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US Empire’s Tactics Come Home; Trump Sends Military To Repress Protests

US President Donald Trump deployed the military to repress demonstrations in Los Angeles, California, as protesters flooded the streets to denounce the abuse of immigrants by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Trump sent at least 700 Marines and 2,000 members of the National Guard. This is the first time in 60 years that a US president has deployed troops to a state without the approval of its governor. The office of California’s Governor Gavin Newsom condemned Trump’s move as an “illegal militarization of Los Angeles”, and filed a lawsuit seeking to block the president and Department of Defense from taking control of a California National Guard unit.

Oppression Breeds Resistance, Organization Sustains It

As community defenders, organizers, and residents resisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles this past weekend, the state has responded by calling in the FBI and Border Patrol SWAT units, utilizing Blackhawk helicopters to deliver munitions and military-grade equipment, and mobilizing the National Guard and Marines to quell the justified uprising. As our comrades in SoCal BAP have clearly stated, this is domestic warfare. The connection could not be clearer between the specific kidnappings orchestrated by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Los Angeles on one hand, and the broad militarization of our cities and neighborhoods on the other.

Trump Sets Military Against Civilians; Service Members Have Duty To Disobey

Four and a half months after his inauguration, Donald Trump is exercising his authoritarian chops, targeting immigrants in the state he most despises — California. Making good on Trump’s nativist pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security started conducting widespread raids outside workplaces in Los Angeles. They began on June 6, with no prior notification to the California governor, L.A. mayor or local law enforcement.

DHS Chief Calls For Military Arrests In Los Angeles Protests

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared to take a step toward circumventing federal laws that bar the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement in a letter she sent to the Department of Defense Sunday as the National Guard was deployed to Los Angeles amid mass protests over immigration raids. In a letter obtained by The San Francisco Chronicle, Noem wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the Pentagon should direct military forces “to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them.” The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement without the authorization of Congress.

Trump Has Put A Target On SEIU; The Labor Movement Is Fighting Back

As federal agents strapped on their tactical gear and picked up rifles to sweep workplaces, parking lots and streets in Los Angeles, workers and residents mounted what is shaping up into the boldest organized defiance to the Trump administration yet. And when a state labor leader observing the raids got swept up in the brutal immigration crackdown, it sparked nationwide action by labor unions against federal raids, detentions and deportations. When agents showed up at downtown garment factories on Friday and a Home Depot parking lot in the working-class suburb of Paramount on Saturday, everyday people’s anger at the Trump administration’s agents of repression boiled over into confrontation.

Free Speech Ends Here: What I Saw During The LAPD Crackdown

On the morning of June 10, 2025, I made the decision to travel to Los Angeles to cover the underreported protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). By night, I was already en route to the airport. For days, the world watched as California burned. Cars set ablaze, crowds being flash-banged, rubber bullets flying, smoke in the air as protesters and reporters run for cover, gasping for air and hurrying to put their masks on. The scenes on the ground gripped us all. Just as striking were the headlines: “RIOTERS BURN LA,” “VIOLENT PROTESTERS IN LA,” and it made me wonder, when did free speech become synonymous with violence?

The Los Angeles Protests Are An Act Of Self-Defense

Early Sunday evening in Los Angeles, as the city was under siege by federal anti-immigration forces, aided by local law enforcement, Mayor Karen Bass was holding a press conference. Out in the streets, a reporter noted, it appeared that the Los Angeles Police Department was “cooperating” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “using flashbangs and less-lethal munitions” to push people engaged in “peaceful protest” away from a federal building being used as an ICE detention center. The reporter asked if Mayor Bass would comment on this cooperation, which is against city policy.

Militarized Raids Against Migrants Spark Mass Protests In Los Angeles

Since Friday afternoon, mass protests have been taking place across Los Angeles in response to raids carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The mass raids carried out by federal agents in military gear at three workplaces in Los Angeles on Friday, June 6 resulted in the detention of dozens of migrants. The intensified raids in the city are taking place as the Trump administration is scrambling to meet mass deportation quotas. Protests calling for an end to ICE raids continued into Monday, despite facing heavy repression from the Los Angeles police and the deployment of the National Guard at the request of President Donald Trump.

The Use Of National Guard And Active Duty Troops To Control Opposition

The Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild is opposed to the use of military forces to “put down” or “control” the heartfelt reactions by community members to workplace immigration raids in Los Angeles and other cities. The Trump administration claims the use of the troops is necessary because local police are incapable of protecting the masked, non-uniformed, but heavily armed, federal forces from ICE, DHS, ATF and the FBI. Nothing could be further from the truth. In California, for example, Governor Gavin Newsom has denounced the use of military troops as a dangerous escalation of the confrontations.

LA Protest Response Risks Turning US Military Into Political Force

The Trump administration’s deployment of national guard troops to Los Angeles to intervene in civilian protests in the face of opposition from the Californian governor is a major escalation that risks the politicisation of the US military, armed service veterans are warning. Former top military figures have told the Guardian that the decision to put up to 2,000 troops under federal control and send them into the streets of LA is a violation of the military’s commitment to keep out of domestic politics in all but the most exceptional circumstances. The last time a US president federalised the national guard against the wishes of a state governor was in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson deployed them to protect civil rights marchers in Alabama.

Los Angeles Demands: ICE Out Of Our Communities!

Los Angeles has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s escalating war on immigrants. On Friday, June 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided a Home Depot parking lot in the city’s Westlake District, detaining several undocumented day laborers. Later, agents raided the city’s garment district. But ICE is meeting fierce opposition from community members. The raids sparked demonstrations, with protesters chanting and throwing eggs and rocks at the agents and police officers, who responded with pepper spray and tear gas. Forty-four people were arrested, among them California SEIU president David Huerta. The labor leader has been treated for injuries, but still in federal custody.

National Guard Attacks Raza In Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA – Chicanos and supporters have been gathering at the Metropolitan Detention Center since yesterday evening, June 7, when the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents and other law enforcement personnel, started flash bombing and tear gassing protesters. Today, June 8, the National Guard was deployed and amped up the militarization in downtown Los Angeles. The Metropolitan Detention Center is in downtown. LAPD, California Highway Patrol, ERO [an immigration removal unit] and HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] agents have been deployed and are beating protesters while using tear gas and flash bang grenades.

Protesters Clash With Law Enforcement In Downtown Los Angeles

Federal agents conducted a series of immigration sweeps across Los Angeles on Friday, prompting anger and resistance from onlookers and immigrant rights groups that have braced for this type of action for months. Over the weekend, tensions continued to rise between state and local authorities and Trump administration officials, who said they were calling up the National Guard in response to what they said were "violent mobs" attacking "ICE Officers and Federal Law Enforcement Agents carrying out basic deportation operations in Los Angeles." Gov. Gavin Newsom called the plan to take over deployment from the state "purposefully inflammatory," adding that it "will only escalate tensions."

LASD, Federal Police Attack Press Covering ICE Protests

Police and federal agents fired crowd-control weapons at several reporters covering protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles County, California. Journalist and and videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel reported that the LA County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) dispersed a protest after an ICE operation in Paramount. Officers deployed tear gas, percussion grenades, and other so-called “less lethal” munitions. Federal authorities shot at protesters, too.  A tear gas canister, according to Beckner-Carmitchel, hit him in the head. His face was covered in the CS agent, and Beckner-Carmitchel later said that the canister appeared to have been fired by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents, which are part of ICE. 

Federal Agents Conduct Immigration Raids Across Los Angeles

Federal agents conducted a series of immigration sweeps across Los Angeles on Friday, prompting anger and resistance from onlookers and immigrant rights groups that have braced for this type of action for months. About 44 people were arrested in the raids, according to a statement from a spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement obtained by LAist's media partner KCAL News. "ICE officers and agents alongside partner law enforcement agencies, executed four federal search warrants at three locations in central Los Angeles," ICE spokesperson Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe said in the statement.

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