\n
![](\"https:\/\/progressive.org\/downloads\/21883\/download\/APNationalGuardLAImmigrationProtests.jpg?cb=1ea75e69fb395e5ba4e8bc370d866f44\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
On Friday, June 6, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers raided Ambiance Apparel, a clothing manufacturing factory in the downtown Los Angeles Fashion District, where they arrested more than forty<\/a> immigrant workers. The workers, more than a dozen of whom were part of<\/a> the close-knit Zapotec Indigenous community from Oaxaca, Mexico, were detained without access to counsel or ability to contact their families.<\/p>\n Ambiance Apparel was\u00a0one of four L.A. businesses<\/a> raided by ICE that day. As scattered reports highlighted a raid at Home Depot in\u00a0Westlake<\/a> and the violent arrest<\/a> of David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California, outrage rippled across the city. What began as ICE raids in unmarked vehicles has escalated<\/a> into a militarized standoff between locals and the federal government (including U.S. military personnel), turning the city into a frontline in a broader struggle against authoritarian power. Since June 6, the streets of downtown Los Angeles have erupted with protests calling for ICE\u2019s departure and justice for those detained.<\/p>\n \u201cMAGA aggression has brought a plague of fear and silence into the streets of the city we love,\u201d said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), in a press statement shared with The Progressive.<\/em><\/p>\n The events unfolding reflect a deeper national inflection point in the Trump Administration\u2019s assault on free assembly and expression rights in the face of a democratic crisis\u2014and Angelenos\u2019 refusal to be policed into obedience. The days behind the media headlines are more than sensationalized resistance; they are the lived realities of many Americans facing a system that seeks to dismiss them. One in every five<\/a> L.A. residents is undocumented or lives with an undocumented family member, and nearly\u00a0half<\/a> of the city\u2019s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino. Last November, after Donald Trump won the presidential election and promised federal immigration crackdowns, the L.A. City Council unanimously passed the Sanctuary City Ordinance<\/a>, prohibiting local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. But across sanctuary cities nationwide, ICE continues to\u00a0carry<\/a> out the Trump Administration\u2019s anti-immigrant campaign agenda, using intimidation<\/a>, force, and surveillance<\/a> to harness fear into control.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs someone who has had the honor to support and organize alongside low-wage immigrant workers for over twenty years, workers that I get to stand alongside are moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, supporting their families,\u201d says Marissa Nuncio, executive director of the Garment Workers Center, a worker rights organization for workers in the garment industry. \u201cThese are just everyday folks that are being picked up, rounded up by masked, armed individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n On the morning of Saturday, June 7, the streets of Paramount, a city in the southern part of the Greater Los Angeles area, began to make national headlines as a standoff between residents and ICE agents escalated. Social media reports showed<\/a> ICE officers near a Home Depot where many immigrant day laborers gather outside the store in search of people in need of per diem labor. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson later confirmed in a public statement that no<\/a> formal ICE raids were planned on Saturday, but agents were instead nearby, gathering<\/a> in front of DHS offices. Videos showed agents offloading<\/a> boxes of ammunition and less-lethal weaponry from a military grade helicopter. The agency\u2019s federal office, which has been in the city since 2007, has been used<\/a> in the past as a gathering place for agents before dispersing to L.A.and Long Beach ports.<\/p>\n Paramount is known for its working-class and Latino population. Census data\u00a0highlights<\/a> that 82 percent of its residents are Latino, and 36 percent are foreign-born. The heavy presence of ICE agents within the city, which Paramount Vice Mayor Brenda Olmos called<\/a> an \u201cunwarranted federal intrusion,\u201d led to protests quickly spreading over social media<\/a>, with demonstrators waving Mexican flags and signs, blocking government vehicles from driving through the street, throwing projectiles, and officers deploying explosive, non-lethal<\/a> rounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe presence of ICE agents in Paramount was more than disruptive; it was an assault on our community\u2019s fundamental values,\u201d said Olmos, who was exposed to tear gas and injured by a non-lethal projectile at a protest, in a\u00a0statement<\/a> published on Sunday, June 8.<\/p>\n Hours later, Paramount\u2019s protests spread<\/a> across the Los Angeles area to Compton and downtown, prompting Trump to take federal control of the National Guard and deploy<\/a> more than 2,000 troops without the support of California Governor Gavin Newsom, calling the\u00a0protests<\/a> a \u201crebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.\u201d In directing the National Guard troops without Newsom\u2019s consent, Trump broke the typical chain of command protocol, by which requests to deploy the National Guard are normally made from the local level and authorized by the governor.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis brazen abuse of power by a sitting President inflamed a combustible situation,\u201d said<\/a> Newsom in a June 10 public address, \u201cputting our people, our officers, and the National Guard at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly 300 National Guard troops arrived<\/a> at the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown and stood in formation at three different sites: the detention center, the federal building, and the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic by mid-morning on June 8. In downtown Los Angeles, hundreds of demonstrators clashed with federal officers and local police near the Museum of Contemporary Art\u2019s Geffen Contemporary space, where Barbara Kruger\u2019s mural Untitled (Questions)<\/em><\/a>\u2014a building-length installation emblazoned with questions such as \u201cWho is beyond the law?\u201d and \u201cWho is free to choose?\u201d\u2014could be seen in the background.<\/p>\n Echoing the provocative questions posed by Kruger\u2019s mural, Trump escalated his use of\u00a0 military deployment into the realm of spectacle, in a move that Larry Diamond, a senior fellow in global democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, describes as being designed to maximize<\/a> intimidation.<\/p>\n \u201cSpectacle both feeds his narcissism and his love of power,\u201d says Diamond. \u201cSpectacle autocrats like [it] because it\u2019s a visible demonstration of their power and part of a broader effort to intimidate dissent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n On Monday, June 9, roughly 700 U.S. Marines were activated<\/a> to Los Angeles. As of Wednesday<\/a>, June 11, the city had more<\/a> troops on the ground than are currently deployed in Iraq and Syria combined\u2014raising alarm about Trump\u2019s use of military power to suppress dissent.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s been obvious from the beginning what Trump is seeking,\u201d Diamond says. \u201cHe\u2019s itching to use the military to suppress demonstrations in the United States and to intimidate and suppress dissent, but he can\u2019t do it if the protests are peaceful.\u201d<\/p>\n Safeguards to reign in Trump\u2019s power grab have largely failed: A lack of strong\u00a0Congressional oversight<\/a> of his actions, limited<\/a> Supreme Court intervention on his policies, and Trump\u2019s own personal defiance<\/a> of accountability measures have all contributed to a political landscape in which his overreach has gone mostly unchecked.\u00a0<\/p>\n As news cameras focused<\/a> over the weekend on the scale of demonstrations and property destruction, such as the fires being set to\u00a0self-driving Waymo cars<\/a>, immigration-related arrests continued region-wide. Amongst the chaos, a subtle victory emerged: The city of Glendale, directly north of Los Angeles, terminated<\/a> its eighteen-year-old contract with ICE, which allowed the agency to use the city\u2019s jails for arrests and detentions.\u00a0<\/p>\n By June 9, thousands of protesters were gathered in downtown Los Angeles as immigration raids continued to intensify. According to CLEAN Carwash Worker Center<\/a>, six car washes were targeted<\/a> by immigration raids across L.A. and Orange counties since June 6, leading to the detainment of twenty-two workers. The families of those detained during the workplace raid still<\/a> do not know where their loved ones are.<\/p>\n Amid immigration sweeps and military presence, local civil rights organizers, interfaith leaders, and several hundred community members gathered at Gloria Molina Grand Park in front of City Hall for a solidarity vigil. Nestor Pimienta, a vigil attendee, says the gathering was surrounded by a heavy military presence.<\/p>\n \u201cWalking with my candle while seeing the endless line of military vehicles coming down the street felt courageous,\u201d Pimienta says. \u201cI had a feeling [of] awe watching this interfaith group of people continue forward, with candles lit, being vulnerable, knowing whatever risk we take is nothing compared to the people being uprooted, expelled, and displaced.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, as the streets grow quiet at night due to a local curfew<\/a> imposed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday, June 10, cities across the country continue to resist in solidarity with immigrants and against the federal display of militarization on U.S. soil.\u00a0<\/p>\n From the streets near City Hall to the intersections of South Los Angeles, the presence of federal vehicles and armed personnel has become a striking departure from typical daily life in the city. What began as a fight against ICE has now become a broader fight against Trump\u2019s unchecked executive overreach. Since the unrest, Newsom has sued Trump and the Department of Defense over the federalization of troops, calling<\/a> the President\u2019s actions \u201can unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n