This article was published in Left Voice, part of the International Network The Daily Left in the US Julia Wallace spokesperson for that organization in the ängels and activist of the Seiu union.
Los Angeles has become a high point of the growing Trump administration war against immigrants. On Friday, June 6, the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE) raided an Home Depot parking lot in the city’s Westlake district, stopping several undocumented workers. Subsequently, the agents raided the textile district of the city.
But ICE faces a strong opposition by the community. The raids caused protests, with protesters chanting slogans and throwing eggs and stones at the agents and police, who responded with pepper gas and tear gas. Forty -four people were arrested, including the president of the Seiu de California, David Huerta. The union leader has received treatment for his injuries, but continues in federal custody.
On Saturday morning, ICE went to Home Depot in Paramount, a city in the southern zone of the Los Angeles County Bay. The agents persecuted people on the street, but were confronted by the community. Most of the young Latin and blacks built barricades around the store and responded to the stunned grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas from the agents with stones and bottles. Before the shouts of “Out of our community!”, The border patrol agents, dressed in a camouflage uniform, were forced to retire.
As the day progressed, confrontations occurred in Compton, Inglewood and Long Beach, led by Latin and black young people. Vehicles were burned, including a border patrol, and the young people took the streets, marching with Mexican flags, wearing Kufiyas and demanding ICE’s exit from their communities.
Highlighting the interconnection of our struggles, protesters commented that angels share a common cause with Palestine; That “the enemy is not you or me, they are!” The fight for Gaza is also linked to the struggle for immigrants; After all, weapons and surveillance systems used against the Palestinians are also used to attack our migrant brothers in the United States.
A weakened Trump sends to the National Guard
The Trump administration responded to the mobilizations in Los Angeles, deploying 2,000 members of the National Guard, the first time a president uses these faculties from the riots of Los Angeles of 1992. On Sunday, a Blackhawk helicopter even brought ammunition and supplies. Other members of the Administration, such as Stephen Miller and Vice President JD Vance, have intensified their speech, qualifying the demonstrations of this weekend as “insurrection”.
The clashes in Los Angeles are only the last episode of the growing resistance to the Trump anti -immigration agenda. Throughout the country, people – including high school students – protest against ICE and fight to protect the members of their community. It is evident that Trump’s war against immigrants is finding limits, and the president’s demonstration of strength seeks to meet his patriot and anti -immigrant base. He hopes that, when presenting his successes, he can strengthen his support in the midst of the diverse fall of the approval rates and the growing political failures, such as the Big Beautiful Bill stagnant and the lack of tariff agreements.
Meanwhile, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, have threatened to retain federal taxes and describe the deployment of the National Guard of provocation. Since Los Angeles is a sanctuary city, the local order forces – the Los Angeles Police Department – have not collaborated in the raids. However, Los Angeles County Sheriffs have been there and have helped ICE agents.
We need a unified fighting and with class independence
While the Democrats in California and in other places they position themselves as Anti-Trump, we must be clear: these raids and the war against immigrants would not be possible without the infrastructure developed during the Democratic and Republican administrations, whether under George W. Bush, Barack Obama (the “Deporter in Chief”) or Joe Biden. Despite all their rhetorical proposals against current administration policies, Democrats are deeply complicit and they cannot trust them to fight for the rights of immigrants.
Instead, we need a mass movement, with independence of class, against deportations, bringing this struggle to the streets and our workplaces. We must unequivocally demand the liberation of David Huerta and all those arrested by ICE, making sure not to isolate the labor movements of social movements and black and Latin youth in a precarious situation that rises against these reactionary forces. In summary, defeat ICE and the war against immigrants, and protect our democratic rights, will require the firmer unit possible. When we fight together, we can win, such as when Trump was forced to reinstate thousands of student visas.
At the end of April, 55,000 members of the Local 721 Seiu Union declared themselves on strike, strongly demonstrating how workers can fight for their rights. This same union should mobilize together with the rest of the working class and the oppressed to fight for immigrants, against state repression. Only through an independent class organization we can expel ICE from our communities and knock down the border walls that seek to divide us as class.
From Gaza to Mexico, border walls have to disappear!
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
