L.A. Under Siege: Trump Sends in National Guard as Protests Continue over Militarized ICE Raids

L.A. Under Siege: Trump Sends in National Guard as Protests Continue over Militarized ICE Raids

show in Los Angeles where President Trump has deployed the California National Guard in defiance of California Governor Gavin Newsome and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass this comes after protests erupted against ISIS militarystyle raids in and around LA the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsth has also threatened to deploy 500 active duty Marines from Camp Pendleton white House adviser Steven Miller labeled the ICE protests an insurrection on Sunday Trump warned this could be just the beginning of deploying troops on US streets we’re going to have troops everywhere we’re not going to let this happen to our country we’re not going to let our country be torn apart earlier today Trump wrote on social media “Looking really bad in LA bring in the troops.” Unquote california Governor Gavin Newsome plans to sue the Trump administration today he wrote quote “Come dearing a state’s national guard without consulting the governor of that state is illegal and immoral.” unquote this marks the first time since the 1960s a president’s deployed the National Guard without a governor’s request vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said Trump is quote moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism california State Senator Scott Weiner said quote “This is what fascism looks like.” unquote on Sunday police forces in Los Angeles fired rubber bullets flashbang grenades and tear gas at protesters who gathered to condemn the ICE raids and deployment of the National Guard sunday night LA police declared all of downtown Los Angeles an unlawful assembly over the past week federal immigration agents arrested about 118 people in the LA region on Friday agents also arrested David Huerta president of the California branch of SEIU that Service Employees International Union he was charged with obstruction needed to be treated at the hospital because of his injuries he remains in custody on Sunday Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass decrieded the ICE raids and the Trump administration’s response what we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration when you raid Home Depot and workplaces when you tear parents and children apart and when you run armored caravans through our streets you cause fear and you cause panic and deploying federalized troops is a dangerous escalation this comes as Trump’s border zar Tom Hman has threatened to have Mayor Bass and Governor Nuome arrested if they interfere with federal immigration enforcement holman spoke to NBC’s Jacob Soberof you cross that line it’s a fenalty to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien it’s a felony to impede law enforcement from doing their job do would do you think that the mayor of LA is doing that if she crossed that line we’ll ask DOJ to prosecute do I think she’s crossed the line i don’t think she crossed the line yet but I’m telling you the warning we’re sending is we’re not going to tolerate people attacking our officers on Sunday police in Los Angeles made at least 27 arrests officers repeatedly fired rubber bullets at protesters one had hit an Australian journalist as she was reporting from the streets after hours of standing off this situation has now rapidly deteriorated the LAPD moving horseback firing rubber bullets at protesters moving them on through the heart of LA [Music] you just shut the [ __ ] up you okay in a minute we’ll go to Los Angeles to speak with one of the people who helped organize the protests against the ICE raids but first on Sunday Democracy Now reached Janet Martinez the co-founder of Indigenous Communities and Leadership or Cello in Los Angeles to talk about the impact of the ICE raids unrest around 34,000 indigenous people live in Los Angeles County which is around 40% of the indigenous population based on the census data alone which we know is an undercount so for us we know a lot of community members have been impacted by the recent raids by ICE all over Los Angeles we’ve gotten calls from the Sapotch community from the Mik community um and Kich communities that have been uh detained during these raids for more we are joined in Los Angeles by Ron Goches community organizer with Unon Delbario and a high school history teacher his group helped organize some of the protests in Los Angeles there’s so much to discuss ron can you describe the weekend it didn’t even start um um with the protests um you had President Trump threatening to cut off aid to California federal aid you had the ICE raids and then talk about what happened even before then Trump announced that um he would deploy the National Guard hegathth said he’s put the Marines on high alert yeah good morning thank you for having me today uh this weekend was marked with absolute and total violence brutal repression and attacks coordinated attacks against our community uh ICE agents have been around all over Southern California kidnapping people tearing apart families uh and we see this as an attack against our people and so that’s why you see young people the community coming out and resisting this repression we are tired sick and tired of these attacks that are dividing and separating our families and so that’s why when we have these protests they have been peaceful but when the repression comes from the state whether it’s the sheriffs the LAPD or on Saturday for example in Paramount California it was a border patrol it was brutal violence they shot thousands of rounds of tear gas of flashbang grenades of of all kinds of repressive instruments used against the community but what they didn’t think was going to happen was that the people would resist and would fight back and that’s exactly what happened in Paramount and in Compton California where for 8 and 1/2 hours the people combed in the streets against uh the border patrol and after eight and a half hours of battle and it was a battle because there were uh people throwing back tear gas people throwing anything that they could to defend themselves and to defend the workers that were being uh surrounded by over 100 border patrol agents after 8 and 1/2 hours the border patrol uh the sheriffs had to retreat they had to retreat because of the fierce resistance of the community and the hundreds of workers that were in the factories around them were able to escape they were able to go to their cars and go home that was only thanks to the resistance that allowed them uh to go home that night and so that is one clear sign that if we organize ourselves if we resist we can defend our communities from ICE terror from the border patrol or from any federal agency that wishes to separate our families and so because of that uh while that was happening while that resistance was happening we saw uh President Trump give the order of the National Guard and so for us as indigenous people to these lands to this continent this is nothing new the the the military going after us is nothing new the United States in this part of the country is a result of a military invasion of Mexico and so we know we know what’s coming it’s more repression but what they have to know is that they’re also going to face more resistance from the community we don’t want to be violent and we don’t advocate for violence but when they use brutal violence against our people and kidnapping mothers and fathers from children is violent when they do things like that we have every right every historic right to defend our communities by any ways that we can and we’re going to continue to do so uh and Ron you mentioned Paramont on Saturday for those people who are not familiar with that town south of Los Angeles uh there’s also been a change in the Trump uh administration tactics originally they were they claimed they were going after uh criminals now increasingly uh they’re being they’re being pushed to increase the arrest numbers so they’re hitting workplaces so could you talk about uh the uh this change and how this is affecting uh the community yeah the fascist Trump administration is trying to lie and confuse the American people into supporting this repression into supporting these immigration raids by having the general public think that they’re going after criminals but what now what’s publicly known what’s painfully clear is that the majority of these raids are going after workers workingclass people they’re not going after criminals they’re going at Home Depot they’re going at construction sites you know they’re going to factories where people are working where they’re creating the resources necessary for this society to exist and so I think everyone now knows that it’s a lie they’re going after anyone and everyone who has brown skin uh specifically and you know they’re attacking pretty much anybody you have the Asian community you have a black immigrants under attack you have anybody in this country who isn’t a a white male basically who is under attack so I think working people everywhere should see this as an attack on working-class people uh and they should all unite in solidarity to repel these um these attacks against our community and so again we’ve proven time and time again when we organize ourselves we can defend ourselves at this moment it’s it’s 5:30 or so in Los Angeles or 5 in the morning in Los Angeles we already have people all over Los Angeles right now patrolling the streets of Los Angeles looking for any ICE activity that’s the work that we do on a daily basis to protect our communities so on one hand there’s street protests and those are important but the other part is organized and coordinated resistance by patrolling our streets defending our streets we can’t protect the entire city of Los Angeles but in our neighborhoods in our barios we can defend ourselves and we are doing that and what what is your sense of the response of California’s Governor Nuomoe and also the the mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass so far yeah we we understand that they’re you know they’re against what’s happening but we also have to say that talk is cheap governor Nuomo can order the National Guard to stand down if he’s against President Trump using them against us well he can order them to stand down he has not done so uh here in the city of Los Angeles Karen Bass is saying that she’s against the raids that are happening well why are her police officers aiding and collaborating with ICE with the border patrol to attack the community if they are really there to serve and protect as it says on their vehicles then those uh rubber bullets and and that gas that they’re shooting right now they’re aiming at the wrong people it shouldn’t be aimed at us it should be aimed at the agents who are trying to kidnap the people in our community but obviously we know we cannot expect uh help or support from the police from the sheriffs here in Los Angeles even though we live in a state that is run by a Democrat as a governor we have a Democratic party mayor we have Democratic Party council members we cannot expect for them to defend the people only the people will organize and defend themselves and that’s what we’re doing right now ron Goes this is a very interesting point because it was being portrayed in different ways yesterday when the LAPD moved in and was clearing people um from away from was it Alama the federal building um in some uh media reports they were saying they were clearing protesters away so that they wouldn’t be directly confronting the National Guard which uh the mayor has criticized you know the National Guard in full what they say full battle rattle um but you’re saying that uh although Governor Nuomo could may sue today he could actually tell the National Guard to stand down and do you see any possibility of the LAPD um confronting the National Guard and maybe if Hexath calls out the Marines on the streets no we don’t anticipate that at all i have personally been physically removed from an ICE raid here in South Central Los Angeles by the LAPD so when the mayor says that the LAPD doesn’t collaborate with ICE or with federal agencies it’s a total lie uh while you may not have LAPD officers on the streets asking people for their citizenship or or detaining people for immigration reasons what you do have is the LAPD the LA County Sheriff’s the CHP or any uh law enforcement agency that’s here locally they are collaborating they are protecting the operations they close down the streets around operations so that ICE can do uh their kidnappings of our people and so that is a direct collaboration and here in Los Angeles if it wasn’t for the repression of the LAPD of the LA County Sheriff’s you would have thousands of more people who would be resisting against these ICE raids but it is the police it is the sheriffs who are basically protecting the operations and protecting everything that’s happening against our community so do we anticipate do we expect the police to join our side no but what we do say what we can say is that a lot of those police officers here in Los Angeles a lot of those sheriffs and a lot of those National Guardsmen and even Marines if they if they come here a lot of them are Mexican are Central American are the sons and daughters of immigrants in fact here in Los Angeles there’s something like there’s hundreds of of LAPD officers who are Dhaka meaning they’re undocumented as well and so they have to see that they’re being used by the Trump administration to use violence against their own people so we as Onion Delario do call on them to stand down do not raise your weapons against your own people these are your This is like your mother your auntie your father that you’re repressing so we do call on them to join us stand on the right side of history do not support the Trump administration support the people because what we’re doing is fighting for justice we’re fighting for the righteous uh the right to live and to exist and to work and to feed our families there’s nothing extreme about that we just simply want to work we want to live and we want to have a dignified life like anyone else deserves so we’re seeing resistance right now from the people in Gaza resisting and fighting for their lives to us right here on our own historic homeland our indigenous land here we’re fighting for our lives as well and we’re going to continue to do so whether it’s the police the National Guard you know we don’t want violence we don’t want violence but we also aren’t going to sit by and see our people be kidnapped and see our community be attacked by any federal agency or local law enforcement we won’t do it uh Ron what’s happening to those who’ve been detained anel Casales the executive director of the immigrant rights group said lawyers don’t have access to people detained Friday um have they been released what’s their status and do you know um about the status of David Huerta the head of uh SEIU the Service Employees International Union we heard he was sent to the hospital with injuries and he’s been detained yeah what we know right now is there’s no due process for the majority of the people uh people who get detained we have reports and we have confirmed reports that people who get picked up in the morning in Los Angeles by the same day in the evening are already in Mexico City that is confirmed you cannot have due process in less than 24 hours it’s absolutely impossible and so people are just being shipped immediately uh you know across the border and to many places we have confirmed cases of Mexican citizens Mexican nationals who have been deported to Guatemala and dumped into Guatemala a country that they have never been to and don’t belong in and so that’s what’s happening on the ground here in Los Angeles uh yesterday or Saturday I don’t know today it’s just been one long day of resistance for us but uh you know elected officials have gone to the detention center where hundreds of our people are being kept and they demanded to be allowed to enter so that they can view the conditions that the people are living in but places like these are basements that have no restrooms they have no sanitary uh conditions for the people there’s not enough food and water for the people those are the reports that we’re getting they were denied entry they were not allowed to see inside to see how these people are being treated so it’s a real crisis right now for our community and that’s why we don’t want to wait until our people are kidnapped uh and taken into detention to take action that’s why we do community patrols every day in the morning around our communities to try to prevent our people from being kidnapped and when we say kidnapped that is the exact word that that we need to use because the state is using brutal violence to separate us to take us against our will from our families from our homes from our jobs and to take us somewhere else so so that by definition is a kidnapping and that’s what we’re fighting against uh because we know that our people are not going to they’re not going to have due process if lawyers and elected officials aren’t being allowed to enter detention facilities to see their conditions that the people are living in what makes us think that the people inside are going to have any type of human rights we know that it’s not happening and Ron I wanted to ask you about uh President Trump’s calling uh in of the of the National Guard uh the use of flash uh bang grenades of of rubber bullets of tear gas against the protesters a reminder that back on January 6 when a mob stormed the capital and tried to prevent the certification of election there was no use of uh of flashbang grenades or of tear gas or of rubber bullets against that mob and yet here uh uh it has been used and the president is claiming there’s an insurrection yeah we know that the violence is going to be against against us against our community and you know sometimes people think oh well you know it’s not that bad you know it’s just a little bit of tear gas no we’ve saw we’ve seen people be seriously injured uh on Saturday in Compton California when we were there on the front lines of of the the resistance against uh the sheriffs and against the border patrol we saw a guy standing in front of us who got hit in the face with a I don’t know if it was a rubber bullet or what it was but his face was completely split open and he was just gushing blood everywhere you know these these things can be lethal if these rubber bullets hit you in the eye if they hit you in the right place they can absolutely be lethal and so we understand that the violence is being used against us is is lethal we understand that the violence is being used against us on a daily basis whether it’s by the border patrol or the police it it’s violence against the community and so we have every right to defend ourselves uh by any means necessary because that is our the the livelihood the well-being of our families is what’s at stake children have been uh gassed here in Los Angeles and so we we whether it’s the National Guard whether it’s the local police we have to resist this because in Los Angeles we clearly understand what’s happening the Trump administration is trying to make an example of Los Angeles los Angeles is the heart of the Mexican and Central American community here in the United States and so they think that if they can break us they can break anyone in the country and so we understand that and that’s what we know we cannot afford to fail the resistance will continue whether they keep threatening us or not we will continue we will be peaceful every time that we can but if we face violence uh that where we have to defend ourselves we have every human right to do so as well democracy Now is funded by viewers like you please give today at democracynow.org/give org/g

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In Los Angeles, mass street protests have broken out in response to immigration raids. Local police and Border Patrol are cracking down on protesters, while the Trump administration has called in the California National Guard. “They shot thousands of rounds of tear gas, of flashbang grenades, of all kinds of repressive instruments,” says Ron Gochez, community organizer with Union del Barrio who helped organize some of the protests. He notes many of the protests have also been successful at turning back immigration agents, preventing ICE arrests and detention. “If we organize ourselves, if we resist, we can defend our communities from ICE terror, from the Border Patrol or from any federal agency that wishes to separate our families.”

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