At the end of May, the Trump administration began increasing its attacks on the immigrant community and the working class of Los Angeles. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids targeted schools and places of work for precarious workers like Home Depot and the garment district. In response to the attacks, including the arrest of union members like SEIU union president David Huerta, community members organized protests and mobilizations. Combative street confrontations have taken place against ICE, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and sheriffs. And President Trump deployed thousands of National Guard troops who assisted ICE and local law enforcement in brutalizing the community.
Since this deployment, community organizations have responded by disrupting ICE Raids and organizing networks of community groups. Leftists and labor and tenant unions have also provided services, coordinated protests, and helped immigrants avoid ICE. This includes mobilizing to demand Huerta’s release. When troops marched in MacArthur Park, the community confronted them and the brief military exercise in intimidation resulted in no arrests.
While the more combative street battles have subsided, the community organization and confrontations against ICE aren’t over. In fact, the brutal repression in Camarillo, which led to several farmworkers being hospitalized and the death of Jaime Alanis, had the potential to reignite the protests. In particular, it could have united the precarious youth with one of the most important sectors of immigrant workers: farmworkers.
This is something both the Democrats and Republicans fear: a combative movement uniting the youth and the working class. After all, while the Democratic Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom decried the National Guard occupation as “unnecessary,” they defended the brutality of the Los Angeles Police Department against the No Kings protesters. Despite their tough rhetoric against Trump, Democratic politicians are no friends of immigrants or the working class.
On July 11, the day after the Camarillo assault, Judge Maame E. Frimpong put a restraining order on Trump’s raids. The order accused the detentions of targeting people because of their skin color. This didn’t stop the ICE raids, but it slowed them down.
The Fight Against ICE Isn’t Over
President Trump has now withdrawn two thousand National Guard troops from Los Angeles. There are still two thousand troops left, as seven hundred Marines. This partial retreat is in part a result of the community organizations resistance against ICE, and because the Trump administration has been exposed in its zeal for attacking immigrants, all while doing almost nothing to respond to the catastrophic flooding in Texas that led to over 100 dead. The troop withdrawal could also be a result of the Democratic Party effectively putting a lid on the more convulsive elements that fought the police and raids. By framing protesters as violent, the Democrats and Republicans were able to convince the public to retreat from combative street skirmishes.
But the fight for immigrant rights and against ICE isn’t over. The LAPD are hated in Los Angeles, and as fewer federal troops are deployed, the community organization networks may become a watch against police as well. Developing these networks into assemblies could help increase their effectiveness, allowing them to evolve from rapid response networks to being more present for the community’s needs. They could also include the participation of undocumented workers, allowing them to have their say about defending themselves and their communities.
SEIU, the most active union against the raids, can be more of a force to fight ICE. The union recently had a meeting and discussed how its 750,000 members in California alone can grow. This can only happen through the mobilization of its ranks to defend its undocumented members and immigrants. The fight against ICE and for immigrant rights is a fight for the entire working class.
In California, over the last two years, hundreds of thousands of workers have been on strike, using the most powerful weapon of the working class. California, which has a unionization rate higher than the national average, can take up the fight against ICE and the Far Right using this weapon, as shown during the mass de facto strike during the 2006 Day Without An Immigrant.
The fight against ICE and for immigrant rights continues to grow and politically evolve. To kick all the troops out, we will need to continue to mobilize. We also need to pressure our unions and community organizations like SEIU, the UAW, UTLA, and many others to take the fight to the workplace and then to the picket line. The working class has only just begun to show our potential. Fuera ICE! Troops get out of our city! ICE Out of LA!
