{"id":57722,"date":"2026-07-28T10:49:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/57722\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:49:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:49:33","slug":"feds-drop-case-against-labor-leader-arrested-at-immigration-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/57722\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds drop case against labor leader arrested at immigration protest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Federal prosecutors on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the case against David Huerta, the labor leader who was arrested during the first day of immigration raids that the Trump administration carried out across the Southland last summer.<\/p>\n

In the court filing, prosecutors said \u201cpursuant to an agreement of the parties,\u201d they were moving to dismiss the indictment against Huerta<\/a>, the president of the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, who was detained by federal agents while documenting an immigration raid on June 6, 2025.<\/p>\n

The government initially charged Huerta with a felony count of conspiracy to impede an officer, but downgraded it <\/a>to a misdemeanor charge of \u201cobstruction resistance or opposition of a federal officer.\u201d He was set to go to trial next month.<\/p>\n

At the time of his arrest, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in L.A., blasted Huerta\u2019s photo on social media,<\/a> stating, \u201cLet me be clear: I don\u2019t care who you are \u2014 if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest protest case that has unraveled<\/a> for the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in L.A. Under Essayli, federal prosecutors have aggressively charged protesters with assaulting and impeding the actions of immigration agents, filing more than 100 cases.<\/p>\n

According to data from June, prosecutors secured guilty pleas in 40 of those cases \u2014 but lost nearly every case that has gone to trial. Ten people have been acquitted at trial, two convicted. At least 29 people have had their cases dismissed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case revealed that the Department of Justice was willing to charge a labor leader with a crime, hold it over him for months, and then walk away from it once the charge couldn\u2019t survive scrutiny,\u201d Huerta\u2019s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Marilyn Bednarski, said in a joint statement. \u201cThat is not how a justice system is supposed to work.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a statement, the U.S. attorney\u2019s office maintained that the Department of Justice \u201cdoes not arrest people for peacefully protesting\u201d and said that since Huerta\u2019s arrest he \u201chas not engaged in the same obstructive behavior that led to his arrest and criminal charges being filed against him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Huerta has agreed to accept responsibility for his actions,\u201d the office said. \u201cPursuant to an agreement entered into with our office, if Mr. Huerta continues to comply with his pretrial release terms, we expect the criminal case against him to be fully dismissed by the end of next month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huerta hailed the move for a dismissal as vindication he did nothing wrong. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis means the government is finally admitting what we knew from day one and what was obvious to anyone who saw the videos: the charge against me was baseless, meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out, organize, or demand justice,\u201d Huerta said in a statement. \u201cThere was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case against Huerta centered on a workplace immigration raid at Ambiance Apparel. According to the criminal complaint, Huerta arrived at the site around noon. He and other protesters \u201cappeared to be communicating with each other in a concerted effort to disrupt the law enforcement operations,\u201d a federal agent wrote in the complaint.<\/p>\n

Huerta was taunting and yelling at officers, according to the complaint, and later sat cross-legged in front of a vehicle gate to the location where law enforcement authorities were serving a search warrant.<\/p>\n

Huerta \u201cat various times stood up and paced in front of the gate, effectively preventing law enforcement vehicles from entering or exiting the premises through the gate to execute the search warrant,\u201d the agent wrote in the affidavit. The agent wrote that they told Huerta that if he kept blocking the gate, he would be arrested.<\/p>\n

According to the complaint, Huerta stood in the path of a law enforcement van trying to get through the gate. Because he \u201cwas being uncooperative, the officer put his hands on HUERTA in an attempt to move him out of the path of the vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw HUERTA push back, and in response, the officer pushed HUERTA to the ground,\u201d the agent wrote. \u201cThe officer and I then handcuffed HUERTA and arrested him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huerta was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles for days, prompting thousands of union members, activists and supporters to rally for his release<\/a>. California Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla sent a letter to the Homeland Security and Justice departments demanding a review of Huerta\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said she wasn\u2019t surprised at the move to dismiss, as there \u201cwere problems with this case from day one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at the photos and videos, there\u2019s certainly an argument from the defense that it was law enforcement acting in a defensive manner and he was just protesting,\u201d Levenson said. \u201cIt would have been a tough case for the prosecution to win if this went to trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levenson added that the amount of dismissals and the office\u2019s record on these cases, \u201csignals that the government needs to step back and take a hard look at what they\u2019re doing in bringing these cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they were very gung-ho on bringing these charges but then they realized that the public and the jurors didn\u2019t see it the way they did,\u201d Levenson said. \u201cAt the time people really wondered why the government was being so aggressive in their actions. Now [prosecutors] have to step back and say, \u2018Maybe we didn\u2019t make the right decisions\u2019 or \u2018We certainly don\u2019t feel confident enough about them to take them to trial.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal prosecutors on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the case against David Huerta, the labor leader who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[6207,11832,30764,154,30765,30763,9868,8,30766,9643,11530,5868,9,1688,638,7,30767,11862],"class_list":["post-57722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-arrest","tag-bill-essayli","tag-california-labor-leader","tag-case","tag-criminal-charge","tag-david-huerta","tag-federal-prosecutor","tag-headlines","tag-immigration-raid","tag-june","tag-justice","tag-l-a","tag-news","tag-office","tag-statement","tag-top-stories","tag-trial-next-month","tag-u-s-attorney"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116997217832775392","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}