In recent days they have exploded numerous demonstrations in Los Angeles against the ICEthe immigration police responsible for stopping and deporting illegal immigrants. Before this anger, which extended to numerous neighborhoods, Donald Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 soldiers of the National Guard, exceeding the authority of the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom. In the early morning of Sunday, images broadcast by X showed the soldiers arriving in offensive formation, willing to brutally repress the crowd with stunned grenades and batons.
Trump tries to suffocate the popular reaction, largely spontaneously, given the growing number of raids of repressive forces in work centers, especially in the neighborhoods where many immigrants work in the textile or construction sector. On Friday, ICE made a raid in Home Depota DIY store frequented by many undocumented workers in search of work. The raid generated the reaction of many residents and workers, who surrounded the agents in an attempt to prevent arrests. In response, ICE agents gased and beat the crowd. Shortly after, The president of the Seiu union, David Huerta, was arrested and hard. His violent detention, which was filmed, shows the agents pushing him to the ground and placating him; It is now in federal custody.
EVERYBODY WATCH.
ICE IS OUT OF CONTROL.
Video of SEIU California’s President David Huerta getting assaulted & arrested during an ICE raid in the warehouse district of Downtown Los Angeles today.
He’s an LA native, American citizen and labor leader.
Don’t turn away. pic.twitter.com/TuDDSHaISC
— Fight for a Union (@FightForAUnion) June 6, 2025
“What has happened to me does not have to do with me, but with something much more serious”he said from the hospital. “Workers, members of our family and our community are being treated as criminals. We must all collectively protest against this madness, because this is not justice. It is injustice. And we must all be on the correct side of justice”. A few hours after their arrest, almost a thousand people took to the streets of Los Angeles to demonstrate. Several union, community and political organizations expressed their support.
Happening now: Los Angeles community members march in protest against ICE after multiple raids targeted migrant workers earlier today. pic.twitter.com/GqwRa4M4le
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) June 7, 2025
The raids and reactions extended rapidly throughout the city, with 118 arrests during the weekend, according to the government. According to a lawyer of the Human Rights Coalition of immigrants, only on Friday there were at least seven raids. The arrests were often arbitrary and were based on racist controls and random facts. On Saturday, ICE attacked another Home Depot in the popular district of Long Beach. Spontaneously, many members of the community, especially young blacks and Latinos, took to the street and against the police and the ICE, raising barricades and throwing mortars and stones. Next, many people concentrated before the detention center, protected by the police, to demand the release of the detainees.
In Los Angeles now, they are bodies against vehicles. So naked.pic.twitter.com/d2rBZIEkzz
— Kurt Hackbarth 🌹 (@KurtHackbarth) June 7, 2025
Los Angeles, a city with a historical leftist tradition, with a large Latin American immigrant population, is now at the forefront of the manifestations of solidarity against hunt by immigrants. In recent months, demonstrations have also occurred in other cities. This radicality is expressed at a time when the Trump administration intends to intensify these attacks, aiming above all to workers, as recently declared from the White House Thomas D. Homan, head of borders. It also occurs after the demonstrations of high school students at the beginning of the year in several California cities against deportations and ICE. Although the governor and the Democratic mayor denounced the deployment of the National Guard announced by Trump, accusing him of throwing more firewood in the fire, they were mainly outraged by an answer that would not be “civilized”, and called the calm to the protesters.
While Trump plans to unleash all the repressive force of the National Guard against the people of Los Angeles, his war against immigrants faces increasing resistance and contradictions, including spontaneous and increasingly explosive responses from below. At a time when the president attacks workers to increase their deportation figures, the entry of the labor movement was decisive to organize against repression and implement the necessary measures to avoid immigrants deportation.
This note was published originally in Permanent Revolution, part of the International Network of the Daily Left.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
