LA protesters are right to rise up (Picture: Marx21)
Los Angeles has risen up in revolt against Donald Trump, mass deportations and the might of the US state.
Tens of thousands of people had defied the police and military for four days and nights. Trump mobilised 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines on Tuesday in addition to the guards already in LA.
But protesters remain defiant, reports Clare Lemlich, an LA-based socialist who has been on the protests for days.
“They cannot teargas everyone, they can’t rubber bullet everyone, however much they’d like to,” she told Socialist Worker.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice)—which is spearheading Trump’s mass deportations programme—launched a “military-style” operation in LA last Friday.
Tooled up in riot gear, paramilitary thugs arrested around 45 people in the racist raids. But the anti-racist response was swift, led mainly by the Community Self Defence Coalition.
The police arrested and attacked SEIU trade union branch president David Huerta who was on the streets. He’s been released on bail, but was hospitalised and faces up to six years in a federal prison.
Raids and protests continued over the weekend, with stand offs between protesters and riot police armed with teargas, flash-bang grenades and rubber bullets.
Clare has spent the last few days travelling between federal buildings, detention centres and local protests across the city.
“There were about 10,000 people in downtown LA at the metropolitan detention centre on Sunday afternoon,” she said.
“That’s where they are holding people that they’d just picked up.”
“And on Monday I went to the rally that was called by the SEIU public services union after its president David Huerta was arrested and brutalised.
“The unions came out very impressively.” Here, there were around 2,000 workers from across education, the entertainment industry and government departments.
Later, Clare went back to the detention centre and federal buildings where the ranks of the police and national guard troops were holding the line. But there was also “a group of people trying to prevent Ice and unmarked government vehicles coming through”.
The raids on LA mark a major escalation in Trump’s war on migrant workers. Ice agents came in unmarked and armoured vehicles, sealing off whole streets while surveillance drones buzzed above.
Clare said, “The reason the raids are increasing now is because Trump’s deportation agenda is not working. They haven’t been able to deport as many people as they promised.
“Trump is trying to show that he’s tough on immigration, and because he can’t deport people as fast as he says he wants to.
“It’s revenge against California, the first sanctuary state, and against LA in particular. The state has the biggest undocumented migrant community in the country.”
The revolt in LA reaches far beyond the left or migrant rights organisations—and the police and military repression is broadening it.
As Clare said, “I think people can see which way the wind is blowing and there is a growing liberal consensus in California against Ice and against Trump.” This includes “LA mayor Karen Bass and the California governor Gavin Newsome, who is tipped to run for president in 2028”.
“They are all saying, ‘Trump is bringing the violence. We are calling on Trump to pull out the federal authorities and get out of LA’,” she said. “I think now that the ante has been upped in LA, it’s going to change the nature of the protests in other places.
“It’s going to shift the movement a bit now, because of the ridiculous response from the government.”
The urgent question is how can the revolt deepen? And what force has the power to disrupt the power of the state? There are already snap shots of working class collective power against Ice.
Marx21, a socialist organisation in the US, said, “We are also seeing workers’ resistance against Ice outside of formal union channels.
“On Sunday the Community Self Defense Coalition reported that it convinced auto repair workers not to fix the slashed tires on Ice vehicles.
“On Monday the community held protests outside the AC hotel in Pasadena. Ice agents were not only staying but demanding hotel workers present identity documents based on racial profiling alone.
“The protest managed to boot Ice out of one Pasadena hotel.
“If we are organised, big community mobilisations can make it so that ICE agents cannot sleep, eat, or drive in LA.”
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