With the president furious that the number of deportations was well below the administration’s goal, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, launched a new offensive against immigrants, ramping up the number of deportations using expedited removal procedures and violent raids. Miller decided to target migrants in their workplaces and in the working-class neighborhoods of multiethnic Los Angeles. One of the raids occurred at a Home Depot, where federal agents arrested undocumented workers who make their living as day laborers for middle- and upper-middle-class homeowners or business owners. The incident took place in the working-class Latino neighborhood of Westlake. Another violent raid occurred on Friday in the Garment District, where undocumented women were assaulted by ICE. Neighbors, workers, and families at the store fought back against ICE and federal agents. Among them was David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union, who was brutally beaten and arrested by the feds.
As anyone could have imagined, the community responded. After all, these workers are part of the community. They are wives, husbands, siblings; they are the blood that runs through the veins of LA’s working class.
The situation is ongoing, and while Trump is not stepping back, the courts and the Democratic Party are trying to de-escalate the conflict before the demonstrations grow into a national rebellion. Coming Saturday, a day of protests nationwide, Trump will celebrate his birthday with an unusual military parade and threaten to repress any attempt to disrupt it.
ICE Out of Our Communities!
The clashes between ICE and the communities started Thursday, and by Friday they were already spreading from Downtown LA to Paramount, as our Left Voice correspondent in LA, Julia Wallace, has been reporting. People from different social sectors came out to defend migrants, and from the depths of the city, Black and Brown youth—some unemployed, some students from various ethnicities—gathered and bravely confronted the repression.
At times, the protests were festive and combative, but when repression hit, these young folks faced the police and federal agents with their bodies, some wearing keffiyehs and others carrying Mexican flags. The White House and the Wall Street Journal have been trying to portray the protests as “violent riots,” evoking the specter of the social unrest that followed the brutal beating of Rodney King by the LAPD. But the current demonstrations are led by youth who are far more politicized than the groups that mobilized in the mid-1990s, and the target of their rage is ICE and the police rather than small business owners.
Protests have been multiracial but are led by a more combative sector represented by Mexican, Central American, and Black youth who bring the flags of their countries and recognize that, while they are oppressed as the children of immigrants or immigrants themselves, their countries are exploited by U.S. imperialism. These folks identify the oppression that affects them as the same oppression that extends from Palestine to Mexico, fostering an anti-imperialist sentiment as more people in the U.S. begin to challenge the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Last week was an homage to the city’s long-standing tradition of Black and Brown working-class unity represented by the new generation. The streets of LA were filled with the spirit of the epic 2006 “Day without an Immigrant” mobilizations that marked a flash point for immigrant class struggle and the labor movement: In a city of 3.7 million at the time, over 1 million attended. Later, the movement was broken up by the Democratic Party and NGOs, which focused on a reform strategy that separated “respectable” immigrants (like students and “Dreamers,” who arrived to the U.S. as children) from the rest of the immigrant labor movement, composed of the most exploited layer of the LA proletariat. It was on the basis of this division, and the co-optation of the immigrant rights movement as a whole, that President Obama was able to impose mass deportations, reaching the highest rates in recent history.
As the outrage over David Huerta’s violent detention grew, SEIU was pushed by the rank and file to call an action on Monday in several cities, from LA to Seattle. It was thanks to the quick mobilization of labor that Huerta was released by ICE, and the event triggered alarm in the White House, since a unified mobilization of radicalized youth and workers would be a nightmare for Trump, Newsom, and the entire ruling class of California.
Trump responded by deploying the National Guard and the Marines. Yet even the threat of the National Guard and the military didn’t stop the protests. In fact, the response sparked protests nationwide, in major cities like New York, Seattle, and Chicago, as well as smaller cities like St. Louis, Missouri; San Antonio, Texas; Eugene, Oregon; and Raleigh, North Carolina. The movement “No Kings,” composed of the “Hands Off” coalition and other organizations, is calling for marches in big and small cities this Saturday, the 14th, in a day that is expected to bring hundreds of thousands to the streets with many grievances against Trump. But one demand is deeply felt: ICE out of our communities.
Newsom and the Democratic Operation to De-escalate
Trump’s repression is a symptom of his administration’s weaknesses, as well as a sign of Trump’s strength of will, a factor that exists outside the balance of forces but that can accelerate crises of all kinds, including those created by class struggle. Trump is not acting alone, though.
At a hearing of the Appropriations Committee, Defense Secretary Hegseth told senators that the same “legal authorities the Pentagon used to send nearly 5,000 Marines and National Guard to Los Angeles could be employed in other cities if there are riots in places where law enforcement officers are threatened.” Trump himself praised his actions as the only way to stop LA from being consumed by “riots,” echoing how the state reacted to the BLM uprising in 2020. Texas governor Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of more than 5,000 Texas National Guard troops, along with more than 2,000 police, to “manage protests against President Donald Trump and the ongoing federal immigration raids.” Other governors in red states are threatening to follow Abbott’s lead. Trump seems determined to move forward with his plan to exert extreme pressure on the sanctuary cities led by Democrats where immigrants still have some protections.
At the same time, Trump’s fears of a rebellion are justified: it is one thing to face the “resistance” of the courts and the timid, disoriented, and demoralized Democratic Party. It is quite another to combat a national uprising. Even though Trump is not going to step back, various sectors of the state are trying to de-escalate, as shown by the Supreme Court’s decision to block Trump from calling the National Guard on protesters.
For his part, Newsom, a Democrat who has moved to the right on several issues, has emerged as the face of the “resistance” against Trump. After Trump announced the National Guard’s deployment to LA, Newsom had a sharp confrontation with the president. As the New York Timesreported, “David Axelrod, former chief political aide to Barack Obama, said Mr. Newsom’s message was very powerful. But he warned that it is difficult to at once ‘admonish the president for his provocative, escalatory actions while at the same time urging protesters to show restraint.’”
In an interview for the Daily last Thursday, Newsom was rhetorically harsh on Trump but said explicitly that he will work with ICE and federal agents to enforce immigration laws.
Democrats fear the people in the streets more than they fear Trump himself, and they will try at all costs to contain the mobilizations and make them as non confrontational as possible. This is why Karen Bass, a Black Democrat, also directed the police to repress the movement.
From Newsom to Bernie Sanders, the Democrats are trying to divide the “good” protesters from the “bad” ones in order to criminalize the youth, NGOs, and leftists who are mobilizing, cutting them off from the movement. This is implied by a recent New York Timesheadline: “How the 2020 George Floyd Protests Are Haunting Democrats in 2025.” Democratic officials are terrified of a new uprising because they believe that in order to win the midterms and the next presidential election, the party must affirm its role as the “party of order” and distance itself from the recent past when Democrats, led by Obama, had to legitimize the BLM movement to prevent it from slipping out of their control.
According to the ossified and conservative Democratic establishment, the party erred in appearing too “tolerant” of the “destruction” associated with BLM. As a result, they say, it faced backlash from its conservative social base, from right-wing independents, and, of course, from Republicans and Trump supporters. Every wing of the Democratic Party—from Sanders to Cuomo—got this wrong: the key point is that they lost the election not because they supported BLM and moved too far to the left, but because they did not go far enough to the left. In his campaign, Biden did make promises to improve the lives of the working class and to “defend democracy,” and this is what helped him win the 2020 election. But he squandered his political capital by betraying all these promises.
Today, however, conditions are creating the perfect storm for an explosion. In the coming weeks, even if the situation does not trigger mass actions of class struggle like BLM, it is clear that beyond the electoral calculations of the Democrats and Trump’s Bonapartist plans, class struggle will be a fundamental part of the political landscape in the United States, and we should expect abrupt shifts and dramatic turns.
Trump’s Strengths and Weaknesses
While things are unfolding quickly, we are witnessing the most challenging moment of Trump’s administration. The coalition in power that united the MAGA movement, the GOP, and Big Capital is shaking under the weight of its own contradictions. Elon Musk’s feud with Trump was just the vulgar expression—put forward by two misogynistic figures—of significant differences between Big Capital on the one hand and MAGA on the other. Musk has backed away from his statements, expressing regret for his confrontation and committing to working with the administration.
As Gerard Baker from the Wall Street Journalputs it:
But there’s more to the break than the inevitable parting of two powerful and incompatible egos. For all his idiosyncrasies, Mr. Musk represented a certain class of business leaders who, to varying levels of enthusiasm, embraced Mr. Trump and his unorthodox style. They had grown alarmed by the left’s suffocating control of the nation’s institutions and were eager for the more economically orthodox parts of the Trump agenda. They are only half happy with the outcome. On deregulation, tax-cutting and the cultural counterrevolution, Mr. Trump hasn’t disappointed. But growing numbers of business leaders I speak with (quietly) express dismay about the misbegotten tariff and trade policies, the lack of interest in fiscal prudence, and the willful alienation of allies and partners around the world (the last a problem to which Mr. Musk contributed).
The debate over the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB), for instance, has proved to be a very ugly affair, highlighting the division within the GOP and Trump’s coalition as a whole, amid deep concern among the American ruling class over the out-of-control state debt.
Trump’s shortcomings are creating a rocky situation for the administration, but that does not mean that he lacks support.
According to recent polls, Americans are divided over Trump’s response to the LA protests. In an Insider Advantage survey, 59 percent of respondents said they approved of Trump’s decision to “deploy the National Guard and federal military in downtown Los Angeles.” Meanwhile, 39 percent said they disapproved, and 2 percent said they were undecided. The poll showed a strong partisan divide, with 89 percent of Republicans supporting Trump’s decision, 57 percent of independents in favor, and 63 percent of Democrats against.
A YouGov survey yielded slightly different numbers: 45 percent disapproved of Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to California, 38 percent approved of the president’s decision, and 17 percent were unsure. The vast majority of Democrats, 74 percent, opposed the deployment, while 75 percent of Republicans supported it. Independents were more divided, with 47 percent opposed and 30 percent in favor. Regarding the Marines, opposition in both polls was slightly stronger.
On the immigration question, Trump has the support of not only a significant majority of the Republican Party but also a smaller, intensely loyal social base that has not faded over the years, some of which is organized through the militias of the MAGA movement led by Steve Bannon.
At the same time, one of the more acute controversies surrounding Trump’s troop deployment is affecting the military, which appears to be divided on how to approach the intervention of troops in suppressing the domestic population. Trump has been trying to frame immigration as an invasion that places the country on the brink of a national security emergency, hinting at the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, which would provide constitutional cover for military intervention. On Wednesday, General Dan Caine did not seem supportive of invoking the Insurrection Act when he answered a Democratic official: “I think at this point in time, I don’t see any foreign state-sponsored folks invading.” On Wednesday, the Guardian correspondent in LA, Andrew Gumbel, reported that there is concern among the troops deployed a few days ago:
California national guards troops and marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.
While the situation remains fluid and could take different directions in the coming days, things could de-escalate if Newsom and Trump reach an agreement—otherwise, class struggle could intensify, dashing the hopes of the Democratic politicians. In any case, we can expect increasingly authoritarian attacks on the working class and the oppressed, alongside the development of a resistance—with unpredictable rhythms—that is taking shape in a convoluted and volatile context.
The most auspicious prospects for the working class and the Left rely on the development, massification, and radicalization of the protests against ICE that have unified diverse dissident groups and grievances into a single, growing voice against deportations. This is beginning to amass a social conglomerate that ranges from the middle classes in the cities to small rural and semi-rural populations, unions and worker organizations, and the most vulnerable sectors of the proletariat, including undocumented Black and Brown workers, as well as students from public and Ivy League universities, with the heart of multiracial youth fighting for Palestine.
The Paths of the Resistance
Today’s resistance is not behaving like that of Trump’s first term, in which millions of middle-class women took to the streets wearing pink pussy hats. Nor does it resemble BLM. For now, the epicenter is in Los Angeles, where the immigration issue is a powder keg, a product of the numerical weight and tradition of the migrant movement and the Black liberation movement.
The limitation in LA and elsewhere is that the leaders of the labor movement have been passive toward Trump since his inauguration, with the exception of SEIU, which organized a powerful strike last month in LA. Sean O’Brien from the Teamsters is a Trump supporter and is fond of tariffs, while Shawn Fain from the UAW, although maintaining a combative stance on bread-and-butter issues and promising to strike in 2028, is also supporting Trump’s protectionism and has not taken action to stop the attacks on migrants. On the one hand, these leaders don’t want to seriously compromise their relationship with the government, since they must continually negotiate to secure some limited economic gains. On the other hand, they are reluctant to clash with a segment of their own social base that supports the anti-immigrant offensive. These leaders would rather adapt to this reality than confront racism within the ranks of the organized working class.
They have abandoned the most precarious and oppressed sectors of the working class, accepting the two-tier system. Ultimately, they represent the higher layers of the labor movement that, in times of right-wing populism, can easily support, as we are seeing, the chauvinism of certain sectors of the imperialist bourgeoisie and embrace racism. They will do so unless the Left presents them with an alternative and persists in building an anti-racist politics inside unions and working-class organizations.
If the unions are to embrace and take action for immigrant rights, the rank and file must build power and demand, clearly and loudly, that the leaders of the Teamsters, the UAW, and SEIU in Los Angeles start organizing actions like protests, pickets, and strikes to build the unity of labor and social movements against Trump and the Far Right with one fist. In LA, we must demand loud and clear: Unions strike for immigrant rights. Unifying the movement means organizing joint protests, and it means fighting together for ICE out of our communities, full rights for immigrants, against militarization, and to stop all U.S. aid to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
The union leaders don’t want to put forward this perspective, but there are combative sectors that struck for BLM in 2020 and have been mobilizing for Palestine, particularly the West Coast longshore workers represented by the ILWU. Hundreds of unionists across the country, organized by Labor Notes, Labor for Palestine, rank-and-file caucuses, healthcare workers, and teachers, are already organizing against deportations. Students from high schools and universities are forming committees in defense of immigrants, organizing walkouts, and brigades to spread the word through door-to-door “know your rights” outreach. The movement against the genocide has grown since the offensive on Gaza started, with polls showing that 60 percent of Democratic members support Palestine. Thousands of students have mobilized for Palestine at universities, facing harsh repression: We must fight together against authoritarianism and repression. Free Mahmoud Khalil.
Combative unions at Starbucks and universities, such as the SWC, whose president, Grant Miner, was expelled by Columbia University for protesting the genocide, have mobilized for Palestine as well. The Amazon Labor Union was one of the first unions to launch a campaign defending immigrant workers at Amazon facing Trump’s offensive. Grassroots NGOs in LA and elsewhere are being persecuted by the state for participating in protests and organizing their communities. We have the capacity, if we contribute to developing self-organization in our workplaces and schools, to unleash the power of our collective force and the strength of the working class. We cannot do this with only determined minorities of activists who are crucial for the struggle but cannot do it alone; we need workers and students as agents in the fight against the Far Right. This could take the form of committees in defense of immigrants or whatever shape communities discuss collectively, serving as representative and open bodies of the rank and file in our workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods.
The socialist Left, including organizations like the DSA and PSL, has the responsibility to contribute to the unity of the movement and to demand that the union bureaucracy and the bureaucracies of social movements build the struggle on the streets. The DSA leadership, despite the active and tenacious participation of rank-and-file DSA members in some movements, particularly those facing harsh conditions at Amazon and elsewhere, is instead of leveraging their presence in the labor movement to promote a combative perspective, canvassing for elections and downplaying—much as they did with BLM—through Jacobin, the importance of the protests in LA, a position that is completely aligned with the union bureaucracy. Those on the front lines fighting genocide within the DSA should break with the politics of rebuilding the Democratic Party.
The PSL plays an important role in mobilizing for Palestine and now in mobilizing against deportations, and its members are persecuted by the state. We all must defend the PSL, Unión del Barrio, and the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights, which are threatened by the state for their protests. PSL comrades can contribute to unifying and expanding the movement, but they do not focus on self-organization in the areas where they have influence. We need bodies of rank-and-file members, open to all political tendencies involved in the struggle; we need the broadest democracy to fight for those thousands taking to the streets or remaining passive because they lack spaces in which to organize. At the same time, it is not part of the PSL’s strategy or tactics to propose concrete steps to unify labor with the movement for Palestine. Grant Miner, former president of the SWC and a PSL member, symbolizes that unity, and we should join forces to demand his reinstatement and urge the UAW leadership to defend him as well.
The best recent example of the power of unity among students, staff, and faculty against the right wing and repression occurred at UCLA last year in the context of the encampments for Gaza, when the community fought back against the Zionists, forced them to retreat, and organized a strike against repression that shut down the entire university.
This Saturday, Left Voice will march in New York with a contingent and will participate in actions in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Philadelphia to bring this perspective and platform to the streets. We want to talk with everyone about how to take advantage of the situation and, instead of working for the Democratic Party, how we can build the movement to completely break with the Dems and establish our own socialist organization—anti-imperialist, internationalist, rooted in class struggle, and composed of members and candidates who are workers and students engaged in their communities and struggles, rather than being part of a party that receives funding from the oligarchs who exploit and oppress us.
We recognize that LV is just a small part of a larger movement and that the party we envision will emerge only from the fusion of various organizations, experiences in struggle, debates, and ideological struggle among the Left and the vanguard. But we are convinced that we can contribute to building this organization through our ideas, our website, our social media, and our humble organizing efforts as part of the movement for Palestine and the labor movement. We are also grounded in the experience and program of our international organization, the Trotskyist Faction, which has a strong presence in Argentina, France, and beyond, led by recognized representatives of the working class in both class struggle and elections, such as Myriam Bregman from the PTS-FIT in Argentina and Anasse Kassib from Revolution Permanente in France, who is facing trial for supporting Palestine on June 18.