“They cannot succeed without organized and fierce resistance”:
Three days and counting of mass rebellion against ICE in Los Angeles
“They can’t do that without organized and fierce resistance”: Three Days and Counting of Mass Rebellion Against ICE in Los Angeles – The Worker Newspaper)
The Workers Editorial Committee
On Saturday, a typically busy intersection in Compton, Los Angeles, motorcycles circled around burning cars. Armed personnel from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department strengthened defenses on the hillside. Protesters temporarily halted their resistance, taking photos of themselves holding Mexican flags in front of the flames.
In the neighboring community of Paramount, protesters blocked streets outside Home Depot with burning barricades. This large retailer was subsequently transformed into a military command center for law enforcement. The Los Angeles sky was shrouded in tear gas.
Representatives of the old regime called this a “rebellion,” and the far-right Donald Trump promised to mobilize the National Guard.
Whether it is the collective response of the people or the activities of the old regime, both mark an escalation of the situation. This explosive conflict has been brewing for over a year. The Trump administration continued the reactionary policies of the previous government, intensifying terror against workers and expanding its own influence excessively. Trump’s campaign largely relied on anti-immigrant sentiments, and fulfilling these promises inevitably sparked resistance nationwide, culminating in large-scale uprisings like those in Los Angeles over the past two days. As of this writing, the uprising has entered its third day, with fighting and resistance ongoing.
An active participant in the Los Angeles struggle told Reuters, a monopoly media outlet: “Now they understand that in this country, wherever our people are, they cannot run amok, trying to hijack our workers and our compatriots—they cannot succeed without organized and fierce resistance.”
The Department of Homeland Security stated: “A thousand rioters surrounded a federal law enforcement building, attacked ICE officers, punctured tires, and damaged property funded by taxpayers.” ICE reported a 413% increase in attacks against its agents nationwide. The people of Los Angeles proved that this increase is insignificant compared to what might happen in the future.
ICE’s activities have become more dramatic and terrifying due to policies enacted by the imperialist ruling class to respond to the global economic crisis of imperialism. This has led to the most intense arrests and raids, targeting mainly workers and workplaces rather than criminal activities. The false veneer of legality has completely shattered. Since the 2008 economic crisis peaked in 2020, as reported by The Worker, the ruling class has gone as far as destroying its means of production, including large-scale attacks on the workforce. Deportation must be understood as an inevitable consequence of the deepening crisis and a desperate attempt by the ruling class to increase profits.
ICE raids, as catalysts for this latest uprising, targeted the most profound and revolutionary layers of the working class, beginning last Friday against immigrant workers. The targeted workers include day laborers gathering at Home Depot for construction jobs and workers in the fashion district, an area filled with many gray-market shops selling low-cost clothing and designer imitations.
As of early Sunday, the public continued to confront hundreds of National Guard troops, with the White House claiming clashes occurred. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened to deploy the Marine Corps. The last time the Marine Corps was deployed in domestic military operations was during the massive uprising against police in Los Angeles in 1992.
Footage shows crowds surrounding and repelling fully armed federal agents. According to acting ICE director, his forces “were vastly outnumbered by rioters, with over 1,000 rioters surrounding and attacking a federal building. Despite multiple calls for help, the Los Angeles Police Department took more than two hours to arrive on scene.”
On Sunday, protesters blocked a major highway in downtown Los Angeles, and police fired so-called “non-lethal bullets” at the crowd. Authorities reported that demonstrators threw concrete blocks, stones, and bottles at them. Two motorcyclists reportedly sped toward police lines attempting to break through, injuring two officers.
Federal agents and police viciously attacked protesters with batons, flashbangs, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and pepper balls. An eyewitness was directly shot in the face by police, suffering a 4-inch wound that reached the bone. Among those brutally treated and arrested on the first day was David Herta, president of the California Service Employees International Union (SEIU), who was observing ICE’s raid nearby and was pushed to the ground and arrested for obstructing law enforcement.
ABC, a monopoly media outlet, broadcasted a video showing a Black Hawk helicopter landing next to the Homeland Security office near a Home Depot in Paramount, unloading “dozens of boxes of ammunition, non-lethal weapons… a whole batch of supplies seemingly prepared for some major battle.”
The ruling class’s mafia colludes to suppress the uprising
The escalation of repression against immigrant masses by the Trump administration, along with the people’s own responses, further intensifies the contradictions between the two major ruling class mafias. The Democratic Party is eager to exploit mass struggles to gain electoral support, while trying to prevent the wave of resistance from breaking through their brutal rule. They have dispatched suppression police to act, and the “50501 Movement,” allied with the Democrats, has called for peaceful protests nationwide to support Los Angeles and preempt more radical local actions. Democrats and Republicans attack each other on social media but collude on the streets, using joint force to suppress the masses.
The Democrats have verbally condemned Trump’s government and the uprising masses while actively collaborating with Republicans to violently suppress the protests. California Governor Gavin Newsom claimed that protesters were “making a farce” for Trump, and he wrote on X: “Don’t give Trump what he wants. Stay calm. Stay peaceful.”
Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned the ICE raids as deliberately provocative, focusing on the surface phenomena of the raids. Democrats are more successful than Republicans in deporting immigrants because they focus on appearances—even though Biden has deported more than twice as many as Trump in his first term, there has been no uprising against ICE. Republicans hope to win big by emphasizing the terrifying visuals and tactics, while Democrats rhetorically emphasize reconciliation and cooperation but implement similar policies.
Though tactics differ, their goals are aligned. After Trump’s victory in November last year, Los Angeles City Council voted to become a “sanctuary city,” banning “any city resources (including property or personnel) used for immigration enforcement activities.” However, less than six months after Trump took office, LAPD actively collaborated with and defended ICE and federal agents’ terror against immigrant workers, exposing the limitations of liberal rhetoric.
Spontaneous mass action can go further; organization is necessary to go all the way
People are the driving force of history, and they have once again proven that no force can hold them back for long. They not only proactively transcend the limits of the old system but also far surpass the organized left in the process.
The main danger to the left is revisionism, which follows the Democratic Party mafia, constantly depriving the masses of necessary organization and attempting to confine the spontaneous class consciousness won in struggles within a echo chamber of strict legality. Every mass uprising in the past decade, when the working class’s advanced sections stood up, has been marked by gunfire across the country, inspiring more workers to take to the streets.
The fiercest fighting occurs in the first few days, and the monopoly media pays close attention. At this stage, revisionists cannot help but infiltrate and seize energy. They do not lead the masses but try to suppress their activities, blocking the few revolutionaries among them. The role of revisionism in mass movements has always been to weaken momentum, disintegrate actions, and push a minority of the masses back into the mire of strict legality.
The old state, aided by revisionism and monopoly media, takes the opportunity to divide active masses into those who obey its oppressive laws and those who refuse. People are encouraged to hand over their best children to the police, while their democratic rights are stripped away.
Rebellion is justified. Heroic and fearless masses will teach all willing to listen to inherit their spirit; this will cure the left’s powerlessness. In response, serious revolutionaries—who can only be forged in these struggles—must begin relentless work, providing the masses with the leadership and organization they desperately need. Throughout this process, always guided by proletarian ideology, the class consciousness of the people will leap forward, and their anger at various attacks by the ruling class will transform into a firm resolve to overthrow the ruling class. The daily demands of the people can and must be combined with the demands for seizing power, ultimately using revolutionary violence and people’s war to seize and defend power.
Opposition to the reactionary offensive of imperialist ruling classes against the broad and deep masses, and the struggle against revisionism, are inseparable. This is to enable the masses to push the struggle to the level they desire, preventing uprisings from being suppressed. If every city conducting ICE operations responds honorably like the people of Los Angeles, ICE actions will be greatly hindered.
