As we go to press, the situation on the ground in Los Angeles continues to escalate. 

Los Angeles is home to 3.5 million immigrants from Mexico, Central America and other parts of the world. Roughly 800,000 of them are undocumented. It is a well-known “sanctuary city.”

All this makes LA a prime target for MAGA fascism to attack. As of now, over 200 immigrants have been kidnapped. Donald Trump has called in the National Guard. Protesters have been met with fierce repression. But they have not backed down. 

Three hundred National Guard troops are in the streets of Los Angeles, with 1,700 more standing by. For now, these troops will be limited to “protecting” ICE agents, though this can include using lethal force. If in Trump’s judgment more is needed, he can not only send in many more soldiers, he can also invoke “the Insurrection Act,” which would enable the Guard to directly take over. This would put Los Angeles under martial law, or direct military rule!

Trump and other fascists in his cabinet have threatened this.

Trump posted on Sunday saying that “violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations” and that he was directing Secretary of Defense Hegseth and other Cabinet officials “to take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.” Hegseth raised the possibility of activating the U.S. Marine Corps. Trump’s right-hand man in the war on immigrants, Stephen Miller, called LA “occupied territory” and the protests “an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States”—openly raising the specter of Trump invoking the Insurrection Act.

This has not cowed the protesters—who have filled the streets since Friday morning.

Protests Met with Extreme Brutality

This all began Friday morning, when rapid response networks started buzzing: ICE was raiding the Home Depot in MacArthur Park—one of the centers of immigrant LA. ICE was sighted in the downtown fashion district. And just as the word went out, people started amassing to say NO!

Agents reportedly entered a school in Koreatown, and there was a raid right next to a graduation ceremony which terrified parents seeing their children graduate. 

There were seven ICE raids throughout LA on Friday. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters ripped away from their families, and a whole section of people terrorized. Human beings who are in the U.S. so they can survive and feed their families.

As protests broke out, they were met with extreme brutality. At one large clothing factory in the fashion district, masked ICE agents brutalized people protesting outside—pushing, shoving, shooting rubber bullets and tear gas. Someone stood in front of an unmarked SUV thought to hold detainees, to prevent it from leaving. The SUV started driving at him. He walked backwards as fast as he could until he fell hard to the ground and was nearly run over. 

In another incident, David Huerta, the president of the SEIU (service workers) union in California, who was there to observe, was pepper-sprayed and thrown to the ground. He had to be hospitalized… and then of course was arrested by the feds. As we go to press, he is still being held.

Pause on that for a minute: Huerta is the president of a union with 700,000 workers statewide. He attempts to observe, is pushed to the ground, and is still being held two days later, with ICE fabricating stories, making threats, and refusing to let people like Congresswoman Maxine Waters see him (more on this below). These fascists are moving to smash down any institution and any person who stands in their way. 

By early evening, hundreds had come out to protest, first at the Federal Building, and then marching to the Metropolitan Detention Center where the abductees were being held. Later that night, LAPD (which claimed they were not assisting the immigration raids) used tear gas to disperse the crowd. 

Over 200 immigrants were packed into a facility at Metropolitan Detention Center, in a space built to hold 100. Based on accounts from attorneys and eyewitnesses, the detainees were being deprived of food and water for 12 to 24 hours or more, including some families with children. Some were being held in the basement of the building, conference rooms, and even outdoors in tents! Reportedly, lights were turned off at 5pm, leaving people in complete darkness. 

Saturday–Raids and Protests Continue

The next day, with rumors spreading of ICE raids in other places throughout Southern California, federal agents were seen at the Home Depot in Paramount, CA. Paramount is a small, predominantly Latino city south of South Central, LA. Mid-morning, a large group of masked federal agents in full battle gear gathered to arrest immigrants at a day labor center in the Home Depot parking lot. But the protests had grown. The federal authorities—ICE and Department of Homeland Security—were aggressive and vicious. People who were righteously determined to prevent the unjust kidnapping of immigrants were met with rubber bullets, projectiles, pepper balls, tear gas and an intense level of force.

Watch the scale of munitions shot by a wall of highly armed federal pigs at a clearly unarmed skater kid just standing there:  And because he wasn't intimidated, the shooting got even more intense.

Throughout the day, people defended themselves against this intense level of repression. The protests continued throughout the night.

Sunday–Thousands in the Streets, and onto the Freeway

On Sunday, the protests grew into the thousands. Starting early in the day, people were in front of the Federal Building where the National Guard had been deployed. ICE and other federal agents were viciously attacking protesters, pushing them back and throwing them to the ground. 

Refuse Fascism, LA, held a press conference downtown, then marched to a rally called for by the “Party for Socialism and Liberation.” This took off in a march, which grew as it went—including thousands of angry Latino masses, waving Mexican and Central American flags, lots of home-made signs. People marched onto the freeway twice—up against LA police shooting rubber bullets into the crowd, with a Black Hawk helicopter flying over throughout the day.

Sharp Fight Between the Fascists and Democratic Politicians

There has been a sharp fight between the fascists and the Democratic Party politicians, with Trump spewing ugly attacks and name-calling against California Governor Gavin Newsom, and the LA Mayor Karen Bass. Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan, when asked by a reporter if Newsom and Bass may face arrest, said, “I’ll say this about anybody—if you cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal illegal aliens, it’s a felony to impede law enforcement from doing their job.”

On Friday night, several congresspeople went to the Detention Center facility where the immigrants were being held to be let in for an inspection. It is federal law that members of Congress people can check on conditions in federal facilities. But they were refused access by a federal agent, with no reason given. Again on Saturday, several congresspeople tried to get into the Federal building, “exercising our congressional authority to investigate ICE’s inhuman detention of immigrant families”—but could not get in. The federal agents then shot pepper spray at these congresspeople—TWICE—to get them to move back from the door.

And on Sunday morning, when the prominent congresswoman Maxine Waters tried to enter the Federal building in downtown LA to get more information on SEIU President David Huerta, the door was slammed in her face, and with terror in her eyes she said, “There were some of the authorities—I don’t know who they are. And I’m trying to get in to see David Huerta, who they have arrested… I don’t know why he was targeted. I don’t know what they’re doing to him. I don’t know whether they’re going to deport him. ” 

Think about this. If they can treat prominent politicians this way, what does that mean for how they intend to treat the masses of people?!

SEIU has called for mass protests on Monday, for Huerta’s arraignment. And the situation continues to unfold. 

There are tremendous stakes involved in what the people do now—in Los Angeles and across the country. There has been mass outrage and anger, but this needs to get joined to a deeper understanding that the whole Trump fascist regime must go—NOW!

As we wrote in “IT IS HAPPENING HERE..AND IT’S HAPPENING NOW... What are you going to do??”: “Fascism is going to another level. So must our resistance to it. Now.”

See that article for what must be done.