The National Guard outside the Federal Building during the ICE protests in Downtown Los Angeles (June 9, 2025) | Josiah True / Shutterstock
Ten observations on the ongoing anti-ICE protests and Trump’s misuse of our military to thwart legal protest:
- The ICE raids in Los Angeles were the first step in Trump’s goal to impose martial law and consolidate his power. This is hardly far-fetched. Even Congresswoman Laura Friedman said that the other day. Trump thinks he’s above the law—and doesn’t have to comply with federal court orders and can keep US congresspeople from inspecting ICE facilities, even though they have the legal right to do so. Trump’s invasion of LA is also the result of his revenge against California for voting against him and his strategy of demonizing American cities and states run by Democrats. He is using LA as a test case of whether he can get away with stifling peaceful protest and militarize our cities with calls for “law and order.” He assumes that most white Americans agree with his racist attitude toward immigrants (whom he has said “poison the nation’s blood”) and will let him get away with it.
- The timing of these ICE raids is no accident. The federal raids—which Trump is likely to expand to other cities—are meant to divert public attention from Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” to cut Medicaid and other essential programs in order to give a huge tax cut to the super-rich.
- The ICE raids are not about identifying and arresting immigrants who were known criminals in order to deport them. ICE went into workplaces with lots of Latino immigrants and schools with lots of immigrant students whose parents and grandparents were bringing them to school. ICE didn’t have names of people with criminal records. They arrested people without having a warrant. The White House confirmed on Wednesday that 330 people have been taken into custody by federal authorities since immigration sweeps began last week in Los Angeles. Most of them did not have prior criminal convictions. ICE’s actions were designed to create fear and confusion—and to whip up his MAGA supporters who want Trump to keep his election promise to carry out a “mass deportation.”
- The protests were very specific—get ICE out of LA. For the most part, the LAPD kept its hands off those who were protesting at the ICE detention center and federal government buildings. The National Guard and the Marines were brought in allegedly to “restore order,” but their presence was unnecessary because the LAPD could handle that, as both Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom explained. The protests occurred within one square mile in downtown LA, a city of over 500 square miles.
- Trump, who pardoned the January 6 insurrectionists who attacked and in some instances killed law enforcement officers, is now trying to define the anti-ICE protesters as criminals, radicals, anarchists, “Marxists,” and generally “bad people,” when they were simply trying to protect their family members, friends, and immigrant workers.
- The LAPD and the LA County Sheriff’s Department arrested a small number of people who engaged in flagrant acts of violence, as Gustavo Arellano mentioned in his LA Times column on Monday. Some people tossed concrete cinder blocks from a highway overpass down on cars, including police cars and CA highway patrol cars. Some people set fire to cars, including those self-driving taxis. Some threw bricks through LAPD cars. Some ripped out tables and benches from Grand Park in downtown LA. Some through rocks through store windows and a handful vandalized businesses. Of course, 99 percent of the protesters were peaceful, even if they were angry and, in some cases, shouting obscenities. But, not surprisingly, the broadcast and print media, as well as social media commentators, focused on the less than 1 percent who were not peaceful, and thus exaggerated acts of violence and vandalism, which contributes to how President Trump is trying to portray the LA events as an “insurrection” by “anarchists” and “Marxists.” Mayor Karen Bass correctly criticized these acts and said that the perpetrators were playing into Trump’s hands and giving him an excuse to invade the city with military troops, which is what Trump wanted. Mayor Bass that the LAPD had a responsibility to arrest those engaged in violence and vandalism. It is possible that some LAPD officers went too far in roughing up some protesters, and they should be punished. An article in The New Republic argued that the LAPD was complicit with ICE and the National Guard by arresting protesters and thus stopping their ability to protest against ICE. But the writer made no distinctions between peaceful and violent protest, and thus confuses the issues.
- Who is responsible for the violence and vandalism? We don’t know yet. None of the local law enforcement agencies have released the names and characteristics of those arrested. But I suspect it is a combination of right-wing agent provocateurs and ultra-left crazies. It makes sense that members of groups like the Proud Boys (quite a few of them Latino) would try to infiltrate the protest, incite violence, and wreak havoc in order to help give Trump cover for his power grab and his goal of “mass deportation.” Many Proud Boys and others who participated in the January 6 insurrection had been in the military and/or law enforcement. They know how to sow chaos. In the 1960s and 1970s, the agent provocateurs who infiltrated the anti-war movement were part of local police “red squads” or FBI informants. I doubt either of those are the case now. The racist, antisemitic, anti-immigrant hate groups operate independently from law enforcement, but they still have some ties to local police. With regard to ultra-leftists, I have no idea if this is the case, but it wouldn’t surprise me. There are anarchist and “revolutionary” groups who view inciting violence and provoking repression by law enforcement as “heightening the contradictions.” All that’s needed is for one, two, or three of them to show up and help stir things up and Trump has the evidence he needs to describe the entire protest as led by anarchists and Marxists fomenting “insurrection.” They don’t seem to care that they’ve fallen into Trump’s trap.
- The vast majority of people participating in the anti-ICE protests are Latino, but I was impressed by the large numbers of Asian, Black, and white people there too, particularly in LA. (There were also protests in other nearby cities.) The music, speeches, and other aspects of the protest were well organized and, as I said above, peaceful. Groups like CHIRLA (Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights in LA), NDLON (National Day Laborers Organizing Network), and the ACLU were there to provide legal and other resources. If you can’t attend any of the protests but want to help, donate to one, two, or three of those organizations.
- It was good to see so many activists and politicians rallying to the defense of David Huerta, the 58-year-old statewide SEIU leader who was assaulted and arrested on Trumped-up charges of impeding a federal agent, which comes with a prison sentence of up to six years. He leads a union with nearly 750,000 members, including nurses, home care aides, janitors, university researchers, and public sector employees. He was released from custody a bond after two days, but still faces the possibility of prison, even though he was peacefully protesting. An outstanding and courageous union leader, Huerta has been an important player in the resurgence of LA’s labor movement. About 25 years ago, union leaders, including Miguel Contreras, Maria Elena Durazo, and Huerta, decided to invest in organizing Latino workers. That has paid off both in terms of improving their working/living conditions and mobilizing them to work in elections and vote for progressive candidates. SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign and UNITE HERE and other unions’ efforts to raise the city/county/state minimum wage were part of this. There have been lots of union members at the anti-ICE protests. SEIU members wore purple T-shirts, visible in many news stories. Huerta has become a symbol of the movement against Trump’s unwarranted raids, detentions, and deportations. All the public pressure on David Huerta’s behalf—including by US Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Governor Newsom, Mayor Bass, members of Congress, and Durazo (who is now an influential member of the state Senate)—pressured ICE to let him out on bail. I was impressed by Representative Jimmy Gomez, who represents downtown LA in Congress, who gave frequent updated reports via Facebook videos on his efforts to get ICE to let him and about five other members of Congress to enter the detention facilities and meet with those who have been detained. So far, the Trump administration has illegally kept him and his Congressional colleagues from entering the facilities, but by persisting, Gomez is exposing another aspect of Trump’s indifference to obeying the law, which is the sign of a dictator.
- The presence of large numbers of Mexican flags at the rallies and protests over the last few days was a strategic mistake. In 1994, immigrant rights activists organized a huge march in LA (perhaps 500,000 people) to protest anti-immigrant federal legislation going through Congress. The march had lots of Mexican flags, and the photo on the front page of the LA Times the next day played that up. The march organizers realized that they had made a big mistake, because it appeared that the marchers felt a stronger loyalty to Mexico than to the United States, which is where they were living and working and wanted to remain—thus their opposition to the legislation. In 2006, there was another immigrant rights march through LA, just as big, but this time the marchers carried American flags, something that the march organizers made a priority. Personally, I have no problem with people carrying flags to demonstrate their support for and pride in their cultural heritage, their nation of birth/origin, or anything else. But these two marches were political, and the symbolism of the Mexican flags versus the American flags was an important component in trying to influence public opinion. That’s why I still think that all the Mexican flags at the LA protests over the last few days is a big mistake.
