RESISTANCE
READER

WHAT IS AT STAKE NOW
ARE THE LIVES AND
FREEDOM OF THOSE WE
LOVE.

ITIS TIME TO ACT LIKE IT.
Contents

Introduction
Dort Let LA Stand Alone:
AMessage to the Gathering Resistance

Seven Steps to Stop ICE

Minneapolis to Feds: “Get the Fuck Out”
Reportback from ICE resistance on 6/3

Los Angeles Stands up to ICE
A Firsthand Report on the Clashes on 6/6

LA Protesters Aren't Inviting Violent Authoritarianism,
‘They're Mobilizing to Stop It

Melt ICE, Be Water
A Firsthand Report from Austn, Texas on 6/9

‘The Los Angeles Protests Are an Act of Self-Defense
ICE' War on Home

Conclusion
Itis fascismm, Start actinglike it

10

19

2

3

36
Don’t Let LA Stand
Alone: A Message

to the Gathering
Resistance

Over the past week, tens of thousands of people have taken to the
streets oflos angeles, fighting to defend theis neighborhoods and family
‘members from ice, facing off with the National Guard to demand those
imprisoned by DHS be released, and fiercely pushing back against the
brutality of the LAPD, This bravery has been inspiring, especially in the
face of bloodthirsty attacks by the stat.

Meanwhile, across the country, thousands more are taking action in
solidarity, rallying outside of ICE prisons, shutting down courthouses
10 stop deportations, demonstrating in support of an SEIU union leader
who was brutalized and arrested, kicking agents out of hotels, and de-
ns cuts tes with ICE.

‘manding corpor:
A groundswellis building-both against the Trump regime and the

Democratic party, as millions reject the targeting of pro-Palestinian

twar activists and massive attacks on social services, abor unions, and.

healtheare amid an es

ag push towards authoritarianism,

A White Nationalist Agenda

‘The Trump administration's assault on migrant workers docsn't come
i it st in response to “rime?” Is being directed.
by Stephen Miller a white nationalist who attended Duke University
alony

out of nowhere-:

ide neo-Nazi leader Ri

hard Spencer, infamous for organizing the
deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Chaslottesville, VA. Alongside Spencer,
Miler organized speaking events for white supremacist thought leaders
and after leaving college, he began working for Republican polit
the lead-up to the Trump presidency, Miller promoted white nationalist
publications and groups to further his attacks on immigrants. The New

York Times quoted Trump as saying that, “If it was up to Mz, Miller there

would be only 100 million people in this country, and they would all
Look like Mr. Miller”

Now, Milleris putting his dream of mechanized ethnic cleansing
into practice-ramping up deportations, ripping apart families, throwing
people into deadly detention camps, and preparing to send thousands to
Guantanamo Bay, while hundreds more remain locked inside a slave-la-
bor prison in EI Salvador. The Trump administration has terminated pro-
tected status for hundreds of thousands of asylum seckers and refugees
while demanding that ICE begin targeting “non-criminals” by raiding
workplaces, churches, and schools and arresting those attending court
hearings, all in an effort o boost deportation numbers. If we do nothing,
the horrors we refuse to confront today will be turned on us tomarrow:

Trump is Not All Powerful
ants 1 consoldate powes or uthoriarian ends, build a massive
il protesters,and arge s pponents wileenriching imselfand the
corporat lte While th theat that Trump posescannot be ignored, he
also L' all powerful. His coaliton is alsedy cracking and bis oll -
and people are desperte. More mportantly, esstance-ust ke during
bl st terma—s growng

In 2017, it s massive social siruggles and populr revol thatseta
it on Trump's agenda. At the tat of his first term, massprotests shut
acion rom Berkely to Charlotesvilleshut down the Alt-Right, helping
1o force ut key mermbers of Trump' cablnet, ke the neo-fasist Steve
Bannon. In 2018, Trump's populaity aroune rigraton tnked o m-
agesof "ds in cages”ratled even his bas, and the Abolish ICE move-
ment threw a collectve wrench ino the machinery of the deportaton
machine. By 2020, widespread mutual aid projects stepped up o il the
gaps et by the tate efusal 1o address the COVID-19 pandemic and in
George Floyd, raling th foundations of US soiety and contrbuting (0
Trump's defeat n 2020,

Already i 2025, Trump'satempts t0 ound up and deport ant
protestes have hit wal, with growingprotestsforcingthe sat t0

selease multiple international students as well a to return Kilmar Garcia.
A wave of ongoing demonstrations, graffit, and targeted sabotage has
also tanked Tesla’s image and stock value around the world, helping to
push ot of the White House the Nazi-saluting billionaire Elon Musk. So-
called “Border Czar” Tom Homan has also complained that widespread
grassroots organizing-including rapid response networks, Know Your
Rights trainings, and explosive demonstrations-have al contributed to
abstructing ICE operations. In the face of this mounting pressure, ICE is
turning up the heat, but in doing so, they have hit another impasse: mass
reistance

LA Can’t Fight Alone

12020, following the police murder of George Floyd, millions of peaple
took part in one of the largest social upheavals since the Civil War, Coop-
erating across racial lines, people came together in the streets to physi-
cally confront the brutal power of the state in the midst of a pandemic
that killed millions of peaple as the rich celebrated record profits.In the
face of murderous vigilantes, heavily militarized cops, and the National
Guard, peaple rose up and opened up space to gather, organize, and
defend one another.

Five years late, we face another criss: the theat of American fascism
in the midst of acivilization that s collapsing all around us. We are
working more than ever as inflation soars and people cannot afford
homes, healtheare, or even food. Wildfires and floods grow worse every
year while the ranks of the homeless swell. The only response from
both corporate palitical parties is more police, more prisons, and more
sepression, while mass media promote conspiracy theories that pit us
against each other, inequality explodes, and billionaires push the latest
tech dystopia. The center cannot hold.

Those in power want to paiat our only way forward as a choice be-
tween a Trump dictatorship and neoliberal hellscape. A choice between
two competing versions of authoritarian capitalism is no choice at all-it
s a death sentence. People in LA are facing dow the National Guard sent
in by Trump and thousands of iot police and s city-wide curfew, put in
place by Democrats.

Like the people taking the streets in Los Angeles, we must choose a
third option: ighting our way out and building a new way of lfe based
o cooperation and direct control over the means of existence,
Seven Steps
to

1) Form resistance groups.
Meet with others Yo trust and start making plans. Fstr tes etween
diffrent groups and demographics Like an ieberg,the majority of your

2) Establish community assemblies.

Bring together formal groups, community networks, and other
concerned individuals to share inform:

n, coordinate campaigns,
interchange resources, and strategize together. Build the foundations for
enduring trust and long-term coordination.

3) Build a communications system.

4) Strategize and set a combative example.
Map the Infastructure and support insttutionstha ICE depends on
Rather than only reacting in a way that permits them to set the terms of
each encounter, aim to choose the time and place of confrontations.

5) Compel local politicians to break off cooperation
with federal authorities.

So far, non-cooperation with ICE has been performative at best. Pres-
sure local politicians, public institutions, and other influential groups.

1o concretely oppose ICE operations rather than simply s
‘The consequences of cooperating with ICE, whether actively or passively,

aside.

must be worse than the consequences of ot doing so

6) Create no-go zones for federal forces.
Vi, National Guard, and Marins,that willimit thei operations. The
will e ablet cary out and the morecxpensivether powe gra will b

T) Create mutual aid networks.

Support those who have lost family members to ICE abductions. Cre-
ate collective habils of care to sustain each other through the crises ahead.
10

Minneapolis to Feds:
Get the Fuck Out

How People in the Twin Cities
Responded to a Federal Raid

An array of federal agencies attempted to carry out a coordinated raid in
Minneapolis on the morning of Tuesday, June 3, precipitating an angry
response. Locals surrounded the federal officers and police, chanting

“Get the fuck out!” and “Whase streets? Our streets!” Word of mouth,

traveled quickly in the dense neighborhood, drawing a crowd and
precipitating confrontation ch federal agents shoved peaple and
attacked them with chemical weapons. Nonetheless, the federal agents
ultimately retreated from the scene.

“This comes on the heels of a raid in San Diego in which Immigration
and Customs Enforcement officers and Homeland Security Investiga-
tions agents shot flash-bang grenades at an angry crowd. All around
the countey, thanks in part to rapid response networks and community
organizing, resistance 1o ICE is ramping up.

‘We commend those who stood up to police and federal agents in
Minneapolis. Here, we share some brief strategic remarks on these raids
and how to resist them, followed by two frsthand accounts of the events
of June 3.

OnX/Twitter a platform owned by a Sieg-Heiling fascist billionaire,
the Minneapolis Police Department claimed that

MPD was NOT involved in any immigration enforcement
activities today, nor were we given advance notice of any such
aperation... MPD responded to a request o assist with crowd
control and to help ensure public safety. Officers supported
federal law enforcement in safely departing the area
i

Maybe—and maybe not. We can hardly take it for granted that Minneap-
ol police will be honest with us. Under a federal government controlled
by autocrats who have made mendacity a signature element of their
political strategy, there i Less and less cause to believe anything from any
sepresentative of the stat,

Similarly, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey denied that the raid was
aimed at detaining immigrants, claiming instead that it was “related to &
criminal search warrant for drugs and money laundering”

Maybe—and maybe not. Federal agents could be concealing their real
abjectives from Frey and other local offcials, or Frey could be lying to
s, Considering that the federal government has reassigned a massive.
number of federal agents from a variety of agencies to ICE operations in
hopes of increasing the pace of deportations, it would be unusual indeed
i the operation in Minneapolis yesterday involved several ICE agents on
a mission that had nothing whatsoever to do with immigration.

There is no casy way to learn the truth—and in any case, it does not
seally matter. Owing to widespread anger about ICE operations, many
of which have clearly been calculated to be as brutal as possible with the
intention of terrorizing the public, and to the way that the gratuitous cru-
ety of Donald Trump's administration has delegitimized the government
in the public eye, more and more people feel tremendous urgency about
sesistng ICE raids. This is going to make it increasingly difficul for po-
lice and federal agencies to carry out aperations of any kind, whether or
ot they happen 1o be teying to kidnap immigrants at a particular time

And that s as it should be. ICE, US Border Patrol, the Department
of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and other
federal agencies all collaborate and share tasks. Alongside local police
departments and the court system, all of these institutions comprise a
single apparatus of repression. Unitil lcal police begin to actively resist
ICE agents themselves, any distinctions between the two remain purely
academic. When a sheriff or local cop arrests an immigrant, ICE agents
can snatch them directly from jail o @ court appearance. The structural
white supremacist violence that drove people to revolt repeatedly against
the police between 2009 and 2020 has ot diminished at all

Hours after the incident, ICE Homeland Security Investigations St.
Paul Special Agent in Charge Jamie Holt released a statement

Federal investigators conducted a groundbreaking criminal op-
eration today—Minnesota' first under the Homeland Security
2

Task Force (HSTF) umbrella—marking a new chapter in how
we confront complex, multidimensional threats. From drug
smuggling to criminal labor traficking, this operation show-
cases the breadth of our collctive missions and the strength of
a united front. This HST led investigation wouldn't have been
possible without the extraordinary collaboration of our state
partners and federal HSTF partners, including the US. Attor-
ney's Offce, FBI, IRS-C1, DEA, ERO, AT, USMS, DSS, US.
Border Patrol, US. Coast Guard, TSA and local law enforce-
ment. Together, we are safeguarding communities, protecting
national security, and setting a new standard ofjoint enforce-
ment efforts.

1fthis statement had appeared concurently with the morning’s events, it
‘might have been evidence that the operation was intended as a provacs
tion, or o test the waters. However, the statement appeared affr people
chased offthe federal agents and police, so it seems more likely that it
was calculated to moderate the blowback from the rout that they expe-
sienced at the hands of the public. Surely,the ideal scenasio for federal
agents would be able to conduct operations like this without ever having
1o explain themselves to the public, accustoming us to doing nothing in
the face of such raids.

Some liberals have spread a fearful narrative to the effect that the
Trump administration is rying to provoke an uprising that they can
crush by introducing martial law. But the chaos in Minneapolis on June
3 looks more like the consequence of disorganization and incompetence
than shrewd provocation. Itis a mistake to aseribe calculated strategy to
a government that sts policy according Lo the whims of an elderly meg-
alomaniac. For now, at least, it is by no means clear what the outcome of
alarge-scale confrontation would be; such a situation might inally force
politicians whao claim not to support Trumps policies to actually break
with them.

Ifa clash is inevitable, it would be better if it happens sooner. The
Longer that the Trump administration holds power, the more they will
consolidate control ofthe federal apparatus. They began by installing
their own leadership at the top of federal agencies, but they are stll in
the process of purging and replacing the rank and fle.

There are worse scenarios than outright confrontation. If o one
sesponds to state mercenaries in military gear kidnapping people off the

3

streets, if we accept everything passively, there is no limit to how much
Violence the administration will carry out against a wider and wider
range of targets. The important thing is not to avoid confrontation, then,
bt to be thoughtful, strategic, coordinated, prepared.

Rather than waiting for ICE o strike and then attempting to respond,
which leaves us always scrambling Lo catch up, it might be better o take
the initiative, s0 as to determine the time and place of encounters with
our adversaries. Demonstrators have done this before—for example, by
establishing blockades at ICE facilities in 201 Faling that, protesters
could popularize a template for how to respond to raids afte the fact, the
way that the movement against white supremacy and police responded
1o police murders. As a minimum program, creating lasting disruption
wherever a raid oceurs would be a way to raise awareness about the raids,
impose consequences for them, and discourage local authorities from
tolerating raids n their jurisdictions.

To learn more about what you can do to resist ICE attacks on your
community, you could begin here!, One of the simplest things you can
dois o start an announcements-only group on the messaging app Signal
and invite a large number of people of good conscience (0 sign up (o it,
so that you can immediately communicate information to them in the
event of an ICE operation in your community.

Account I: The Raid

Around 10:15 am, & group of federal law enforcement vehicles was
spotted near Lake Street and Bloomington Avenue. T arrived at the scene
a1 11:00 am. A large multi-agency task force was conducting a rad at the
taqueria Las Cuatro Milpas. Present were masked and heavily armed
agents from at least Homeland Security Investigations (a past of Immi-
gration and Customs Enforcement), the Department of the Treasury, the
Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and the
Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Hennepin County
Sherifls were doing traffc control. Minneapolis police were not nitially
present.

An armored vehicle was pulled up outside the taqueria. A small crowd
of onlookers was already present, and grew over time. Shortly after
arrived, Minneapolis Police Department officers arrived and conferred

1 bt fermethine com/2025/02/11ight hings you

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with the feds. Overhearing their conversation, it did seem possible that
they were not informed of the operation in advance. The feds told them
that the operation was “not immigration.”

Iheard a number of conflicting descriptions of what the raid was
about, bt the most consistent was that it vas a seazch warrant relaed
10 human traficking investgation being served. My own assessment
s that this was pretext o conduct large parsmilitary operation in an
immigrant ncighborhood. What the exact intention of this operation wss
s ot clear to me, however, Near 11:30 am, the armored vehicles and a
number o the agents departed and the swelling crowd crossed from the
other side of thestreet up to the front of the business where a number
of federal agents and MPD afficers remained inside and immediately
autside of the business. Tensions were increasing and the crowd refused
10 cross back across the street when the agents instructed them to.

At this point, MPD scemed to decide that they did not want to be
present, and departed. Some of the crowd moved to the back alley of
the business, where federal agents were congregating. Additional federal
agents arrived from north on Bloomington Avente, Federal agents
attemped to move a van from the back vally; the crowd impeded
them. They began violently shoving individuals n the crowd. The scene
became very chaotic and confused. Offcers violently detaned one indi-
vidualat this poiat, who was later released. Multiple groups attempted to
impede the progress of federal vehicle as they attempted to leave north
on Bloomington and west on lake with federal agents shoving the crowds
aut of the way. This is when MPD arrived on the scene n significant
numbers.

Ona few oceasions, the federal agents and Hennepin County Sherifis
Officers deployed pepper-ball munitions and pepper spray. did not see
MPD do so. A woman fainted and fel on Bloominglon and was later
transported to the hospita. T did't see the exact circumstances that led
1 that, As the bulk of the feds were working away from the scene, [MPD
police chief Brian] O'Hara arived. Afer the federal agents extricated
themselves, MPD rapidly left as wel,leaving the crowd milling about in
a stunned state. Ater accounting for my people as best I could, 1 depart-
ed at 1220 pm. 1 did not see anyone from the business detained and I did
notsee anyone n custody taken from the scene.

My working assumption is that this was a pretext to launch a large
miltarized display of force on Lake Street, ' unsue if they understood
how provocative the location was or whether they anticipated the degree

of resistance they encountered. They were not prepared to carry out a
Large number of arrests or to do effective crowd control and frankly put
themselves in a vulnerable situation. 1 also can't say how aware MPD was
of the operation. They did not seem like they were prepared to do crowd.
control either. In conclusion, it was a mess.

[ r—

Account II: The Response

Itwas a rainy day in Minneapolis. There was an air quality warning for
wildfire smoke up north in Canada. Then a text arrived on a Signal loop:

Fed raid underway, Homeland Security sighted at 20th and
Bloomington.

The fog of war kicked in immediately. Conflicting reports. Confusion.
Eventually, we received pictures of a Bearcat armored vehicle marked.

“Homeland Security Investigations” and camouflage-clad SWAT officers
in military garb, fully kitted out with assault riles, plate carriers, and
helmets. ICE badges were spotted on some of the officers and soon it was
confirmed: Homeland Securiy Investigations, ICE, and other feder-
al agencies were conducting some kind of raid on Cuatros Milpas on
Bloomington and Lake in south Minneapolis.

“This raid took place four years to the day after a federal Justice De-
partment task force conducted & raid on parking garage in the south
Minneapolis neighborhood of Uptown, shooting and killing Winston
Smith,

A crowd quickly formed outside the restaurant,including trained
abservers from immigrants'rights legal actvist geoups and independent
‘media—and also local politiians? intent on de-escalating the situation.
‘The federal agents were assisted by Hennepin County Sheriffs Offcers
and Minneapolis Police Department officers, despite verbal assurances

2 Among other poltcisns,Json Chavez o the Ninth Ward, Council
Vice-President Aishs Chughta rom th Tenth Ward, nd mayorslcandidats De-
wayne Davis and Jazz Hampton we seen among thecrowd. Thlr presence srely
contrbuted todemabilizingthe response o the federal rud.Jz2 Hampton i o video
runming am outtretched tovsards a person who had just throven an empy trssh can,
stmping o sk esisance s Chave ot mesage ing 0 e peope

i
16

from the city government that Minneapoli is a“sanctuary city” and will
ot assist in federal immigration enforcement operations or deportation
aperations. MPD and HCSO eventually lef the scene, leaving the federal
agencies on their ows to deal with the growing angry and confused
crowd—confusion being the word of the day.

By the time @ arrived, the federal agents had already left, chased
away by the angry crowd. One person had apparently been detained but
eventually released. Videos posted to social media show that a couple
projectiles were thrown at the retreating feds, but nothing sustained, and
none of them hit the intended targets. We heard a rumor of police using
an irritant dispersal agent or chemical weapons, and this was eventually
confirmed: federal agents apparently shot pepper balls at the crowd that
s chasing them away.

A few moments afte T arrived, a small group of people decided to
attempt to block the intersection of Bloomington Avenue and Lake Street
where the raid had taken place. A small geoup of lefist activists from
groups like Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Party for Socialism
and Liberation was present, but not in a presence large enough to direct
the crowd or control the situation, There was really no disection coming
from anyone, whether autonomous, anti-authoritarian, anarchist, or
Marxist-Leninist,

‘Without clear information or motivation, the crowd that wanted to
block the intersection was unable to fully commit.In the end, a situation
developed in which a dozen people were standing in the middle of the
intersection while public transit supervisors directed city buses around
the “blockade? This nonetheless produced a traffic jam.

“The impulse to shut down the intersection was defnitely a p
‘move from the crowd. It had some potential. But without cnough mo-
mentum, it never took off.

itive

Plellmmary conclusions:
W need more rapid respanse Sgaalloops, ewer soeal
+ Geteyeson the polce and cameras pied a them. These
federalagents seem t0 be afraid of public backashs it was
the antagonism of the crowd telig them 0 leave and the
rapid growth of that cowd tht eventally impelled the
”

police to retreat and abandon their operations. Normally,
would tel people to resist the urge to bring their phones to
an action, but in this particular case, T think that it i vital
10 collect hard evidence of which agencies are operating,
what equipment they are using, what the police are doing,

+ The role of local politicians and activist groups is gener-
ally to demobilize people. While progressive City Council
members and candidates for the upcoming Minneapolis
‘mayoral election were present today at Lake and Bloom-
inglon, it is clear that their goal was not to chase off
the federal agencies, but to de-escalate tensions. These
politicians told people to go home, to stop blocking the
streets;Left-wing activist groups did the same thing, This
isa counterinsurgency strategy in which they function as
self-appointed liaisons between law enforcement and the
public, Never trust a politician, whether in a suit o hold-
inga megaphone.

+ It worth thinking through how best o respond in a stu-
ation like this. Why were we shutting down Bloomington
and Lake Street where the raid took place when the feds
had already left? Would it have made more sense to march
10 the nearest police precinct? Perhaps to Mayor Frey's res-
idence? To the federal building in downtown Minneapolis?
Ifwe had succeeded in shutting down the intersection and
the crowd there continued gathering and growing in size,
what should we have done next? If police had shown up to.
disperse us, how would we respond? In some cases, it may
make more sense to regroup, strategize, and mobilize 1o a
target that offers more potential o gain momentum and
escalate the situation. Shutting down an intersection didn't
draw the full participation of the crowd and we should be
asking ourselves why that was

In short, it was a confusing and harrowing day involving upsetting
events but also moments of inspiration and potential. A raid similar to
this one just ook place in San Diego, California with an almost identical
sesponse. Federal agents arrived, conducted their operation, miscalculat-
ed how the crowd would react, escalated with crowd control munitions
(i that case, flash-bang grenades), then retreated when those meastres
1

had the opposite of their ntended effect.

‘The most powerful weapon the authorities wield against us s fear,
intensified by the fog of war and the confusion of having to process so
much unverified information at once, Whatever happens, we should
semain calm, analyze what is happening, verify information that is circu-
Lating, assess the situation, and tailor our response to it, We have to resist
effortsto provoke us, lest we play into their hands. At the same time, the
most positive aspect of today’s events was how quickly so many people
were able to mabilize, forcing the feds to turn tail and run. Here's hoping
we never have to deal with this again—or that, if we do, we come back.
twice as hard,

— A antagonist i the back of the crowd
Los Angeles
Stands up
to ICE

AFirsthand Report on
the Clashes of June 6

On June 3,a crowd drove federal agents out of Minneapolis following a
£aid on a taqueria. On June 4, people confronted US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agents a they carried out raids in Chicago and
Grand Rapids. On Friday, June 6, people in Los Angeles responded to an
ICE raid, precipitating a ful day of lashes that continue today: In the
following frsthand report, pasticipants describe how people came to-
gether to do their best o prevent federal agents from kidnapping people
from their community.

Donald Trump's “border czar Tom Homan, has announced that
he will send the National Guard into Los Angeles in response. If the
situation escalates elsewhere around the country, as wel, it is thinkable
that e could see a movement that picks up where the George Floyd
uprising let off. Arguably,in sweeping up the president of the California
chapter of the Service Ermployees International Union in their attacks
o people in Los Angeles, ICE and the various federal agencies tht are
being reassigned 1o support them risk making more enemies just as this
confrontation is getting underway.

‘Although the Trump administration has begun by attacking immi-
grants—both documented and undocumented—this is only the firststep.
in their effortto establish an autocracy. They are targeting immigrants
because they believe them to be the most vulnerable target, but their
averarching goal i to accustom all of us to passivity n the face of brutal
state violence, breaking the basic bonds of solidarity that ought to con-
nect all human beings.

It must be clear to everyone—even the most milquetoast centrists—
that the outcome of the conflct that i ramping up now will determine

»
F)

the prospects for every other target Trump has lined up in his sights,
from Harvard University to those who simply wish to be sble to afford
groceries.

Incidentally, iftis possible that you will be in an environment in
which chemical weapons are deployed?, it s possible to extinguish tear
gas canisters—read this short guide®. You can find a wealth of similar in-
formation about how to stay safe in demonstrations here’, To learn about
other things you can do to stop ICE, start here",

First Action, High Noon

On social media, the news spread that ICE was raiding several spots in
downtown Los Angeles, Highland Park, and MacArthur Park. Agents
had begun to raid a building in the flower district when a spontaneous
mob trapped them inside. People blocked every side of the building,
every single entrance, so the agents couldn't gt out. They had detained
alot of peaple in the building already and hadn't expected a swarm of
50-100 Angelenos to trap thern.

Appasently, they expected to be able to conduct a visible raid in
downtown Los Angeles without a response from the neighborhood. They
were wrong. Of the six or more locations that they raided, that one was
in the area with the densest population, just blocks from skid row and a
few steps from the Pifiata distict.

‘Alarge number of people were at the front entrance blocking ICE
from leaving the building, Caught off guard by the crowd, the ICE agents
were visibly trying to figure out how to evacuate. Farily members of the
detained were crying at the doors and the gates, wondering what was
going to happen to their loved ones

The federal government had declared war on Los Angeles.

ICE ordered in an armored truck with three dozen federal riot police
and a fleet of vans in tow. The entrance they wanted to come into was the
ane being blacked by an SEIU sound truck and they began threatening

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10 tow . SEIU complied and moved their truck, even going so far s to
use their sound system to yell “Get on the sidewalk" at the crowd. Half
of the people listened to them and half didn't but it was a small enough
crowd that that made a significant difference. As a consequence, the
armored truck and the vans were able to make it up to the gate.

Federal agents in riot gear began trying to push everyone out. The
small group who had refused to leave continued to stand their ground,
twisting their lite riot shields and mocking them. The agents were
visibly ratled by the resilience of this group that had somehow assem-
bled within iteen minutes. In a desperate push, the FBI agents began to
throw tear gas canisters into the crowd. Everyone was screaming at the
fascist mercenaries as they tried to push back the line. Amid the confu-
sion, the agents managed to clear a path for the vans to enter through the
gate.

The feds put the detained workers into the van and began to drive
out. The crowd tried to stop them but the FBI escalated—snatching
protesters and shooting pepper balls and rubber bulets at everyone. One
of the vans sped up and struck the president of the California branch of
the Service Employees International Union, injuring him. He was then
arested.

The crowd got more rowdy,lighting fireworks and throwing debris,
water bottles, and cabbage at the mercenaries. The FBI responded with 3
barrage of lash-bang grenades and rubber bullets and more pepper balls.

‘While that ight continued, someone followed the ICE vans o the
Burbank airport, where agents had reportedly claimed that they were
bringing a “hockey team.” People have been attempting to track the flight
and see where it went since.

The other detainees were taken 10 the MDC (Metro Detention Cen-
ter) which triggered an action to be called for a couple hours later.

MDC is where hundreds of detainees from the raids are still current-
1 being held. Tt was also the sie of the 2017 abolish ICE encampment
which lasted for 60 days.

Second Action, 4 pm

People arted amassing at the Metropolitan Detention Center A press
conterencetook place involing Union Del Barrio, the SEIU, and the
Coaliton or Humane Imigrant Rightsof Los Angele. Peace policing
caused fights between the paid acivists and th crowd. The activists
ended up leaving and the crowd stayed —tagging everything, smash-
ing windows, breaking things, and being ungovernable. Someone had
brought a sledgehammer and was breaking the concrete pillars so that
people could use the pieces as projectiles to throw at the police. Some-
e used a swivel chair as a barricades another person showed up in a
dinosaur s,

The feds were scrambling, throwing everything they could back at
the crowd. Peaple were tear-gassed several times, but were neutralizing
the effect by putting ice and waer on the canisters as well s trafic cones
like they did in Chile. Some people were also throwing the canisters back
10 the Department of Homeland Security agents that were responsible
for them. The crowd was extremely lively and brave. Some right-wing
internet streamers tried to get nto the area, but they were spotted and
promptly dealt with.

'DHS couldnt control the situation. The feds were overwhelmed and
begged the Los Angeles Police Department to come save them. Despite
LA mayor Karen Bass saying she was “appalled” about the presence
of ICE in Los Angeles, the LAPD still showed up in large numbers. A
Low-lying helicopter was telling people that they would be arrested and.
issuing dispersal orders as LAPD pushed people away from the building
aver the next four to five hours. Everyone left covered in pepper ball dust
and tear gas.

Third Action, 10 pm

Amessage crculated to the effect that ICE was spotted staging for a raid
i Chinatown. (Later, i twened out that they were planning to hold that
parking lot for a press conference for Thomas Homan, Trump's “Border
(Caar? a0 7 am the following morning—a press conference that was appar-
ently cancelled)

Hundreds of people started trickling in,strobing fsshlights in the
eyes of the federal agents and yellng chants and insultsat the iot line.

Even though people had been atactons al day; the energy was high,
atracting passersby and random Dodgers fns tojoin in. The crowd took
the steeet and blocked the entrances once again as things started geting
fowdy. This time, LAPD wasntpresen, so the federal agents prepared to
ryto push the people out themselves.

Participants in the crovd tagged the armored ICE vehicle snd begin
jumping up and dosn on it while 3n LRAD was baring. Someone tagged
“FUCK ICE” and spray painted the cameras on a Waymo self-driving car.
No organizations were present except a srong contingent from the Los
Angeles Tenants Union, who were present for every action in the course
of the day:

‘The federal agents decided that the parking lot was too difficult to
hold and began to retreat. The crowd seized the apportunity to block
them off, throwing ireworks and rocks, bottles, and, somehow, cerami
plates. The FBI threw a few flash-bang grenades and tear gas canisters in
sesponse, but the spiris of those standing up to them remained high,

People began to smash the windows on the feds’cars. At that point,
ICE decided to leave, and a celebration began in the street. More fire-
works were set off n a jubilant atmosphere. Peaple partied momentarily
before drifting home, heartened by a small victory aftr a horrifying and
dehumanizing day in the so-called United States.

E
2%

LA Protesters Aren’t
Inviting Violent
Authoritarianism,
Theyre Mobilizing
to Stop It

Trump’s immigration crackdown
is the source of pervasive violence

‘When President Donald Trump announced on Saturday night that he
would send the National Guard to Los Angeles to crush protests, a nar-
rative emerged on
gift 1o the authoritarian president by escalating confrontations with US.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement,

“Los Angeles — violence s never the answer. Assaulting law enforce-
mentis never ok;” Sen. Adam Schif, D-Calit, posted on Sunday. “Indeed,
doiing so plays directly into the hands of those who seck Lo antagonize
and weaponize the situation for their own gain. Dot let them succeed.”

“Its the fight President Trump had been waiting for? began the New
York Times's analysis on Monday morning, “Trump and his top aides
Leaned into the confrontation with California leaders on Sunday, por-
traying the demonstrations as an existential threat to the country.

Sen. Bernie Sanders added his own unhelpful entry to the predictable.
chorus. “Dr. King defeated racist government officials & ended segre-
gation through disciplined non-violent resistance” he wrote, eliding
militancy in the civil rights movement. “Violen protests are counterpro-
ductive and play right nto Trump's playbook”

After over a decade of reporting on police bratality, fascist accelera-
tion, and dissent, have come to expect this sort of framing from centrist
politicians and media organs, and occasionally those further on the left
like Sanders. It s a willful refusal to correctly locate the agents of vio-

cial media that demonstrators had somehow given a

lence in a violent scenario.
In reality, the protesters throwing rocks at heavily armed security

forces o attempting to damage the vehicles used to kidnap their immi-

grant neighbors did not introduce violence. They are instead acting in

B

militant community defense.

‘Ater all, would the situation somehow be les violent were ICE left to
snatch and disappear peaple without impediment? Does Schiffimagine
either his pronouncements or the empty condemnations of his Demo-
cratic Party colleagues will low down the deportation of our neighbors?

“The *situation” that Schif named — which he did not want Trump to.

“antagonize and weaponize” — was already a state of ntolerable violence.
Militarized federal immigration agents were carrying out raids across LA
10 rip immigrants away from their lives and loved ones in service of the
whitening of America.

Contrary to the New York Times's description, Trump had not been
waiting for fight that then presented itselfin the LA protests. His bor-
der regime, which Democrats helped buid for aver three decades, has
already been waging an all-out war throughout the country.

Six months into Trump's draconian second term — Venezuelan men
have been sent o gulag in El Salvador on the basis oftheir tatoos;
students and graduates have been kidnapped and face deportation for
protected speechs and judges and members of Congress face federal
prosecution for doing their jobs — it is laughable to imagine that the
president and his loyalists would moderate their responses were protest-
ers to remain placid.

‘The Los Angeles Police Department itself put out a tatement describ-
ing the demonstrations as “peaceful” on Friday, but Trump's deputy chief
of staff, maniacal white nationalist Stephen Mille, had already posted on
X earlier that day that the protests were an “insurrection against the laws
and sovereigaty of the United States.” His post was above a video of
slow march of a few hundred people surrounding LA federal detention
center

It should be abundantly obvious by now that the Trump adminis-
tration will conjure its own perverse reality out of thin air and treat all
apposition as an enemy in need of crushing

“One side i for enforcing the law and protecting Americans;” Newt
Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker and Trump ally told the
Times, “and the other side is for defending illegals and being on the side
of the people who break the law”

Gingrich conveniently leaves out that, according to today's Republi-
can Party,the law is whatever Trump says it i,

“The old “good protester, bad protester” canard, which has always
served to divide movements, is a particularly absurd line to draw in the

%

face of an authoritarian government that has made clear it will enforce
“Jasw and order” on solely ideological, loyalistlines. January 6 rioters are
free; Mahmoud Khalil is caged.

Here, areference to Martin Luther King Jr. can prove useful — but
ot Sanders's vanilla rewiting of the civil rights movement. We might
instead recall Kings 1963 ltter from Birmingham jail, in which he de-
cried “the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice;
who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive.
peace which i the presence of justice; who constantly says, T agree with
youin the goal you seek, but 1 can't agree with your methods of direct
action”

—Natasha Lennard from The Intercept
2

Melt ICE,
Be Water

Report-back from a Hot Summer
Demonstration in Austin, Texas

On the evening of Monday, June 9, over 600 protesters gathered at the.
Texas Capitol for a march announced by the Party for Socialism and
Liberation. A revolutionary organization called for a parallel demonstra-
ton with a start time set an hour and a half ater in front of the J] Pickle
Federal building, a US Imigeation and Customs Enforcement facility
four blocks from the Capitol

The PSL rally began marching, tailed by a police motorcycle escort,
and reached the ICE facility by 7:45 pm. The group was energetic and
angey. A huge crowd chanted outside the building. Drummers beat
a shythm to the sound of breaking windows. Some people dragged
scooters into the street; others painted pro-immigration and anti-ICE
slogans or threw balloons flled with paint. All the while, red-shirted.
arganizers from PSL were urging the crowd to keep moving, Dozens
of people pushed back, chanting “ICE is right here!” Nonetheless, by §
pm, the PSL organizers had mobilized most o the crowd back towards.
the capitol, successfully convincing some participants to tell others that

‘moving would keep the group safe. A splinter group of about 100 stayed
behind and continued to express their feelings with art and music. The
‘march was effectvely split between those who were acting on their own
initative and those who were submilting to the authority of the PSL.

PSL shepherded the larger group back towards the capitol building, to
an intersection with nothing but high fences, mounted cops, and streets
blockaded by police. PSL organizers got on the microphone to formally
disband the march, They thanked everybody for coming and encouraged
them to go home and rest up to do it all again later. The crowd grew un-
certain, largely returning to the sidewalk in front of the fenced off capitol
2

and very nearly ceding the street to the police except for a few insistent
spirits who remained in the intersection, dancing with banners. Traopers
blaed their sirens on both sides and commanded them to get onto the
sidewalk—but the dancers stayed, leading chants of “Chinga s migea!
Chinga la migral”

Meanwhile, at the Pickle ICE facilty, police tear-gassed the remain-
ing revelers and tackled some of them to the ground, pushing the crowd
away from the building,

Unaware of this, the cheerleaders at the capitol continued to dance,
especially when the walk signal was on, inspiring some of the crowd to
flood out across the street. The crowd re-mobilized in waves. This first
wave took a sidewalk route back to the Pickle, where it collided with the
smaller splinter group that had just been gassed. Together,they created 3
barrier of scooters across the street behind them and began to square off
with the police in front of thern,

Back at the capitol chant of “Whose streets? Our sreets!” brought
the hundreds still on the sidewalk back into the intersection and return-
ing south on Congress Avenue.

‘Almost immediately, two motoreyele cops confronted the crowd.
People hesitated but pushed on. The chopper cops tried to discourage
the by blaring their sirens and driving forward. One motoreyele drove
into the crowd at high speed, forcing protestors to jump aside, There
were immediate consequences for his aggression: a crowd surrounded
his vehicle and forced him off of it and to the ground. Meanwhile, the
news arrived that the small group at the Pickle building had been gassed
and dispersed with a few arrests made. Although this caused a moment
of hesitation, when the crowd rounded 8th Street and came upon the
barrier line of lime scooters, people became jubilan.

Faced with a line of police blacking access to the building, the mostly
seassembled crowd turned around. When they reached Congress Avenue
again moving west, there was a line of cruisers directly ahead and a line
of bike cops to the left. Immediately, the crowd found gap in the bike
line on the sidewalk and flooded through it, embodying the watchword
of the Hong Kong uprising of 2019, “Be water"—though many were too
young to have heard this saying in the George Floyd rebellion of 2020,

The erowd quickly realized what a victory this evasive maneuver was.
Suddenly, there were no flashing lights to be seen. They had broken out
of the police cordon, For the next few hours, they were able to move
freely through downtown Austn,
»

“Chinga la migra!” resounded throughout the downtown streets.
Rambunctious and playful activity escalated, each gesture building upon
the last. Everything that wasn't nailed down was moved into the steet;
arange barrels, scooters, event signs. The muses sang to painters from
banks and venture capital fims. Some downtown businesses lost win-
dows, some parked Lexuses lost the wind in ther sail,

The erowd praceeded south down Congress, reaching the Congress
bridge and starting across it. At this point, the front of the march was
far ahead of rest of the march. People were uncertain about crossing the
bridge out of downtow; some started moving onto the sidewalk. There
was 2 moment of hesitation before the crowd doubled back, heading,
back to familiar targets ike City Hall, the capitol, and downtown in
general

‘Then they moved west on MLK along the river, stopping at City Hall
10 hang the Mexican flag over the balcony before traveling north ten
Long Texas blocks all the way back to the capitol. Fortunately, there, they
encountered the remains of the group that had originally remained at the
7 Pickle building until they were tear-gassed and dispersed. There were
chants of “LA—lead the way!”

Bolstered back up to two or three hundred people, the crowd finally
seturned to the Pickle building. More windows were broken. Some
trucks showed up and the drivers did burnouts while blasting electrify-
ing music. People emplied waler from construction baricades, flooding
the street. Everyone loved it, Raucousness, dance party, good cheer.

‘The crowd continued on dows to éth Street, the main drag for night-
life, A scooter shattered the custom neon sign of The Mothership, Joe
Rogan's comedy bar. Though the venue appeared closed with its shutter
solled down, it was later earned from Reddit that there was a show going
on inside. Aftr this point, the crowd struggled to decide on a route,
which slowed it down. This indecisiveness led the crowd to fall back on
habit rather than strategy. Memory carried it against its better interests
back towards the capitol and the police

After not seeing a single cop for nearly two houss, the crowd began to
encounter motoreycle units al intersections again. Rather than pushing
through these units as people had done at first—which the crowd easily
could have done again—the crowd allowed the police to determine their
route. This went on for at least twenty minutes. That was a fatal mis-
take: the crowd was permitting the police to guide them into an ambush,
People could have moved farther away and dispersed with no arrests, but
30

instead, they walked direetly into a trap.

Aer marching back up 6th Street, the crowd continued west past
Congress, the street leading to the capitol building. Within a few blocks,
aline of stae traopers on motorcycles confronted the march, blocking
the way forward. Once again indecisive, the crowd began to split up into
different groups—ane going north, one south—before consolidating into
a single mass heading south. They barely got halfiway down the block
before two unmarked white vans in the intersection shead unloaded
squads of APD riot cops armed with pepperball guns, Aware that they
were in danger of being cornered, the crowd turned down an alley
‘Those running ahead quickly turned back as a side by side full of more
APD riot cops blocked the intersection. The APD cops dismounted and
chased people down the alley, grabbing people at random and shooting
pepperbals that gassed protesters and some of their own offcers for
good measure. This pincer move dispersed much of the crowd and led to
a handil of arrests.

Shortly after this, a part o the crowd regrouped in front of the
downtown tower tht hosts the offices of Indeed, the job search com-
pany. There, two LRAD tanks confronted them on a busy street full of
cars. The crowd targeted the operators of these tanks, pelting them with
projectiles, while some of the trucks that had been following the protest
prevented the tanks from moving fusther. This combination of actics
ultimately led to the tanks backing off

‘Atthis point, the remaining participants dispersed for the evening.

Why did so much time pass during which the police were nowhere
1o be seen? First, the blockading genuinely interrupted their ability to
pursue the march, This was something that the Austin police had not
experienced on this scale before. Second, they lacked the numbers to
Keep up with and corral the protest, and the combativeness of the crowd
increased the costs they had to caleulate for any engagement. And at the
same time, while this crowd was marching, there was still 3 group sur-
rounding and tagging the federal building and then clashing with cops,
50 their forces were split between that engagement, defending the capitol,
and chasing us.

Asa police officer described in response o the 2020 uprising,

‘We can handle one 10,000-person protest, but ten 1000-person
protests throughout the city will overwhelm us.
31

Perhaps the police were told to stand down, or not to create a confron-
tation in the neighborhood that the march passed through, or to focus
on the capitol and the federal building, but for now, we don't know. The
‘mach didn't experience significant confrontation with the police until
we returned to the capitol, after which they were only trying to keep up
with a single crowd. After that point, when the crowd continued march-
ing, the police were likely clearing the streets and coming up with plans
1o disperse the crovwd, leading to the ambush at the end.

‘We'll conclude with some conclusions about the events of the evening
and about what can come next

‘The main takeaway from the evening is that this moment is explo-
sive. A minimum of physical preparation and a bit of boldness sufficed
10 transform what would have been a predictable, toothless raly at the
capitolinto the most poverful demonstration against the racist and au-
thoritarian regime that Austin has seen since 2020, The crowd was more
tactically equipped than usual, with several individuls having brought
gloves, goggles, art supplies, and respirators, but the most important
thing i that right now, people feel urgency.

‘Alo:itis important to plan for success. Demonstrators should arrive
with an array of passible objectives in mind, in case they casily accom-
plish their initial goal; but once a march starts to repeat iself doubling
back on the same territory with diminishing returns, it may be time to
conclude. In this case, the participants surprised themselves by getting
past the police and opening up a new horizon of possibilty, et ater a.
while, they lost the abilty to identify new targets and stay creative, in-
stead becoming trapped in a loop circling the same few blocks of down-
town. The crowd should cither have dispersed carler or identified a new
target outside the territory they had repeatedly marched through. Once
the crowd lost the abilty to come up with new targets, move i new di-
sections, or at least keep growing, it was only a matter of ime before the
police were able to regroup and launch an offensive.

Similarly,just s it is rucial o resist the efforts of self-appointed lead-
ers to dictate what @ demonstration can do, whenever possible, people
should resist the efforts of police to determine their movements. When
the crowd encountered a few chopper cops or a single cruiser in its way,
some people would shout “they're ketling us” and turn around rather
than charging through. In fact, this is what enabled the police to herd.
the crowd direely into a situation n which they almost were kettled. It is
important to be aware of effots to kettle a crowd, but often the best way
10 avoid thisis to move through police ines where they are thin, before
they are reinforced.

Finally, it can help to have material einforcements ready for delivery
well after a march gets underway.

As the wave of resistance that started in Minneapolis and spread to
Los Angeles unfolds into a nationwide revolt, we can anticipate more
hot demonstrations to come. Now we know that people will turn out to
combative mass demonstrations here, if they are invited to. Ahead of the
next moment of possibility, there are a few things that erews could do.
now to prepares

+ Finda minute to rest, heal, get grounded, share food, and
seflect on your experiences, so you can be ready to act with
allthe resources at your disposal when the time comes.

+ Mdentify potential targets and what kinds of actions they.
could render possible. These could be specific buildings,
institutions, neighborhoods, commercial dist
erate flyers to circulate and build popular consciousness
around these targets

+ Decide as acrew what kinds of interventions you could.
make to help shift dynamics in the favor of the erowd,
‘Could you decisively propose a new target and direct the
crowd to t? Do you have a mutual aid project that could
distribute gas masks, gogeles, umbrellas, and ather tools to
help people continue to fight? Could you coordinate com-
‘munications and outreach efforts to draw more people to
the streets and reinforce the demonstrations? Can you mo-
bilize simultancous actions at multple locations, especially
Locations at which nothing has happened before? Can you
apen up new spaces to reinforce and support frontliners?
Can you help sustain the demonstration with food, medic
support, water, ransport, and other material needs?

. Gen-

The window of opportunity is open right now and the possibilties
are endless. Itis up to all of s to bring those possibiltis into existence
before the forces that seck to preserve a world of police, borders, and
exploitation can slam it shut.
El

The Los Angeles
Protests Are’an Act of
Self-Defense

Residents of L.A. aren’t merely protesting
ICE; they're attempting to protect their
communities from ICE’s raids

Early Sunday evening in Los Angeles, a the city was under siege by
federal anti-immigeation forces, aided by local law enforcement, Mayor
Karen Bass was holding a press conference, Out in the streets, a reporter
noted, it appeared that the Los Angeles Police Department was “cooper-
ating” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “using fashbangs
and less-lethal munitions” to push people engaged in “peaceful protest”
away from a federal building being used as an ICE detention center. The
seporter asked if Mayor Bass would comment on this cooperation, which
is against city policy. “What happened there;” Bass began, is that when
ane branch of law enforcement says they need help, another branch

of law enforcement is going to respond.”In this case, she said, LAPD's
aim was 1o control the protest. She distinguished its actions from the
department’s “coordinating with ICE in terms of raiding workplaces or
arresting people who are undocumented”

‘The Los Angeles mayor was trying to draw a line: While the LAPD is
not supposed to be direcly raiding workplaces or arresting undocument-
ed immigeants alongside ICE, it is free to police the public so that ICE.
can raid workplaces and arrest undocumented immigrants. For those
in the streets, choking down tear gas and dodging disabling “less lethal”
bullets as they try to defend themselves and one another from violent
raids, his s a disti

‘Angelenos mobilized this weekend, after ICE descended on their
city and over several days began making very public arrests. Last week,
people arriving at their mandatory ICE check-ins at federal building
were instead quickly locked up in a makeshift detention center, where as
many as 200 people were being held in basement rooms. ("N food. No
water, Locked in holding rooms for over 12 to 24 hours,” said Democratic

i without a differe

Representative Jimmy Gomez, who represents parts of Los Angeles.)
Dazens of people were arrested at a Home Depot on Friday by masked
agentsin tactical gear. Multiple federal agencies assisted ICE. One wit-
ness described unidentified agents descending on food vendors nearby;

“They were just grabbing people. They don't sk questions. They dids't
Know if any of us were in any kind of immigration process” Another
witness said that he was in his car when ICE agents stopped traffic, “in
alltheir miltary gear. People in the traffc jam could see ICE putting
people into vans. “We weren't there to protest” the man told KCALTV,
bt when people got out of their cars and began to record with their
phones, they were tear-gassed. As ICE agents raided a business in the
Fashion District, lootage of some community members challenging
them indicates, LAPD was apparently stationed outside. And as the news
of the raids spread, and more people came out 1o witness and protest,
LAPD was there 1o push back, to control, to demabilize.

For Bass, it seemed, the problem was not that the LAPD was violently
policing those protesting ICE raids; the problem was Trump calling in
the National Guard to do the same thing, By thislogic, the ICE raids, con-
ducted with the support of myriad federal agencies, are a terrifying abuse
of power that police should not collaborate in—but it ine for police to
collaborate by keeping protesters and witnesses away. The upside-dow
thinking goes even further: Its wrong for the National Guard to put down
protests against the will of the governor and city officials, but it fine for
state and local law enforcement to do it so long as stte and local officials
want them to. The line of seasoning is maddening, seemingly designed to
scramble and demobilize support for the people of Los Angeles. Accept
the terms of the debate, and you end up in a bizarre argument about how
much violence, rom which armed agents of the law, i acceptable.

Those with the clearest view are the ones bearing the brunt of such
attacks. Whether its the sherifs, police, or Border Patrol, “it was brutal
violence? said Ron Gochez, a community organizer, who was part of
the protests. “What they didn't think was going to happen was that the
people would resist” Over eight hours on Saturday, he said, aftera battle
with Border Patrol—“and it was a battle, because there were peaple
throwing back tear gas, people throwing anything that they could to de-
fend themselves and to defend the workers that were being surrounded’—
the Border Patrol retreated. “And the hundreds of workers that were in
the factories around them were able t0 escape? Gochez recounted. “They
were able 10 go to their cars and go home. That was only thanks to the
3

sesistance that allowed them to go home that night” If any community
s going to fight back without apology, it was this ane.

“ICE raids in LA are a declaration of was longtime immigeation
seporter Tina Visquez wrote at Prism on Monday: Los Angeles was built
by communities who have survived and fled political persecution and
state violence, she pointed out, and who have faced it again—including
from police—in their new homes. “When you are an Angeleno and this
is your lineage, you are fully aware of what local law enforcement is
capable of; she added, and when the LAPD attempts to distance itelf
from ICE raids, “you know better!” No one outside of Los Angeles should
be surprised: “ICE sent the city of Los Angeles a message when its agents
showed up in full force and in broad daylight, and that message was
responded to in kind by the people”

Bass might say that she supports the peoples right to respond, but she
wasted lttle time before admonishing her constituents for not respond-
ing in the right way. “The most important thing right now is that our city
e peaceful” Bass said at the Sunday press conference. “Expressing your
fears, your belief,is appropriate to do, but it i just not appropriate for
there to be violence Drawing lines between “peaceful” and “violent” is
a common mave for politicians amid popular protest. They continue to
urge so-called nonviolence even as such directions can feel quite difficult
1o follow in a cloud of tear gas you did not set off. Is nearly impossible
1o figure out what compliance i supposed to laok like when police are
Launching weapons of war on the public. In such a gross imbalance of
power, the police are the ones really drawing the lines. No matter whata
peaceful protester may intend, i's police who are deciding when to use
Violence and whom to use it againsi—snd nothing we saw this weekend
indicates their violence was confined to those who were not “peaceful”

It very difficult to believe that Los Angeles' political leadership—or
Californils governor o other stte oficials—truly wish to stop ICE raids
when they are willing o arrest the only people who are actually standing in
ICES way. The politicians want to define protest as merely voicing a demand
without disrupting anything; they don't want to recognize the value of puttng
e’ body between the state and the scapegoated. There is pparenty no
“peaceful” way o do that in Los Angeles. And for those of us lsewhere, who
‘would like these raids on imimigrants o end, who want 1o end Trump's abuse
of power—we will il ifwe defer o such “leadership” and line draving, What
we are withessing in Los Angeles is not oy a protest it is self-defense.

—Melissa Gira Grant from The New Republic
36

ICE’s War on Home

A border; the poet Wendy Trevino wrote in 2018, is a cruel fiction. Cali-
fornia has five borders, and of them only the Pacific Ocean has not been
wholly fabricated by war and conquest. First encountered by Eurapeans
in 1542, when the Portuguese sea captain Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo led a
Spanish expedition along its southern shoreline, California is the ances-
tral homeland of seventy different ethnic groups, including the Oblone
of the west-central region and the Tongva of the southern coastal area
now known as Los Angeles. Uniil 1848, it was part of Mexico. Ceded to
the United States of America following the Mexican-American War, it
became the 315t state in the Union.

In the late 19605, Chicano liberation movements began claiming it ss
part of Autlin, the legendary kingdom of the Aztecs, as a symbol of an
ancient right to the land. Nearly half the population of Los Angeles is
Hispanic or Latino, and the city also has the largest Filipino population
in the US and the largest Armenian population outside Armenia. About
third of people living in LA were born outside the US.

These demographics have made LA a favourie target of right-wing
attacks on immigration both legal and informal. If President Donald
Trump has long relished painting Sen Francisco as a drug-addled hells-
cape because of its many unhoused residents, he has attacked LA with
equalif ot greater intensity. Yesterday he took to X to describe it as 3
‘once great American City” that has been invaded and occupied by llegal
Aliens and Criminals, before announcing that he would be taking ‘all
such action necessary 1o iberate Los Angeles from the Migeant Invasion!

Such fascist theatrics are nothing new from Trump, and it i im-
perative 1o recogise that the United States’ recent crackdown on

37

immigration began not with a Republican but a Democratic president.
Under Bill Clinton, border patrol tripled in size to become the nation's
second-largest law enforcement agency; under Barack Obama, the
budget for the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE,
began to outpace the budgets of the FBL, the CIA, and all other federal
Law enforcement agencies combined. During his two terms in the White
House, Obama oversan the removal of more than three million non-citi-
zens, more than any other president in history:

1CE-popularly known as 'la migra-is an artefact of the so-called war
n terror. Founded in 2003, it swiftly went about detaining and deport-
ing thousands of Muslim, Arab and South Asian men, all labelled as
national securty threats after 9/11. Earlier this year, ICE was involved in
the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student
who was taken into custody as & result of his involvement n the Gaza
solidarity protests and remains in an immigration detention centre in
Louisiana. A green-card holder, Khalilis in the US legally, as e many of
ICE' recent targets. They include Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was arrest-
ed without having been accused of a crime and deported to maximum
security prison in El Salvador. (The US Supreme Court ruled Abrego
Garcias deportation illegal; he was returned to the US on 6 June and is
currently being held in a Tennessee prison.)

‘These high-profile cases ae the tip of the iceberg, but they give some
sense of ICE' primary targets under Trump: non-citizens involved in
protests against Isracls war on Gaza and non-citizens who are Hispanic
or Latino. ICE is also targeting immigrants of other ethic backgrounds:
the X account of the Department of Homeland Security shows photo
after blurry photo of Filipino and Haitian as well as Mexican and Central
American men being handcuffed by ICE agents, with captions accusing
them of crimes such as rape and vehicular manslaughter. But because
of the relaive porousness of the border between the US and Mexico, it
is Mexicans and peaple from its neighbouring countries who inflame
the racist American imagination, These are the ‘bad hombres' o whom
Trump infamously referred in his 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton,
the drug lords and gang members who must be eliminated from the
Law-abiding and presumptively white population.

In a remark that has since gone viral, Conor Simon, a resident of
Honesdale, Pennsylvania, observed:

3

16 really hard to fathom that the guy making my pizza for 25
years is & gangster and a terrorist, and the person who shows up
in an unmarked car wearing a mask and body armour to take
him away is somehow the good guy:

Trump may spin spine-tingling tales of‘bad hombres; but videos of
secent ICE raids tel a different story. The mother of a newbor is hand-
cuffed and shoved, head down, into an unmarked vehicle, her family
screaming, the neighbours ilming, her baby cradled against a weeping
womans shoulder. A young boy wails as his ather is thrown into the
back of a van. Children whose parents have been taken into custody sob
o the floor of a school gym, not knowing if they will ever see their fam-
ilies again. The raids have not been on drug dens or sex-traffcking rings.
They have been on restaurants and schools, hospitals and court houses
ICE war is not simply at home, but on home.

‘The protests that broke out last weekend in Los Angeles are at once
an autonomous phenomenon and a continuation of the George Floyd
sebelion of 2020 and the student-led campaign against the war on Gaza.
They have been met with no longer shocking displays of state violence,
including the arrival of the National Guard and seven hundred marines,
Protesters have been gassed, shot in the head with ‘less lethal munitions,
beaten, trampled with horses, hit by cars and taken into custody. The
LAPD, like many police departments in the US, trans with soldiers from
the lsracl Defence Forces, and you can see, i their response to the pro-
testers, the same libidinal thrust of disproportionate force that’s turned
against children throwing rocks at tanks in the West Bank. In LA, pro-
testers have dug up stones from the landscaped medians that run down
the middle of the larger boulevards and hurled them at ICE' unmarked
cars, or lse dropped them from highway overpasses onto LAPD vans.

On social media there are photographs of protesters with signs that
say things like ‘National Guard LOL and I drink my horchata warm
‘cause fuck ICE! The novelist Rachel Kushner, a longtime LA resident,
posted a photograph of lowrider three-wheeling pasta trio of National
Guardsman standing in front of a tank: ‘from 2020 but says better than
T could how I feel about the arrival of the National Guard, she wrote
(Lowriders, customised cars often with hydraulic systems, have been an
important part of Chicano culture since the 19405) “This is for my dad?
says graffiti under bridge. There are videos of people riding their bikes
in circles around the police, waving enormous Mexican flags. A teenager,

3

holding a skateboard as he walks through a hail of rubber bullets, turns
around and flips off the dozens of police shooting at him. In anoth-

er video, an older Black man scolds a Black officer in the LA County
Sheriffs Department for doing the bidding of ICE, which he suggests

is run by white supremacists. There is evidence to support this claim;

the Boston Globe reported last week that an agent conducting a raid in
Martha's Vineyard was sporting a attoo popular among neo-Nazis, and
in February a ICE prosecutor in Texas was linked to a white-supremacist
account on X,

‘There have been some complaints about protesters’tactics, but
they've been muted. Some demonstrators have sat on the freeway,
blocking ICE vans from passing; others have stood barefaced, in T-shirts
and jeans, in front of masked and heavily armed rows of cops, saring
them down coolly. Others have thrown Molotoy cocktails and set police
cars-and the occasional Waymo-on fire. We have all spent the last year
watching unarmed twenty-year-olds get beaten and shot for protesting
a genocide, and we have all spent the lastsix hunded days watching 3
genocide, 1t is absurd to suggest that the state-any state-needs a pretext
1o maim or kil, to arrest or deport. ICE arrives, guns blazing, to pull
children out of the arms of their parents, the LAPD shoots people in
their homes, and the president and his cronies loudly announce their
plans to suspend habeas corpus and throw dissenters in prison, whether
they are cizens or not. Playing nice protects no one.

Last Thursday, just before the protests began, I walked across the
campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, where I teach, to
administer a final exam to my students. To prepare for the inauguration
of the university's new chancellor,Julio Frenk, a former health secretary
of Mexico, heavily armed members of the LAPD lined every path, Their
uns were held across their bodies, ready to aim, and as I passed them
Iimagined a rookie oficer, started by the sound of a car backfiring.
or a branch snapping, shooting me i the head. When I arrived at my
classroom, Tasked my students ifthe police presence made them more
ansious than the exam, They said they had a different fear. They're afraid
ICE is going to raid their graduation.

—Anahid Nersessian from London Review of Books

o

It Is Fascism.
Start Acting Like It.

Yes, Trump probably has a Master Plan 1o use riots o justify military
aceupation. And just ike his Master Plan to use tariffs o bring back jobs,
itis completely idioic

They believe they can beat and intiridate us into submission. But this
will backiie,

Ifevery city in America fought like the angels on the frst ights of the
LA uprising, the regime woulda't stand chance.

The Decisive Moment Has Arrived
Trump has deployed acive duty Marines 0 Los Angeles and threatened
1CE, DHS, FB, the National Guard the Marines, whatever-al ofthem
are now his footsoldiers
“This I facisn. You know it Nowi the tim to tart actng ke I,
“The regime willnotbe swayed by empathy with peacefulprotestors
When the law becomes the weapon of tyrants, we e allaboe the .
a1

Disruptive, Courageous Action Is Our Only Chance
The st days ofthe Los Angels uprising showed us what effective acton
ooksike: 5ot an artay with guns,but everyday people collectivly dis-
maniling polce equipment, preventiog ICE and the cops from enforeng

s democracy,you vote president out. n faslsm, you prevent the
Dictator’s functonaris from caeying outhis will. A Kin i only a ing
When his wish s your command. When the peopl rfuse 10t his wih-

Now s the bes chance we have 10 toppl tis rgie. L we wat, they
will onsolidate control of education and the media. They willrewrite
history and churn outa generaton ofoyalss, I the months nd years
1o come, it will nly get harder to fight o freedon.

AWaming

We'e being toldthat disruptive demonstations ae ust “playing into
Trump's hands” b giving hima pretet for military dictatorsip.
they want tojustfy what they ar going 1o do

Peacelly makingour vices eard" wil do nohing o sop them. They
donft care You know this. Wit judges and poltcans unable o unwill
g, 11p 1 us 1 tap the asist machine.

“The opening moves of the LA uprising shows how 1o stop . It began
with peopl refusing 1 stand by during an ICE raid and surrounding
ICE agents It moved to burning thelrcas, throwing rocks and freworks
at the police.

“This s not new: you ememberthe summer of 2020, The George
Floyd Rebellon opened with police precint burned, cop carsdisabled,
corporat store ooted across the eounsy. 1t was only alter weeks af its
that this merory was publicyerssed and It wasturned o lagely
because we didat dismanlethe police sate then
2

Fighting Back Is Collective Strategic Intelligence
ar nothing without thir tools—and gunsare the leas of them. I s thele
i, Flock, G45 and others that crate the llsion oftheir total powe

‘We know, from the susmmer of 2020, that massesof people an make
quick, sy work ofths llusion. We win not by appeaing o the ruler’s
heie rle
disruptive moveraents refusingto condemun those who take ik on all of
our behalf, hanging banners i support of hem and insistng that normal
e canno be continued unl the regime fals.

“They il call it “chaos” They will al t “nsurrection” They will se
10 justity more orce. And then they willlose.
peace. When we withdraw it and become an obstale o theis power, hey

1f We Fight, We Will Win

In a dictatorship, we are not “citzens” with “rights” We are earthlings,
being threatened with extinction by a small geoup of psychopaths. We
have a choice: we are either under Tramps rule, o we are above all his
Laws.

Allacts of resi

ance to tyranny are acts of community self-defense.
‘Whatis at stake now ase the lives and freedom of those we love. It s
time to act like it
THE WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY 1S
OPEN RIGHT NOW AND THE
POSSIBILITIES ARE

ENDLESS. TGO