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Mass protests broke out in the city of Paramount, Los Angeles County, on June 6 in response to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol arrests of migrants — many of whom were longtime residents.

California ICE agents clad in military gear, along with the Border Patrol, launched aggressive raids across Los Angeles and brutally arrested migrants of all ages without warrants or charges.

At one location, ICE agents assaulted, injured and detained David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union — United Service Workers West union, while he was advocating for the rights of migrant workers. While Huerta has since been released from the hospital, he is facing charges, and is out on bail.

Many of those being swept up by ICE are street vendors, students and union members.

According to a June 9 Wall Street Journal report, the White House had planned the large-scale raids weeks earlier.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller reportedly told a meeting at ICE headquarters in late May that President Donald Trump was not pleased with current deportation numbers and wanted the agency to ramp up operations. Miller directed ICE agents to abandon the longstanding practice of developing target lists of suspected undocumented migrants and instead make arrests at stores where migrant day labourers typically gather looking for work, such as Home Depot.

ICE agents enacted a series of mass raids across Los Angeles, targeting migrant workers. Masked officers wearing vests emblazoned with HSI — an acronym for Homeland Security Investigations — were seen arresting workers across the county.

In response, working-class communities organised to and march in protest of the arrests.

When the protests began, the Los Angeles Police Department began making arrests, declaring several protests “unlawful” assemblies and authorising the use of “less lethal munitions”. Trump and White House aides labelled peaceful protesters “anarchists”, “agitators” and “insurrectionists”.

National Guard

Trump signed a on June 7 authorising the deployment of the National Guard across the country to “protect ICE and other United States Government personnel”. He then mobilised 2000 California National Guard soldiers — later joined by another 2000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines — to join local police and sheriffs to repress the peaceful protests.

Trump claimed, without evidence, that he was forced to step in because California Democratic officials, including Governor Gavin Newsom, were incapable of stopping the protests. Trump also said that Newsom should be arrested for undermining his decisions.

California’s Attorney-General Rob Bonta announced the filing of a lawsuit against Trump for deploying the National Guard against Newsom’s wishes.

The extreme military presence in Los Angeles meted out brutal violence — CNN reported mounted officers dispersing demonstrators, as well as officers striking protesters and firing stun grenades and teargas.

Ron Gochez, a teacher who helped organise some of the protests, Democracy Now! on June 9 that “This weekend was marked with absolute and total violence, brutal repression and attacks — coordinated attacks — against our community.”

“ICE agents have been around all over Southern California, kidnapping people, tearing apart families … we see this as an attack against our people … that’s why you see young people, the community, coming out and resisting this repression.”

The peaceful protests were met with “brutal violence” from state forces, Gochez said. “They shot thousands of rounds of tear gas, of flashbang grenades, of all kinds of repressive instruments used against the community.”

Fightback

Despite this, in Compton, California, the community fought an 8-hour battle to protect factory workers surrounded by the Border Patrol, Gochez said. The resistance forced the Border Patrol and sheriffs to retreat and allowed hundreds of workers to escape.

“If we resist, we can defend our communities from ICE terror, from the Border Patrol or from any federal agency that wishes to separate our families,” Gochez said.

“We know what’s coming. It’s more repression. But what they have to know is that they’re also going to face more resistance from the community.

“We don’t want to be violent, and we don’t advocate for violence, but when they use brutal violence against our people — and kidnapping mothers and fathers from children is violent — we have every right … to defend our communities by any ways that we can, and we’re going to continue to do so.”

Counter-protests in solidarity with communities in Los Angeles occurred across the country. In San Francisco, police arrested protesters outside the main ICE office.

For the most part, corporate media has reported the events as “clashes”, rather than the military and police violently targeting peaceful protesters.

Authoritarian

Trump’s actions were based on a nonsense claim of a “migrant invasion” being a threat to the country. Trump’s mobilisation of the National Guard was done under a statute intended for use in the event of a foreign invasion or insurrection. However, there is not even a rebellion in Los Angeles, much less a country invading the US.

Many have pointed out Trump’s hypocrisy, given his pardon of about 1500 people convicted of attempting an actual insurrection when they stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, following Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.

Trump’s objective is to transform the presidency into an autocratic power centre where Congress and the courts follow his dictates. So far, neither branch has stopped him. Trump’s response to the protests in Los Angeles deepens his drive toward autocracy.

His attacks on migrants — all his targets are people of colour — reveal another related objective, as by Jean Guerrero, author of Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda: “Trump’s immigration agenda is not about law and order. It’s about re-engineering the racial demographics of this country.”

Trump imposed a ban on June 9 on citizens of 12 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, from travelling to the US. He claimed that this was for “national security” reasons — the same argument he made in his memorandum to mobilise the National Guard.

He specifically mentioned that people from these countries have overstayed their visas. Yet, visitor numbers from the 12 countries are outweighed by those from Canada and European countries, where many more visa overstays occur.

The challenge, as the street organisers in Los Angeles say, is to mobilise and stand up against the Border Patrol and National Guard, who are violating basic rights of free speech and assembly.

High school and college students are joining the resistance, recognising that Trump’s government threatens the rights of all citizens and residents, not just migrants.

The mass protests in Los Angeles are the vanguard of a growing protest movement in the country against Trump’s government.