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On June 6, 2025 around noon, ICE and HSI agents conducted a series of raids in Los Angeles. This included a workplace in the fashion district and two Home Depot locations close to Downtown Los Angeles. The Home Depot, located in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles is a location where there is an organized presence of day laborers. It has a designated day labor site and is aided by various pro immigrant groups. Agents were able to arrest about 44 people in the raids.
The response from our side was swift. Activists and nearby community members began an immediate protest of the raids. SEIU California president, David Huerta, was one of the first responding activists. He was both injured and arrested by ICE agents in the process. What followed throughout the day was continued protests way until the night. The convoy out of downtown LA was protested while some activists tried to block the ICE vehicles from moving. ICE also tried dispersing the crowds with flashbang grenades and tear gas.
Two different organizations called for protests at 4pm at the downtown federal building. One had a press conference denouncing the raids. Another marched from the raid site to the federal detention center, adjacent to the federal building. Both groups combined and surrounded the federal complex for hours and numbered in the thousands. A group of activists also protested the detention center entrance, thereby blocking the ICE agents in their own building. The agents tried to disperse the crowd with flashbangs and tear gas, but retreated back into their building. Protests continued until the night and until the ICE Agents eventually left their staging area in Chinatown, just north of the downtown federal building.
On Saturday [6/7] around noon, ICE agents were spotted at the Home Depot in Paramount. The news of their presence spread quick with community members and activists responding and protesting the Agents. Once again, ICE resorted to using tear gas and flashbangs to disperse the crowd. This had the opposite effect. It further angered the crowd and created a standoff between the Agents and the community that lasted until the Agents were forced to flee.
Such actions come on the heels of other very public responses to ICE Raids with the most recent being in San Diego where community members confronted ICE agents raiding a restaurant. It is the result of the hate spewed by the Trump Administration and illegal kidnappings by this agency. While there are organized groups that are responding to these raids, much of it is the spontaneous reaction by people who are angry at the racist attacks that are destroying the lives of hardworking immigrants. It is also setting a precedent that such raids will not go unnoticed and that people themselves can stop them, which is something that both national and local Democrats have failed to do. We are looking at the possibility that no matter where ICE goes, there will be resistance.
It is the job of any activists to channel that anger and resistance into building a left that can fight not just against ICE raids, but the abolition of ICE and anti immigrant laws. For that we will need to build new organizations and leadership that can carry on a pro immigrant rights movement for the long struggle ahead.”
Victor Fernandez
Marx21 US 