On Friday, August 8, 150 people marched in the streets of Los Angeles from the Home Depot in MacArthur Park, where Operation Trojan Horse took place. Operation Trojan Horse was a disgusting ICE raid where ICE agents were packed in the back of a Penske moving truck, pulled right up to where day laborers are looking for work, jumped out of the truck and grabbed people. They took 16 people from this location, some food vendors and day laborers.
An activist from South Central LA called for an emergency protest to start at that Home Depot to march through the streets of Downtown LA, joining up with the ongoing nightly protests at the Federal Detention Center, where many of the people rounded up by ICE are detained.
After a day of being out in that neighborhood putting up posters and getting out the pamphlet “Trump/MAGA Fascism. What We’re Really Facing, Why and What Must Be Done to Defeat It Before It’s Too Late” (a collection of pieces from Bob Avakian, put out by The Bob Avakian Institute), we joined this protest in the evening.
The protest brought together many angry people who had been following these attacks (which have gone down more than once) where ICE terrorizes this community—including a month earlier in July, the famous images of federal agents in military style gear and on horses surrounding MacArthur Park, which even brought Mayor Karen Bass out to the scene.
The August 8 march took off with the giant 10-ft.-tall banner “Trump Must Go NOW!” at the front, and people waving their flags and chanting “ICE out of LA!” “Chinga la Migra!” (Fuck ICE!), “Hands off the immigrants!” and “Trump Must Go Now!”
Listen to and watch message Revolution #125 from Bob Avakian
A couple from the Bay Area came up and said they had been following online and felt like they couldn't just sit at home—they felt like they needed to be right there at the Home Depot where this happened, and they marched together with us all night. A day laborer from the Home Depot was in tears, and he kept yelling “thank you!” to everyone who came to stand up. He said he felt like no one hears him, every time he gets treated like a criminal. He said, “I’m just here looking for work, and if it’s not security kicking us out the Home Depot, it’s the police, and now it’s ICE. But it’s much worse because they take us away.” A woman earlier in the day who works outside of the Home Depot said she has seen friend after friend being taken. She said one of her friends who had just had a baby two months ago was taken, and she had to leave her baby behind. Another friend of hers who has six little girls was also arrested and left her six kids here. She was fed up, and she said she asks every activist that comes through there, “What are we doing to stop this?!” After we got into the Bob Avakian pamphlet with her, she said, “This is the first answer I get that makes sense! We need to defeat this fascism, yes! But how?!”
Another person who I spoke with said the same comment: “What are we doing to stop this?” Somebody who was also in this conversation argued that we need to wait for the 2026 elections, that we need to put pressure on the politicians to do something. When I asked him, “How many people are you willing to sacrifice from now until 2026 elections?” he couldn’t answer and walked away. This person I was talking with said he was tired of being told to wait while some people are literally living in the shadows, afraid to even look out their window. He had a lot of questions about fascism, but was eager to read the pamphlet to get answers.
People were hungry for real answers for “what do we do about this?!” This is a real opportunity because we have serious answers to those big questions, and are enlisting people to act now!
The march was joyous and full of rage—at the same time, we danced, we sang songs, and we chanted “ICE out of our streets!” We stopped at a popular food market, and Michelle Xai with THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity spoke to the crowd and challenged them about what we are confronting and why NOW is the time to join us and fight to stop this. In some brief discussion with the march organizer, he was getting the sense of the need to continue these kinds of protests, and said he’d like to work with us in doing this. These kinds of bold urgent actions are needed. This was quickly pulled together by someone who was just so sick and tired of seeing these images online and felt the need to act and called on others to act.