Emergency Post: Street Resistance Against ICE Erupts in L.A.

Raising the stakes and the social cost of mass deportation

Coop Scoop June 7

I’ll have a few words about the Trump-Musk war at the end of this post.

But the focus this Saturday morning is the outbreak of a spreading low-intensity battle between Federal immigration agents and the people of Los Angeles that is dramatically flaring up.

On Friday, a deployment of dozens of ICE and other federal agents, wearing full battle gear, bulletproof vests, helmets and toting military long rifles, abruptly arrived in armored troop carriers in the densely packed Fashion District near downtown L.A. to serve four federal warrants. But they were met by an enraged and growing crowd of protesters. Within minutes a violent clash broke out as some protesters threw eggs at the ICE troops and a bottle or two. As the protesting crowd continued to grow and chant slogans at the camouflaged federal agents and began following the troop carriers as they exited with an unknown number of detainees, the war-clad agents began tossing flash grenades at the crowd and pointed and perhaps discharged rifles with non-lethal projectiles at the enraged crowd.

David Huerta, California president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) allegedly tried to block one of the armored cars and was arrested. A high-profile presence in California politics, his arrest was condemned by a host of California pols including Governor Newsom.

The L.A. Fashion District is a crowded downscale open marketplace where nearby merchants and manufacturers sell cheap clothing. The businesses, many of them virtual sweatshops, have workforces dominated by Latino and Korean immigrants. Some documented, some not. But they are all fully employed low-wagw workers.

A few hours later another clash broke out Friday afternoon in front of the detention center to where the detainees were transported. This time LAPD riot police intervened, declared the protest an unlawful assembly and dispersed the demonstrators with tear gas, pepper spray and non-lethal rifle rounds as the demonstration lasted into the evening.

As I write this on Saturday noontime, another clash has broken out at a Home Depot in the Paramount area of L.A. as militarized ICE troops tried to round up immigrant day laborers hoping for work on the corner of the big box store, a common sight in Southern California. Reports are still coming in on this latest battle and details are sketchy. The number of protesters arrested in the three confrontations is not clear and is fluctuating between 50 and 100.

A similar but lower-scale clash broke out in an ICE raid last week in San Diego, a heavily Latino city.

This week ICE has targeted Los Angeles where 1/3 of the population are immigrants and where such over-the-top militarized actions were and are destined to provoke robust responses and defiance.

The stepped-up raids come a few weeks after Trump’s Svengali – Stephen Miller — tongue-lashed ICE for not making enough arrests and set a goal of 3,000 detentions a day that must be met unless ICE leadership wants to be fired. But even with the steep escalation of raids nationwide this week, ICE netted barely half that quota. on Friday

No question that the over-the-top militarized mass raids are wildly non-commensurate with the civil violation of being undocumented. Add in this: the administration is spending big bucks producing quick-edit social media videos with thundering soundtracks of ICE breaking down doors and dragging off detainees with the obvious goal of mass intimidation.

There’s no other reason to deploy a contingent of Federal troops dressed up as if they are about to invade Fallujah to arrest what are primarily exploited unarmed sweatshop workers other than to terrorize the civilian population.

“The more police dress up in military gear and arm themselves with military equipment, the more likely they are to see themselves as at war with people, and that is not what we want,” said Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project manager for policing at the American Civil Liberties Union. An expanded show of force by policing agencies can “lead to unnecessary violence that leads to unnecessary harm,” she added.

ICE officials make no apologies for the escalated tactics and the acting ICE director Ted Lyons responded to growing criticism of agents wearing masks and face coverings with this absurd statement:

“I am sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family’s lives on the line, because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is.”

Meanwhile, DHS Commander Kristi Noem this weekend made a bid to become Himmler Barbie with a vengeful statement promising every protester from this weekend will be hunted down and prosecuted – exactly for what, she did not say. She also broad-brushed the Democratic Party as inciting the protests.

I am not encouraging violence but I fully support this physical pushback of ICE. A couple of weeks ago I predicted its inevitability and here it is.

This is a positive development because the more costly and cumbersome it becomes to conduct these raids the better. The more that a democratically-minded population refuses to be cowed by displays of military force and intentionally fear-inducing government propaganda videos, the better off we are. Much better that the authoritarians and fascists running ICE be scared of the population than the other way around.

Yes, some bottles were tossed at the jack-booted feds. And it seems some ICE vehicles were graffitied. I am not going to lose any sleep over that.

And yes, dozens of protesters were arrested and that is to be expected. But freedom is not free and fighting an emerging dictatorship and eventually defeating it is going to cost what the media mealy-mouths call “civil unrest.”

This country will not be free of MAGA’s domination of government until or unless this country is rendered ungovernable by the millions of us who refuse to be scared off.

One can question some of the tactics used by the protesters, but “the forces of order” reported no casualties and in the Fashion Distrct apparently provoked the disorder when they began tossing flash bang grenades at peaceful protesters.

What is unquestionable is the high degree of honorable courage shown by these protesters who risked their lives in standoffs face to face to face with heavily armed troops backed by military vehicles and heavy armament. They are to be admired. And imitated.

If I were King of this growing resistance to the thuggery of ICE, I would decree that all the protesters simply sit down peacefully in the street and make it impossible or near impossible for the ICE cops to proceed.

But I am not the King of the movement. I am merely someone who has lived here and abroad among similar outbreaks of citizen protest.

And simply put, the social and political costs of these deportations is rising and must continue to escalate. Sacrifices are part of the deal. Just ask anybody who fought in the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement or the brave souls who defiantly crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

THAT MUST-TRUMP FEUD

I was going to title this as Godzilla VS King Kong. But Maureen Dowd came up with a better idea. This is a case of Dr. Trump creating a Musk Frankenstein and the monster rebelling against its creator. The only good outcome here is mutually assured destruction. Chalk up a couple of points for Musk in exposing the hypocrisy of the “we’re for small government” bullshit. And though he has deleted his X post about it, how can you not be tantalized by Musk’s insinuations about Trump being an Epstein acolyte.

That said, Musk is every bit a wretched creature as Donald J. Trump. He has ruined thousands of American families with his DOGE madness as has Trump.

Trump, of course, will now blame Musk for whatever unpopular outrages of his first months in office, but the stupid and deranged president will continue with more of them in any case.

It looks like Musk has quickly lost this war. He has the money, but Trump has all the Federal power. Musk will wind up being indicted for something and Trump will go after his money.

Anyway you cut this, it’s not good news for MAGA. I’m hoping that Trump cancels all of Musk’s federal contracts and gets someone other than Musk to run our rocket program. Likewise, I hope that Musk’s eruption further ensnarls Trump’s Big Beautiful Bullshit bill in the Senate. And I am for Musk picking off three or four half-crazy GOP House members in the coming primaries and replacing them with full-on crazies who will vote against all government spending thereby ending a MAGA working majority in the House. One can hope.

Stay strong. Banish fear. Stand up for what you know is right. +++