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Trump Administration Violating Yet More Individual Rights in Escalation Over ICE Raid Protests in Los Angeles

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We are now in the midst of what Lambert would call an overly dynamic situation, so forgive me if I omitted important information with respect to the rapidly devolving confrontation in Los Angeles between Federal forces and the National Guard versus immigrant defenders, local and state officials, Congresscritters, and witnesses. ICE has come into other blue cities as if it was ginning for a fight and it looks like it finally got one. And seems apparent that the Trump Administration is prepared to capitalize on it via using it to force through restrictions of citizen’s rights, particularly to protest, to be safe from unreasonable searches and seizures, and for immigrants, to due process.

Mind you, the protests have reached the point where the LAPD has declared downtown Los Angeles to be a “no assembly” area.1

Before we turn to what we can glean about the state of play, some key backstory. One of Trump’s very early executive orders on January 20 was to declare a national emergency at the southern border. It included tasking the heads of the Department of Defense and Homeland Security to provide a report in 90 days recommending whether to invoke the Insurrection Act. Among other things, it would allow the Administration to deploy the military against US citizens.

In the requested report, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem did not advise the use of the Insurrection Act, pointing out that border crossings had fallen markedly since Trump took office.

If you think that threat is not live now, think twice:

The immediate backstory is a bit muddy. From what I can infer, ICE sent a lot of agents to Los Angeles in what looked like a highly visible, as in provocative, show of force. One assembly point was at a Home Depot, leading to rumors that there would be Home Depot raids.2 Mind you, I have no idea why “raids” would be needed if the point was to stop casual hiring at Home Depots. Just put 2 cars with prominent ICE labels in the parking lot.

Reader raspberry jam provided this summary in comments yesterday:

I found a channel yesterday evening that was showing live footage with minimal interruptions/commentary and watched it for a few hours. There were two distinct phases of the events yesterday:

– the community reaction to the ICE raid at the Home Depot: ICE was using the Home Depot parking lot as a staging area for raids and a combination of local community angry at what they were witnessing and ICE having far too much militarized gear and not enough sense resulted in a really shocking situation where the ICE guys were doing stuff like shooting tear and chemical rounds directly at people stopped in traffic who weren’t participating in the protest. At least one person was rammed by an ICE SUV. At one point it seemed like the ICE group was cornered by the protesters for hours and LAPD/SD were refusing to go in and assist them. This is the phase where the pics/footage were taken of people lying face down on the grass (chemical round reactions because so much was being fired) and the ICE agents massed at the end of a driveway with their rifles out and firing on protesters with tear gas. The protesters, by the way, seemed extremely unorganized – lots of utterly fearless skater kids! – it absolutely was not an NGO-organized event.
– a riot a couple blocks away across a freeway bridge in Compton: after a few hours the cops began blockading/kettling the protesters into the area around the Home Depot and on the other side of the freeway (710) at the intersection of Atlantic/Alondra a riot broke out. There was also a lot of tear gas/smoke rounds fired here, or possibly fireworks being thrown by the rioters, it was pretty unclear. This looked like actual LAPD, not ICE. This is where the footage of the burning car is from. This stage seemed more like a party than a protest, car burning and gang signs at the news helicopters aside, I mean there were people standing in line at Dale’s Doughnuts watching the car burn while it was all going down.

Within an hour of the car burning I saw right wing influencer types screeching for insurrection act and shooting a hundred protesters to ‘bring order’. Later there was conflicting info about 2000 national guard members being mobilized. I don’t think 2000 NG is enough to maintain martial law in South Central. I don’t think 2000 marines are enough to do that, honestly! I think we’re going to see stuff like this all summer and beyond if they don’t dial back the ICE raids. The admin might think this is quality red meat for the base but there are a lot of unanticipated consequences they clearly haven’t thought through, like what happens when they call in 10000+ military just for LA and can’t stop the riots or protests?

Common Dreams describes incidents that led to escalation:

According to the LA Times, the Home Depot protests began peacefully until officers lobbed flash-bang grenades and pepper balls at the crowd, after which some individuals responded by throwing rocks and other objects at the ICE cars, and one person drove their vehicle toward the ICE agents.

“Many of the protesters did not appear to engage in these tactics,” the LA Times reported.

In another incident, Lindsay Toczylowski, the chief executive of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, wrote on social media that ICE agents threw a tear-gas canister at two of the center’s female attorneys after they asked the agents if they could see a warrant and observe their activities.

There are other complaints on Twitter of ICE carrying itself so as to further evade accountability:

These tweets give a sense of local reactions to the ICE operation:

10,000 would seem to be an underwhelming number…at least before things got out of hand:

Some fresh news reports before we turn to additional legal and Constitutional rights issues. From CNN’s live blog:

• On the ground: CNN witnessed police using flash-bangs and tear gas to disperse crowds, with some hitting protesters, as well as protesters setting self-driving cars on fire. Police have declared all of Downtown Los Angeles an unlawful assembly area after arresting dozens over the weekend.

• Troop deployment: About 300 National Guardsmen are on the ground after President Donald Trump deployed them to protect federal personnel and property. It’s the first time a president has called in the National Guard without a state’s request or consent in decades. Also prepared to deploy are 500 Marines.

• Trump vs Newsom: California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will sue the Trump administration over the deployment, which he and LA Mayor Karen Bass have called inflammatory.

• Why are there protests? Authorities and demonstrators are clashing for a fourth day after immigration raids in the city. Intelligence analysts believe protesters are motivated by immigration raids, deployment of the National Guard, and agitators who fit profiles of “professional rioters.”

Perhaps I have not been paying sufficient attention, but I do not recall a mainstream outlet ever before insinuating that paid agitators were fomenting violence in US protests.

From BBC’s live blog:

One of the biggest cities in Southern California is reducing its support for ICE:

Now to legal and Constitutional matters.

Deployment of National Guard. Trump called up 2,000 but as far as I can tell, only 300 are in Los Angeles now. The Hill reported that Governor Newsom intents to file suit:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said California will sue the Trump administration on Monday over its deployment of the National Guard to quell Los Angeles protests against federal immigration raids.

In an interview Sunday evening on MSNBC, Newsom said the lawsuit would challenge Trump’s federalizing of the California National Guard without the state’s consent, a move with little precedent in U.S. history….

Asked to elaborate on the lawsuit, Newsom said that under Trump’s executive order, “it specifically notes — and under what the [Department of Defense] did — is they had to coordinate with the governor of the state. They never coordinated with the governor of the state,” he said….

Later in the interview, Newsom was asked about border czar Tom Homan’s comments indicating he would not rule out arresting Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass if they interfered in his efforts.

“Come after me, arrest me. Let’s just get it over with, tough guy, you know? I don’t give a damn. But I care about my community. I care about this community,” he continued.

It’s a certainty that any such arrest would greatly increase Newsom’s national profile and earn him macho points which he could very much use. But that payoff assumes 2028 elections.

Georgetown Law Center professor Steve Vladek took a dim view of Trump federalizing the National Guard in this manner:

President Trump’s Saturday night “memorandum” federalizing 2000 California National Guard troops is a tentative step toward abusing authorities for domestic use of the military, but a dangerous one….

The TL;DR here is that Trump has not (yet) invoked the Insurrection Act, which means that the 2000 additional troops that will soon be brought to bear will not be allowed to engage in ordinary law enforcement activities without violating a different law—the Posse Comitatus Act. All that these troops will be able to do is provide a form of force protection and other logistical support for ICE personnel.

Injury and arrest of SEIU leader; barring of Congressional oversight attempt. One high profile protestor, SEIU’s California president, David Huerta, was seriously injured in his encounter with ICE officials and had to be hospitalized and has apparently been moved into detention.

Twitter clips show that Huerta was one of several people standing in front of an ICE vehicle as it was slowly moving to get through a gate. The ICE forces threw him hard to the pavement, and his head apparently hit a curb.

I have not seen a picket line when scabs are trying to cross, but I suspect this level of “obstruction” was no worse than that level.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters attempted to visit him and other detainees and she was impermissibly barred:

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12 comments

  1. Deschain

    If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the Trump admin was using the Ghorman arc in Andor as a how-to manual.

    ‘Sir, you need protestors who you can count on doing the wrong thing.”

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  2. Amateur Socialist

    Attack the lawyers, journalists, politicians and labor activists first.

    It’s all so familiar. Just like that Gaza TV show.

    Reply ↓
  3. .human

    On the campaign trail last year, Donald Trump promised that he was not going to tolerate left-wing lawlessness on American streets and would use the full force of his presidential powers in response.

    This is precious. Right-wing lawlessness gets a pass.

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  4. Unironic Pangloss

    (not defending trump)….

    Trump uses well-established constitutional powers (Eisenhower actually sent the 82nd Airborne to Little Rock to enforce federal law/court in 1956)…whether “emergency” tariffs or 2025 LA.

    Dems/media screech instead of asking, “hey maybe no POTUS should have these powers.”

    not holding my breath for dems. to be circumspect about federal power; because they want that power in 2029 to wield

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    1. Bsn

      I don’t think there’s a need to start with “not defending Trump” because it’s nearly all the same between dems & Repubs, they are all puppets of the “deep state”.
      Lots of people don’t realize that it was under the Biden admin that the DoD Directive 5240.01, Section 3.3.a.(2)(c) was “updated” including the use of military force against civilians being authorized.
      Section c says “(c) Assistance in responding with assets with potential for lethality, or any situation in which it is reasonably foreseeable that providing the requested assistance may involve the use of force that is likely to result in lethal force, including death or serious bodily injury. ”

      So many people, a majority in fact, voted for Trump hoping for many changes. Most of our hopes (if we had any) have been smashed and it’s more clear than ever the the president does not matter, the mafia and deep state (whatever one can label it) are in charge. Trump, Biden, Obama, Bush … they’re all puppets.

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    2. BrianC - PDX

      I did not think of Eisenhower. I thought first of Reagan federalizing National Guard troops in order to send them to South America on “training” missions.

      See Perpich vs Defense. From wikipedia:

      Perpich v. Department of Defense, 496 U.S. 334 (1990), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court concerning the Militia Clauses of Article I, Section 8, of the United States Constitution, in which the court held that Congress may authorize members of the National Guard to be ordered to active federal duty for purposes of training outside the United States without either the consent of the governor of the affected state or the declaration of a national emergency. The plaintiff was Rudy Perpich, governor of Minnesota at the time.

      A little different though from what I remembered. Likely not directly relevant, as it was about deciding if Congress could authorize use without consent of a State Governor…

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  5. Jack

    Of all the initiatives Trump has been pushing, cracking down on the border and removing illegal immigrants is one of the very few I support. But I don’t support how he is doing it. ICE could have been far more effective and removed many more illegals if they had properly planned their actions. For instance judges. Immigration judges don’t need to be approved by Congress. The DOJ hires them. I think what is happening in LA is a version of “wag the dog”. Trump 2.0 is failing on many fronts. The tariffs are a disaster. The big, beautiful bill is being shown for what it is, a sham. Trump now owns the Ukraine mess and is impotent to make anything happen. The Gaza genocide continues and US favorability ratings around the world continue to plummet. Trump is caught between a rock and a hard place on Iran. The Jewish lobby and Israel on one side, and Iran/Russia/India/BRICS countries on the other. So…he needs a win. A distraction. I think this mess is going to blow up in his face though. There are too many factors that can’t be controlled.

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  6. Carolinian

    Here in Dixie we have many enclaves of Hispanic legal/nonlegal residents. My brother lives adjacent to one in a nearby city. Will the whiff of tear gas soon be wafting across his property?

    You could blame Kristi Noem who is obviously a complete idiot but clearly Don is pulling the strings and if he can’t intimidate Putin he at least can go after those who aren’t even here legally (and some who are) since bullies like to kick down.

    That doesn’t make Biden throwing open the doors the right approach either but treating job seekers like terrorists or criminals doesn’t exactly make all this about “justice” or the law. One begins to wonder how long before some president–presumably not Trump–has to deploy the Guard against ICE.

    So far hardly any of this seems to be happening in the Trump base red states. One wonders how they will react should that change. Some powerful economic forces now depend on undocumented labor.

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    1. Kurtismayfield

      I believe the LEOs are supporting ICE more in Red states, so you don’t hear about it.

      I want to see what will happen in the next few years with immigration. If it freezes, and the labor market gets tight, will President TACO take charge and change course?

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  7. Eclair

    I lived in Claremont, California, a quiet academic backwater of LA County, in 1965, during the Watts insurrection. Watched the whole thing on a tiny black and white TV set. The City was another country.

    Then, in 1992, I watched the trucks and tanks of the National Guard roll out from Los Alamitos Naval Air Base, down Katella Boulevard, heading for downtown LA and the aftermath of the Rodney King decision.

    I left Southern California in 2007, for Denver. Just in time for Occupy, where one night I watched the big black SUV’s with the SWAT teams hanging off the running boards, come screeching around the corner between Civic Center Park and the State Capitol building.

    And, perhaps the situation has changed since I left SoCal in 2007, but then, immigrants were the frantic paddling feet keeping the economy swanning along: the ‘Mexicans’ were the busboys, the cooks, the parking lot attendants, the pool cleaners, the ‘mow, blow, and go,’ guys who did the yard work, the roofers, the drywallers, the nannies, the house cleaners, the janitors. They did the jobs that enabled us to go to our high-paying jobs, hang out at Huntington Beach surfing, and not worry about taking care of our babies or mowing our lawns. Oh ….. not to mention picking all our fresh strawberries and micro greens so we could eat organically.

    Reply ↓
  8. Valiant Johnson

    Also pay attention to the first reported use of U.S. military in detaining and holding trespassers on the Roosevelt Reservation without Border Patrol agents on site.
    They can at any time declare a 60 foot strip along the entire California-Mexico border is part of a military base.
    This will allow for the arrest by the military of any trespasser including American citizens.
    The next step in turning up the heat

    Reply ↓
  9. JMH

    Trump is itching to use the Insurrection act. Push and push and push until you get the overt act you have been looking for and if you cannot get it, create it yourself. Reichstag Fire moment anyone?

    Reply ↓

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