Los Angeles ICE raids spark protests, fear, outrage. ‘Our community is under attack’
Los Angeles ICE raids spark protests, fear, outrage. ‘Our community is under attack’
, Rebecca Ellis, Clara Harter, Ruben Vives and Seema Mehta
June 6, 2025 Updated 7:45 PM PT
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A series of surprise U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps in downtown Los Angeles on Friday prompted fierce pushback from elected officials and protesters, who decried the enforcement actions as “cruel and unnecessary” and said they stoked fear in the immigrant community.
Tensions remained high in downtown into the evening. The Los Angeles Police Department declared an unlawful assembly and ordered about 200 protesters who remained gathered by the Los Angeles Federal Building to disperse around 7 p.m.
Chaos erupted earlier in the day in the heart of the Fashion District after federal immigration authorities detained employees inside a clothing wholesaler, and used flash-bang grenades and pepper spray on a crowd protesting the raid around 1:30 p.m.
Hundreds of people then rallied outside the Los Angeles Federal Building at 4 p.m., condemning the crackdown and demanding the release of Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta, who was injured and detained while documenting a raid, according to a statement from the labor union.
“Our community is under attack and has been terrorized,” Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, told the crowd of protesters. “These are workers, these are fathers, these are mothers.”
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Forty-four people were administratively arrested and one person was arrested for obstruction during Friday’s immigration action, said Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, a spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE. Federal agents executed four search warrants related to the suspected harboring of people illegally in the country at three locations in central Los Angeles, she said.
Carlos González Gutiérrez, Consul General of Mexico in Los Angeles, said his team has identified at least 11 Mexican nationals who were detained during raids across the Southland. The office is offering them legal services, and he said he is monitoring detention conditions.
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“The detention center seems to be at full capacity,” he said. “Every cell seems to be occupied.”
CHIRLA received more than 50 calls on its hotline, with reports of ICE sightings and men in military garb in parking lots and in locations near schools, Home Depot stores and a doughnut shop, according to Salas.
Connie Chung Joe, the chief executive of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, said she received a report of immigration enforcement going to a school in Koreatown.
Multiple immigration sweeps reported across L.A., with a tense standoff downtown
June 6, 2025
Huerta, 58, was treated at a hospital and transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A., where he remained in custody as of 5:30 p.m., according to an SEIU spokesperson.
“What happened to me is not about me; This is about something much bigger,” he said in a statement from the hospital. “This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that’s happening. Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals. We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice.”
In a statement on X, U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli alleged that Huerta had deliberately obstructed federal agents’ access to a worksite where they were executing a warrant by blocking their vehicle Friday morning. Huerta was arrested on suspicion of interfering with federal officers and will be arraigned Monday, Essayli said.
Elected officials representing Los Angeles at the city, county, state and federal levels released a flurry of statements condemning Huerta’s arrest, criticizing the raids and decrying the Trump administration’s escalation of deportations.
“SEIU California President David Huerta was injured by federal agents and wrongfully detained,” said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn. “I am calling for his immediate release. This is a democracy. People have a right to peacefully protest, to observe law enforcement activity, and to speak out against injustice.”
Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who was appoint
