The U.S. Accepts “Fruits of Migrant Labor” But Not Immigrants’ Humanity: Day Laborer Organizer in L.A. | Democracy Now!

 

The U.S. Accepts “Fruits of Migrant Labor” But Not Immigrants’ Humanity: Day Laborer Organizer in L.A. | Democracy Now!

'I was forced to the ground' and 'handcuffed': Sen. Padilla speaks out

BREAKING: Democratic Senator ASSAULTED, ARRESTED by Trump officials

COINTELPRO: The FBI’s WAR Against Black Leaders

Ex-U.S. Diplomat Joins March to Gaza, Says Biden Official Matthew Miller Has “Blood on His Hands” | Democracy Now!

 

Ex-U.S. Diplomat Joins March to Gaza, Says Biden Official Matthew Miller Has “Blood on His Hands” | Democracy Now!

Inside a Courthouse, Chaos and Tears as Trump Accelerates Deportations - The New York Times

Inside a Courthouse, Chaos and Tears as Trump Accelerates Deportations

"Immigration courtrooms in New York City have emerged as a flashpoint, with masked agents making surprise arrests of immigrants who have appeared for routine hearings and check-ins.

June 12, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET

Federal immigration agents, who often wear masks to conceal their identities, have begun apprehending people inside immigration courthouses in New York City and across the nation.Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Inside an immigration courthouse in the heart of Lower Manhattan, federal agents in T-shirts and caps cover their faces with masks as they discreetly attend routine hearings filled with immigrants.

The agents tip off other officers huddled in the court’s staid hallways as undocumented immigrants on their radar leave the hearings. They then move in to arrest their targets, sometimes leading to disorderly scenes as husbands are separated from wives, and parents from children.

The scene unfolding in New York City has repeated itself in immigration courthouses across the nation, a window into the Trump administration’s accelerating crackdown amid pressure from the White House to ramp up deportations. In Los Angeles, workplace raids have inflamed tensions and led to demonstrations. In New York, the courthouse arrests have emerged as a defining flashpoint.

In June, hundreds came and went at one federal building — for asylum hearings, citizenship applications and mandated check-ins with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Some left in handcuffs.

Immigrants arrested after appearing in courtrooms on higher floors were ferried by agents to holding cells on the 10th floor, an off-limits area where ICE typically keeps a few people for several hours as they are processed and transferred elsewhere.

But ICE agents have apprehended so many people showing up for routine appointments this month that the facilities appear to be overcrowded. Hundreds of migrants have slept on the floor or sitting upright, sometimes for days, said Francisco Castillo, a Dominican immigrant who was held there for three days last week.

Mr. Castillo, 36, said that the four holding cells — two for men, two for women — were so packed that some of the nearly 100 migrants in his cell resorted to sleeping on the bathroom floors. They were held for days without showers or clothing changes.

“Every single one of us slept on the floor because there are no beds,” Mr. Castillo said in a phone interview in Spanish from a detention facility in New Jersey where he was transferred. “What’s human about this?”

Mr. Castillo’s account echoed concerns from two Democratic members of Congress who showed up at the building at 26 Federal Plaza on Sunday to inspect the 10th floor after hearing reports of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. They were denied access by ICE.

In the hallways of the government building at 26 Federal Plaza, agents wait for undocumented immigrants as they leave hearings. Sometimes, they then move in to arrest their targets.Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The imposing federal building at 26 Federal Plaza — home to an ICE headquarters and one of the city’s three immigration courts — has become a centerpiece of immigration enforcement in New York. ICE agents have arrested dozens of migrants in and around the building, as well as the other two courts in Manhattan, and held them out of view at 26 Federal Plaza before transferring them to detention centers outside the city.

The arrests have drawn protesters to the building’s perimeter, leading the police to arrest several who have tried to block vans carrying migrants out of the building. Inside, the presence of agents in courtrooms that were long considered off-limits to ICE has quickly disrupted courthouse operations and, critics say, eroded their status as a safe space for immigrants to engage with the legal system.

The sight of masked ICE agents in hallways has unsettled the hundreds of immigrants who show up at 26 Federal Plaza each day. There are signs that the arrests may be dissuading some migrants from following the rules by showing up to mandated court dates, worsening their chances of staying in the United States, because missed hearings can lead to deportation.

On Monday morning, 17 of the roughly two dozen immigrants who were required to show up before a judge on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza never appeared — a higher number of no-shows than is usual, immigration lawyers said.

Jaen Mawer Enciso Guzman, center, was led away by immigration officers in New York City as his wife, Ambar Mujica Rodriguez, left, and 12-year-old daughter sobbed and screamed.Adam Gray for The New York Times

An Ecuadorean family of four living in New Jersey was the first to line up outside the courtroom. The parents clutched paperwork to their chests as they whispered and anxiously eyed the masked agents by the elevators.

“We’re uneasy,” said the mother, Joselyn Titisunta Saavedra, describing the gang threats that they said forced the family to seek asylum in the United States.

Federal officials have said that the court arrests allow agents to detain people in a controlled environment without having to dispatch teams into communities, which takes more time and planning and puts officers and the public at risk. The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, has also said that threats against its officers are up, justifying the use of masks to conceal their identities.

Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the courthouse arrests and the conditions at 26 Federal Plaza. Top Homeland Security officials have previously cast the arrests as a way to quickly remove some of the millions of migrants who crossed the border during the Biden era.

Mr. Castillo, the man detained for three days, entered the United States illegally in 2022 from the Dominican Republic and does not have a criminal record, his lawyers said. ICE agents arrested Mr. Castillo, who is married to a U.S.-born citizen and lives in the Bronx, when he appeared on June 4 for a routine immigration court hearing in Manhattan.

“Emotionally, I’m frustrated because I was doing what they supposedly wanted to me to do” by showing up to court, Mr. Castillo said.

ICE moved to place him in deportation proceedings that moved on a fast track, a tactic that the agency has deployed to swiftly expel migrants without hearings. The agency has also expanded the arrest of immigrants showing up for other immigration-related appointments, not just court hearings.

Last week, a number of immigrants, including families with children, received automated text messages asking them to report to a nondescript office across the street from 26 Federal Plaza to check in with ICE. They were undocumented immigrants in supervisory programs that allow them to live in communities while their cases wind through the courts, so long as they occasionally check in with ICE.

The sight of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has unsettled the hundreds of immigrants who show up at 26 Federal Plaza each day.Todd Heisler/The New York Times

When they showed up to check in last week, many were surprised with handcuffs. Dozens of immigrants were arrested in broad daylight on the streets of Manhattan as protesters hurled insults at agents, calling them “pigs” and “Nazis.”

Last Wednesday, Ambar Mujica Rodriguez, 33, and her 12-year-old daughter sobbed and screamed as four agents escorted her husband, Jaen Mawer Enciso Guzman, 30, to an SUV. Their daughter ran after him and tried to hug him. The Venezuelan family crossed the border into the United States in 2023 and had a pending asylum application, according to their lawyer, Margaret Cargioli.

“What’s alarming here and at immigration court is that they’re picking up people who are complying,” Ms. Cargioli said. “He was very cooperative with all the requirements that were made of him, and it’s a real shame that they’re separating them.”

She said he was probably targeted because he had entered the country about two years ago. The Trump administration has begun placing immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years into a deportation process known as expedited removal proceedings, which were previously used only for migrants encountered near the border.

Immigration courts are different from criminal courts. People are typically summoned to immigration courts because the federal government has initiated deportation hearings against them for entering the country illegally, not to face accusations of committing other crimes.

The arrests, in and near courts where millions of foreign-born individuals nationwide showed up last year so that judges could determine whether they could stay in the country, have turned the once unexceptional government offices into a daily political spectacle.

Brad Lander, the city comptroller and a candidate for mayor, sat in on several hearings at a different immigration court, at 290 Broadway last week, and escorted out migrant families who seemed to be at risk for arrest. On Sunday, the two members of Congress, Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez, were denied entry to tour the 10th floor at 26 Federal Plaza.

Brad Lander, the city comptroller, escorted a couple after an immigration hearing at the federal building at 290 Broadway.Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Inside the city’s three immigration courthouses — at 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway, just a few blocks from City Hall, and at 201 Varick Street, on the West Side — the atmosphere has grown tense.

Fliers in Spanish and English encouraging self-deportation await arriving families. ICE agents and activists, some of whom also wear masks, occasionally taunt each other. Immigration judges and court staff express consternation over the disruption that the arrests — and the media attention — has wrought on typically sleepy immigration proceedings.

On Friday, one such arrest turned chaotic after ICE executed the administration’s new playbook. Inside a courtroom at 26 Federal Plaza, ICE prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss the immigration case against a Dominican man, a legal maneuver to allow ICE agents in the hallway to detain him and place him in expedited deportation proceedings.

The man, Joaquin Rosario Espinal, like many, showed up without a lawyer and expressed confusion when the government asked that his case be dismissed.

“What do you mean, dismiss my case?” Mr. Rosario Espinal, 34, asked in Spanish. “Do I need to leave the country, or not?”

The arrest of Joaquin Rosario Espinal turned chaotic at 26 Federal Plaza.Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The judge tried to explain. An immigration lawyer in the chambers sought to intervene on his behalf, to no avail. News photographers gathered in the hallway to capture the imminent arrest, leading the judge to admonish them for being a distraction.

“I wish you the best of luck,” the judge told Mr. Rosario Espinal.

When he exited into a cramped hallway, at least six agents tackled him to the floor as they also grappled with activists.

“Stop resisting!” one agent shouted as Mr. Rosario Espinal, who an acquaintance said arrived in the United States last year, was arrested. He was eventually whisked away to a detention facility north of the city in Orange County, N.Y.

In the lobby of the building, which also houses offices of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, a family of three from Gambia emerged from the elevators dressed in colorful dresses, smiling and holding American flags.

They had just become American citizens.

Olivia Bensimon and Wesley Parnell contributed reporting.

Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a Times reporter covering immigration, focused on the influx of migrants arriving in the New York region."

Inside a Courthouse, Chaos and Tears as Trump Accelerates Deportations - The New York Times

Lawrence: Musk says he 'went too far' attacking Trump, but not killing t...

BREAKING: Elon Musk gets what he DESERVES in court

Federal appeals court wrestles with Trump effort to fight hush money conviction

CNN  — 

“A federal appeals court in New York wrangled Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s claim that his hush money conviction should be reviewed by federal courts and seemed open to the idea that the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity decision may weigh in the president’s favor.

“It seems to me that we got a very big case that created a whole new world of presidential immunity,” US Circuit Judge Myrna Pérez, who was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, said at one point during oral arguments. “The boundaries are not clear at this point.”

At issue is whether Trump can move his state court case on 34 counts of falsifying business records to federal court, where he hopes to argue that prosecutors violated the Supreme Court’s immunity decision last year by using certain evidence against him, including testimony from former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks.

“The scope of a federal constitutional immunity for the president of the United States should be decided by this court and the Supreme Court, not by New York state courts,” said Jeffrey Wall, a former acting US solicitor general who is representing Trump in the case. “Everything about this cries out for federal court.”

The Supreme Court’s decision last year granted Trump immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts and barred prosecutors from attempting to enter evidence about them, even if they are pursuing alleged crimes involving that president’s private conduct.

Without that prohibition on evidence, the Supreme Court reasoned, a prosecutor could “eviscerate the immunity” the court recognized by allowing a jury to second-guess a president’s official acts.

And so, the underlying question is whether prosecutors crossed that line by including the testimony from Hicks and former executive assistant Madeleine Westerhout, as well as a series of social media posts Trump authored during his first term criticizing the hush money case.

The three-judge panel of the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, all appointed by Democratic presidents, asked probing questions of both sides and it wasn’t clear after more than an hour of arguments how they would decide the case. The judges pressed the attorney representing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on why the Supreme Court’s decision last year didn’t preclude the evidence at issue in the case.

“The Supreme Court used very broad language in talking about evidentiary immunity,” noted Circuit Judge Susan Carney.

Bragg’s office has countered that it’s too late for federal courts to intervene. That’s because Trump was already convicted and sentenced. Prosecutors have also argued that the evidence at issue wasn’t the kind the Supreme Court was referring to. Hicks may have been a White House official when she testified, they said, but she was speaking about actions Trump took in a private capacity.

“The fact that we are now past the point of sentencing would be a compelling reason to find no ‘good cause’ for removal,” said Steven Wu, who was representing Bragg.

Federal officials facing prosecution in state courts may move their cases to federal court in many circumstances under a 19th century law designed to ensure states don’t attempt to prosecute them for conduct performed “under color” of a US office or agency. A federal government worker, for instance, might seek to have a case moved to federal court if they are sued after getting into a car accident while driving on the job.

Wu analogized Trump’s argument to a postal worker who commits a crime on the weekend and then confesses to his boss at work on Monday. The confession, even though it happened in a post office, doesn’t suddenly convert the content of the conversation to an official US Postal Service action.

“The criminal charges were private and unofficial conduct,” Wu said.

Trump was ultimately sentenced in January without penalty.

He had been accused of falsifying a payment to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to cover up a $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out before the 2016 election about an alleged affair with Trump. (Trump has denied the affair.)

US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton, denied Trump’s request to move the case to federal court – keeping his appeals instead in New York courts. Trump, who frequently complained about the New York trial court judge in his case, Juan Merchan, has said he wants his case heard in an “unbiased federal forum.”

‘Dictator Don’ WAGES WAR On California: ICE Raids, Marines, Kids Snatche...

Black Sheriff DEFIES Florida AG’s ICE Demands — 'We Won’t Snatch Kids Fr...

King Leopold's Ghost: The Hidden Genocide in the Congo Free State

When Belgium committed a holocaust in Africa

Why Germany Erased Its African Genocide from History

Lawrence and Rachel Maddow discuss Trump saying in 2020 presidents can't...

Israeli troops kill at least 17 in Gaza, say local officials, as Greta Thunberg deported | Gaza | The Guardian

Israeli troops kill at least 17 in Gaza, say local officials, as Greta Thunberg deported

"Palestinians reportedly killed while trying to reach food sites, after Madleen aid yacht crew taken into custody

Emma Graham-Harrison

Palestinians queuing for food on 29 May. Dozens have been killed as they tried to collect food from sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Photograph: Hatem Khaled/Reuters

Israeli troops killed at least 17 Palestinians trying to reach food distribution sites on Tuesday morning, local health authorities in Gaza said, as Israeli authorities deported Greta Thunberg and at least three other activists who had attempted to sail to the territory with aid.

The Madleen yacht was seized by Israeli authorities on Monday and towed to the port of Ashdod, where the 12 crew members, who also included the French MEP Rima Hassan, were taken into police custody. Some are still in Israel, where they will face deportation hearings.

The ship was attempting to bring a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza, which faces a looming famine after more than 11 weeks of total siege and ongoing severe restrictions on food entering the territory.

Israel has attempted to shift most food distribution away from humanitarian organisations including UN agencies to a secretive US- and Israel-backed logistics startup that has never worked in a conflict zone at scale.

Dozens of people have been killed as they tried to collect food from the handful of sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which are secured by armed guards and under the protection of the Israeli military.

The latest deaths came early on Tuesday morning when Israeli gunfire killed at least 17 people and injured dozens more as they approached a site in central Gaza, health authorities in the territory said.

The GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Israeli military said it was aware of reports of injuries after it fired warning shots towards “suspects” in the Wadi Gaza area whom its troops deemed a threat. “The warning shots were fired hundreds of meters from the aid distribution site, prior to its opening hours,” a spokesperson said. The military said the numbers released by local health authorities did not align with the information they had collected.

Israel has been under heavy international pressure over hunger in Gaza, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing that he had lifted the siege after warnings from longstanding friends of Israel that the “starvation crisis” there was damaging Israel’s international standing.

In an apparent response to the huge amount of publicity generated by the Madleen even before it set sail, Israel’s foreign ministry on Monday attacked the crew as “celebrities” on a “selfie yacht”.

Israeli forces halt Gaza-bound aid yacht carrying Greta Thunberg – video

After Israeli forces took control of the boat, it posted an image of Thunberg being offered food and claimed she was “in good spirits” while she was held incommunicado.

In a video prepared before the boat was intercepted Thunberg said that if she lost communication supporters should assume she had been kidnapped and advocate for her release.

The boat arrived in the port city of Ashdod after dark fell, where its crew were given a choice between consenting to deportation or staying in police custody and facing a tribunal.

All rejected the claim that they had entered Israel illegally, because Israeli forces seized the boat in international waters then brought them to an Israeli port by force. Some chose to sign strategically, so they could leave and advocate for the others when they are brought to court.

Israel’s foreign ministry shared pictures of Thunberg boarding a morning flight to France, and said the other crew members were being held at Ben Gurion airport.

Although they were never expected to reach Gaza, whose shores are guarded by Israel’s navy, the ship intensified international focus on hunger in Gaza.

The UN has been able to bring only limited supplies of flour into Gaza since Israel lifted a total siege three weeks ago, and most of that had been taken by starving Palestinians or looted by armed gangs before the UN could distribute it, the deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday.

The UN has been allowed to transport 4,600 metric tonnes of wheat flour into Gaza for the last three weeks. If shared equally that would provide about one week’s supply of bread to the roughly 2.3 million people living in Gaza, under WFP guidelines, but it would need to be eaten with other food to meet minimum daily calorie needs.

Haq said aid groups in Gaza estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 tonnes of wheat flour were needed to give each family in Gaza a bag and ease desperation."

Israeli troops kill at least 17 in Gaza, say local officials, as Greta Thunberg deported | Gaza | The Guardian

Maxine Waters EXPLODES: “Trump Thinks He’s a King” — We’re NOT Backing Down

Trump Goes NUCLEAR ON LA and It WILL BACKFIRE!!!

Paramount, Site of Some L.A. County Protests, Has Many Latino Immigrants - The New York Times

Paramount, Where Protests Erupted, Has a Large Hispanic Population

"Residents in the small city south of Los Angeles had been on edge since Trump returned to office, fearing deportation raids.

June 8, 2025, 4:12 a.m. ET

A scene in Paramount, Calif., on Saturday.Eric Thayer/Associated Press

As President Trump ordered at least 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles County on Saturday, some of the most active protests against immigration raids in the area were taking place near a Home Depot in Paramount, a small city some 25 miles southeast of the Hollywood sign. Law enforcement officers used flash-bang grenades and fired rubber bullets at demonstrators.

The mood had been tense in the city ever since Mr. Trump took office for the second time with promises to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants.

“Since January, people have lived in fear,” said Jose Luis Solache, a state lawmaker who represents the area. “We saw a decline in our schools’ attendance, we saw a decline in people going to work.”

Los Angeles County includes wealthy enclaves like Malibu and Beverly Hills, but also many communities like Paramount that have for decades attracted Latino immigrants who clean hotel rooms in tourist districts, manufacture clothes or work at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Paramount is one of about two dozen cities ringing Los Angeles’s southeastern border, collectively known as “the Gateway Cities.” Some 82 percent of Paramount’s more than 51,000 residents are Hispanic and about 36 percent are foreign-born, according to census data. Its median household income is $70,900; across Los Angeles County, that number is roughly $87,800.

“All these cities — Bell Gardens, Bellflower, Paramount — they are full of working-class Latinos that were able to have a piece of the middle class,” said Hugo Soto-Martinez, a Los Angeles City Council member who previously worked as a labor organizer in the area. “They’re like Latino suburbs.”

Trump administration officials have said that the federal government’s immigration crackdown will increasingly focus on workplaces.

Angelica Salas, the executive director of CHIRLA, an immigrant rights group in Los Angeles, said that the Paramount area’s dense concentration of immigrants, including undocumented ones, most likely made it a ripe target for immigration enforcement raids.

“They don’t care to go to a workplace or have warrants,” Ms. Salas said of federal immigration enforcement authorities. “They just care that brown people are there.”

Paramount and other Gateway Cities weren’t always destinations for working families. In the early 20th century, they were agricultural areas.

The two villages that would later combine to form Paramount were known as “the Milk Shed of Los Angeles,” according to a city history on its website. In 1948, the city, which wouldn’t be officially incorporated until 1957, was named Paramount for a main street running through town.

The area was developed in the decades that followed. Factories and warehouses spread, alongside homes. According to the city history, in the early 1980s, a think tank called Paramount an “urban disaster area.”

But in recent years, Paramount has been revitalized as the children of immigrants have sought out more affordable homes and opened businesses. Now, young people catch up over elaborate horchata and coffee concoctions at Horchateria Rio Luna and belt their favorite songs during karaoke nights at Casa Adelita.

Jill Cowan is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering the forces shaping life in Southern California and throughout the state."

Paramount, Site of Some L.A. County Protests, Has Many Latino Immigrants - The New York Times

Live Updates: L.A. Quiet as National Guard Troops Begin to Arrive

​

“President Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to assist immigration agents during protests against immigration raids. The deployment, which bypassed California Governor Gavin Newsom’s authority, is the first time since 1965 that a president has activated a state’s National Guard without the governor’s request. The troops, from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, are expected to arrive within 24 hours.

​

Protests over immigration raids in the Los Angeles area were expected to continue for a third day. Gov. Gavin Newsom said President Trump’s decision to call in National Guards was “purposefully inflammatory.”

Updated 

June 8, 2025, 12:03 p.m. ET1 minute ago

Pinned

Los Angeles was quiet on Sunday morning as the first members of the National Guard arrived in the city, where President Trump took the extraordinary action of ordering them to assist immigration agents who clashed with demonstrators during two days of protests.

Mr. Trump’s decision to order in the guard made rare use of federal powers to bypass the authority of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, who called the deployment “purposefully inflammatory” on Saturday night and added that there was “no unmet need.”

June 8, 2025, 11:26 a.m. ET38 minutes ago

The troops deploying to the Los Angeles area are from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the California National Guard, United States Northern Command said in a post on the social media platform X. Northcom said that some of the troops were already on the ground. A Northcom spokeswoman said more information would be provided soon.

June 8, 2025, 11:13 a.m. ET52 minutes ago

Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, appearing on the CBS program “Face the Nation” Sunday, declined to give details about the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles. Asked if troops would remove protesters’ masks, she said, “I won’t get more specific on that, just because we never do when it comes to law enforcement operations.” President Trump said on Saturday that face coverings would not be tolerated at protests. 

Confrontations between law enforcement and protesters

June 8, 2025, 11:01 a.m. ET1 hour ago

Several military vehicles and a handful of National Guard troops were gathered outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles early Sunday morning. The streets were otherwise largely quiet. Roads near the center and other federal buildings were closed, and a small group had begun gathering in the park behind Los Angeles City Hall for a planned march for maternal and child health.

Livia Albeck-Ripka/The New York Times

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California sharply criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said that active duty Marines could be mobilized as part of the federal government’s response to protests against immigration raids in the Los Angeles area.

Mr. Hegseth’s suggestion came on Saturday after President Trump ordered at least 2,000 National Guard members to assist immigration agents following two days of clashes with demonstrators. Some of the demonstrations have been unruly, but local officials had not asked for federal assistance and Mr. Trump issued the order under a rarely used law to bypass Mr. Newsom’s authority.

As President Trump ordered at least 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles County on Saturday, some of the most active protests against immigration raids in the area were taking place near a Home Depot in Paramount, a small city some 25 miles southeast of the Hollywood sign. Law enforcement officers used flash-bang grenades and fired rubber bullets at demonstrators.

The mood had been tense in the city ever since Mr. Trump took office for the second time with promises to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants.

National Guard troops will arrive in Los Angeles County within the next 24 hours, the Trump administration’s top law enforcement official in Southern California said, to quell protests over immigration enforcement that are “out of control.”

Bill Essayli, the interim U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in an interview on Saturday night that the 2,000 troops were needed to keep the peace in the sprawling region.

Vera Moran, the owner of a bakery in Compton, got a call from an employee on duty Saturday afternoon saying she was going home because she was afraid of the dozens of sheriff’s patrol cars lined up outside.

Mrs. Moran had heard that there had been an immigration raid in nearby Paramount, and headed to the business that her family has operated since 2006, La Villa Bakery on East Alondra Boulevard, to keep an eye on the protests.

President Trump took extraordinary action on Saturday by calling up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in California, making rare use of federal powers and bypassing the authority of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

It is the first time since 1965 that a president has activated a state’s National Guard force without a request from that state’s governor, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy organization. The last time was when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators in 1965, she said.“

BREAKING: Supreme Court drops BOMBSHELL ruling

"Dam is breaking!" Prosecutor deals BAD NEWS for Trump

Agents Use Military-Style Force Against Protesters at L.A. Immigration Raid - The New York Times

Agents Use Military-Style Force Against Protesters at L.A. Immigration Raid

"Armed agents in tactical gear threw flash-bang grenades to disperse a crowd in Los Angeles’s Fashion District. Later, agents fired less-than-lethal ammunition at protesters outside a detention center.

Published June 6, 2025Updated June 7, 2025, 11:10 a.m. ET

Federal agents in tactical gear armed with military-style rifles threw flash-bang grenades to disperse an angry crowd near downtown Los Angeles on Friday as they conducted an immigration raid on a clothing wholesaler.Orlando Mayorquín/The New York Times

Federal agents in tactical gear armed with military-style rifles threw flash-bang grenades to disperse an angry crowd near downtown Los Angeles on Friday as they conducted an immigration raid on a clothing wholesaler, the latest sign of tensions between protesters and law enforcement over raids carried out at stores, restaurants and court buildings.

The operation was one of at least three immigration sweeps conducted in Los Angeles on Friday. In another one, federal agents converged at a Home Depot where day laborers regularly gather in search of work.

The raid at the clothing wholesaler began about 9:15 a.m. in the Fashion District, less than two miles from Los Angeles City Hall.

It was an extraordinary show of force. Dozens of federal agents wearing helmets and green camouflage arrived in two hulking armored trucks and other unmarked vehicles, and were soon approached by a crowd of immigrant activists and supporters. Some agents carried riot shields and others held rifles, as well as shotguns that appeared to be loaded with less-than-lethal ammunition.

Agents cleared a path for two white passenger vans that exited the area. A short time later, as officers boarded their vehicles to leave, a few agents lobbed flash-bang grenades at groups of people who chased alongside the slow-moving convoy. Some protesters had thrown eggs and other objects at the vehicles. At one point, the vehicles snagged and crushed at least two electric scooters that protesters had used.

David McDaniel said he was injured by a flash-bang grenade thrown by agents. He was assisted by bystanders and legal observers. Alex Welsh for The New York Times

More than 100 people were arrested at three locations in Los Angeles after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers executed four federal search warrants, according to federal officials. The operation drew immediate criticism from officials in Los Angeles, a Democratic-led city in a county where more than 30 percent of residents are immigrants.

“As mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place,” Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said in a statement, adding: “My office is in close coordination with immigrant rights community organizations. We will not stand for this.”

Hours after the raid, a second clash between protesters and federal agents broke out outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where those who were detained were taken. At one of the entrances, protesters chanted and approached the building as officers fired less-than-lethal projectiles and squirted what appeared to be pepper spray. Some protesters threw a chair and other objects, and appeared to spray-paint anti-ICE graffiti on the building.

By 7 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department declared an unlawful assembly, ordered demonstrators to disperse and a line of police in riot gear started to clear the area.

The morning raid took place at a business called Ambiance Apparel.

Omar Diaz, 26, was working inside when several agents entered the building and corralled the roughly 20 to 30 workers inside and lined them up against a wall.

“They interviewed us one by one,” Mr. Diaz said. “They would take us separately, ask us where we were born, and then they wanted our ID and our information.”

After being detained for about an hour, Mr. Diaz, who said he is a U.S. citizen, and a few others were let go. But some of his co-workers, who are mostly immigrants from Mexico and South Korea, remained with the authorities, Mr. Diaz said.

“My friend is still in there, too, so I’m worried about him,” Mr. Diaz said outside the front entrance of the building.

Omar Diaz, a worker at a clothing wholesaler, spoke to a crowd after a federal raid at his workplace in Los Angeles on Friday.Alex Welsh for The New York Times

A group of activists aboard a truck repeated a list of rights over a loudspeaker, hoping those detained inside could hear them.

Gloria Miguel, an organizer with a local workers group, said she saw two women crying as the raid unfolded.

“The woman was crying: ‘My husband is in there. I need help,’” Ms. Miguel said in Spanish, adding that there was another woman who was crying because her father was inside.

Agents at the scene were wearing patches on their uniforms identifying themselves as being with the F.B.I., Homeland Security Investigations and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security Investigations, said on Friday that 44 people were “administratively arrested” and one person was arrested for obstruction.

An administrative arrest is a civil arrest that ICE utilizes to detain and, ultimately, try to deport people. Often, immigrants who are administratively arrested are placed into immigration court proceedings where the government pushes to remove people in front of judges. A growing backlog of cases, however, has meant that deportation cases can take years to resolve.

The U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, said agents arrested David Huerta, the California president of the Service Employees International Union, for impeding federal agents carrying out the raid by blocking their vehicle. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California leaders condemned the detention of Mr. Huerta, who is a well-known figure in the state’s labor movement.

“David Huerta is a respected leader, a patriot, and an advocate for working people,” the governor said in a social media post. “No one should ever be harmed for witnessing government action.”

In recent weeks, ICE has ramped up enforcement across the country — boosting daily arrest numbers. Stephen Miller, President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, has said that ICE was looking to make a minimum of 3,000 arrests a day. The Trump administration has long targeted so-called sanctuary jurisdictions like Los Angeles, arguing that they would have to boost arrests in communities because they don’t have the same access to county jails, where they prefer to pick up immigrants.

Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I. field office in Los Angeles, said the F.B.I. was supporting its partners with the Department of Homeland Security, under the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“As we have been asked to do, we are sending agents to participate in these immigration enforcement efforts,” Ms. Eimiller said. “That includes assisting in cities where major operations are already underway and where we have special agents embedded on operational teams with D.H.S.”

Officials did not detail any injuries. One man on the street said he was injured by a flash-bang grenade.

“They started throwing flash-bangs and blew everybody up with it,” the man, David McDaniel, said as he held his bloody foot. “I got shrapnel all over my body,” he added.

Mr. McDaniel said he was not part of the protest and was just trying to get by. Bystanders and legal observers assisted him as they waited for an ambulance.

Protesters walked on the street near where the immigration raid took place. Alex Welsh for The New York Times

Chief Jim McDonnell of the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement that his agency was not involved in civil immigration enforcement efforts.

“While the LAPD will continue to have a visible presence in all our communities to ensure public safety, we will not assist or participate in any sort of mass deportations,” Chief McDonnell said, adding that the department would not attempt to determine anyone’s immigration status.

The Los Angeles police have had a policy in place since 1979 that bars officers from initiating police action for the sole purpose of determining someone’s immigration status. California law also prohibits state and local resources from being used to help with federal immigration enforcement.

The immigration sweeps in Los Angeles came one week after a similar operation in San Diego. Video of that raid showed federal agents using what appeared to be flash-bang grenades in an effort to disperse a group of people protesting the action.

That raid prompted members of Congress to write to the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, with questions about the tactics used by federal agents.

Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.

Orlando Mayorquín is a Times reporter covering California. He is based in Los Angeles.

Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California. "

Agents Use Military-Style Force Against Protesters at L.A. Immigration Raid - The New York Times