profiling alone.
“The protest managed to boot Ice out of one Pasadena hotel.”
LA has a huge migrant population, with around one in three residents foreign born, and around one million undocumented migrants, the majority of them living in the US for over a decade.
Undocumented migrants make a large part of California’s workforce. In sectors like agriculture and construction, undocumented migrants account for over a quarter of the workforce.
Deportation agenda
“The reason the raids are increasing now is because Trump’s deportation agenda is not working. They haven’t been able to deport as many people as they promised”, Marx21’s Clare Fester said.
Trump said during the election he would deport 15-20 million undocumented migrants. His approval rating has sunk as his sweeping tariffs threaten to worsen the economic crisis facing ordinary Americans.
Trump hopes to use anti-migrant racism to distract from his failings and rally support from his racist support base. At the end of May, Trump’s administration tripled its daily deportation target to 3000. It also instructed ICE to stop prioritising criminals and instead to target workplaces where undocumented migrants are known to seek jobs.
During one raid on a garment factory in LA, ICE agents, dressed in full military garb and masks to conceal their identities, lined up 30 migrant workers against a wall and interrogated them. Detainees have been bussed to Federal Detention Centres, some later to be flown on to Guantanamo Bay, where a detention centre is being built to house 30,000 detainees.
But Trump’s targeting of migrants who have lived and worked in the US for years is far less popular than his promises to go after criminals during the election.
Polling shows that while 68 per cent “broadly favoured” deportations, it is just 41 per cent when it comes to undocumented migrants who have been residents for years, have jobs, and no criminal record.
The protests in LA quickly sparked solidarity across the US. A nationwide “No Kings” day of action saw over 2000 protests nationwide. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of LA, up to 100,000 in Philadelphia and 200,000 in New York. One estimate said five million joined the protests across the US.
These protests have killed the idea that Trump’s regime can’t be fought. Hundreds of undocumented migrants have been saved from detention, ICE vehicles have been torched and riot cops have been forced to retreat.
The fight against Trump is deepening, showing in real time that mass protest can cripple his regime. It’s the kind of fightback we need to take on our own rulers here.
By Maeve Larkins
