ICE Raids and the Emergence of Resistance
The protests that took place in Los Angeles in June were a direct response to the large-scale ICE raids happening across California, including one on a business in the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles, where ICE arrested over 44 people. The operation was highly visible, disrupting local traffic.
As people in the neighborhood tried to stop some of the vehicles possibly holding some of the detainees from leaving, a pseudo-military convoy was formed to escort them out. Officers fired flash bangs and gas canisters, using vehicles to push against unarmed protestors exercising their constitutional right to civil disobedience.
The real risk facing Trump and his allies is the growing number of Americans empathizing with immigrants, known and unknown.
Workplace raids are not uncommon, but there is something unique and notable about the large-scale opposition expressed by neighbors and bystanders. This, along with the deployment of a large number of agents in masks and military fatigues, has further escalated the situation. At the same time, dozens of people were taken from Home Depots, including the one in Paramount, California, in the LA metropolitan area, an area that is overwhelmingly Latino (over 80%).
While people published on social media and journalists arrived, a few dozen individuals expressed their discontent and stayed in place while ICE and Border Patrol police fired gas canisters at them. The fight spread to a couple of other places in the city, including a federal building downtown holding some of the people arrested by ICE seemingly without warrants.
Escalation, Symbolism, and Solidarity
The deployment of the National Guard on June 8, 2025, despite opposition from the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, and California Governor Gavin Newsom, drew hundreds of people to the streets to protest against ICE and the federal government.
These waves of protest participants, like many demonstrations before them, led to a few confrontations in the densely populated Los Angeles metropolitan area, which is home to over 12 million residents. The unnecessary deployment of the National Guard served as a symbolic provocation–– and, as intended, provoked a visible reaction from some local residents.
The attempt to deport some members of the community is an attack by one segment of society against another.
Things have de-escalated from the side of the protesters. Yet, Trump’s decision to deploy additional National Guard members and Marines effectively and dangerously escalates the situation further.
It is essential to recognize that this was also a battle of imagery and symbolism unfolding in the media and digital spaces.
The few trending images of burnt cars should not overshadow what really happened. That being, the removal of innocent workers and family members with no criminal records, and the active repudiation of mass deportation policies.
It’s in the large marches that ensued that we may be seeing the re-awakening of the Immigrant Rights movement taking place. These peaceful demonstrations serve as a reminder to immigrants across California and beyond that they are not alone.
Why Los Ángeles?
There are approximately 11 million people in the United States without current immigration papers, and a couple of million more at risk of becoming undocumented, depending on the courts’ decisions regarding the termination of programs such as humanitarian parole, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and other country-specific programs.
Nearly 1.8 million undocumented people live in California, making up 5% of the population in comparison to 3.3% for the entire United States. However, important caveats must be understood: The number of undocumented immigrants in California has decreased in recent years. Many have left willingly. Not all undocumented immigrants are Latin American, and moreover, the majority of immigrants are documented.
There are approximately 900,000 undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles County, the largest U.S. county by population, who have been living in the area for decades. Many of them have children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren born in the U.S.A. A recent study shows that one in five is undocumented or has a family member who is.
Over a third (35.4%) of the city’s residents are foreign-born, with most having become U.S. citizens. Most of them are supportive of undocumented immigrants. They understand that just because people don’t have immigration papers, that doesn’t mean that they don’t want them—it just means that they can’t access the processes to obtain them.
Fear, Militarization, and Public Perception
Framing undocumented immigrants as foreign is mistaken & unhealthy. The attempt to deport some members of the community is an attack by one segment of society against another.
Los Angeles is merely an excuse to continue rolling out Project 2025.
Mass deportations are like an autoimmune reaction in that they are a mistaken reaction of the immune system against itself.
The potential for raids creates fear among employers, workers, and neighbors, but also creates chronic stress for people with undocumented family members.
With the help of agencies like the FBI, DEA, and ATF, ICE has carried out raids with each one increasing in not just size but also level of militarization.
Citizens Respond: Unity in Protest
Initially, Trump deployed members of the California National Guard to Los Angeles to protect federal buildings where ICE has either been stationed or has taken detained immigrants––most of whom have not been allowed to see family members or speak with their lawyers.
Even more alarming, the use of Marines to transport and escort ICE officials in their raids is a move that is not only unprecedented but highly dangerous. This militarized enforcement strategy not only mirror his past immigrant removal processes, but also mirrors a long-standing history of authoritarian leaders using state power to justify ethnic cleansing.
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What seems novel to me is that it is not just immigrants who are concerned about this, who are speaking out against it, or are trying to resist arrest, but the citizens of Los Angeles—the majority of the population, both citizens and immigrants with papers— publicly and visibly opposed the raids in downtown LA and the Home Depots in the metropolitan area.
They do not see these raids and federal immigration policies as an issue of public safety, national security, or combatting crime, but rather a strategic program to terrorize minorities and pursue a white-nationalist agenda. Polls continue to show that most Americans are not buying the narrative that Trump is selling either. All of this led to the expansion of protests across the entire United States, as seen on June 14, 2025, during the “No Kings” protests.
Beyond Immigration: Democracy at Stake
The national crowd sizes are similar to the proportion of undocumented adults in the country, around 3%. Nevertheless, most protesters are citizens.
The ones using foreign flags are using them to show pride for their ethnicity after years of being stigmatized for their heritage.
What is happening is an ideological and political project, not a response to crime, public safety, or national security. There is no invasion, let alone an armed invasion, and there is not by any means an insurrection. These deployments are misguided and counterproductive.
This use of force only undermines that trust. Public safety increases when local communities, including minorities and immigrants, trust law enforcement and feel safe reporting actual crimes.
These displays serve to appease the base and figures like Stephen Miller, while distracting from many issues facing the country and adding to the expansion of executive power.
As Gov. Newsom told MSNBC on June 9,
“This is a manufactured crisis… This is not about immigration enforcement; this is about authoritarian tendencies. This is about command and control. This is about power. This is about ego. My way or the highway. This is a consistent pattern of practice of recklessness… This is something completely different… It is a serious moment under the guise of immigration, but it is much deeper than that.”
Resistance, Empathy, and a Renewed Movement
The canvas is the country, and what is at stake is democracy. Los Angeles is merely an excuse to continue rolling out Project 2025. Local context and proportion matter: the targets of the protests were two buildings in all of LA.
Only two out of 500 square miles were put under curfew by Mayor Bass. Journalist David Noriega noted that the experience felt surreal: after covering the protest in just a few downtown blocks, the rest of L.A. remained calm and peaceful. Yet, the federal government continued to double down, prompting a new powerful counterreaction: a reinvigoration and restrengthening of the Immigrant Rights movement.
The protests are directed against ICE raids, mass deportations, and the indirect support that local police provide, whether that’s by closing streets, creating perimeters, or escorting Marines and ICE, shielding them from peaceful demonstrators.
Here, we see the limits of sanctuary declarations and the growing power of empathy, physical intercession, and sanctuary practices led by both religious and secular citizens, many of whom are moved by humanitarian and moral convictions. Elected officials have also put their own bodies at risk of arrest at press conferences, immigration court proceedings, protests, and visits to immigration detention centers.
Control, Not Justice
The legal system can already take care of those committing property and violent crimes, revealing that these mass deportations are not about justice. They are about control. The real risk facing Trump and his allies is the growing number of Americans empathizing with immigrants, known and unknown.
Many already knew immigrants they cared about, now more are learning that they can and should expand that empathy to ones they do not know, and that the immigrant crime wave was always a myth.
As shown in the recent programs cut and the proposed budget of the “One Beautiful Bill” [for Billionaires], the real risk is wasting and squandering resources on border walls and immigration enforcement while cutting federal support for healthcare, natural disasters, science, education, diplomacy, and foreign aid.
