A year after L.A.’s raids, ICE says more

A year after President Trump’s immigration raids swept through Los Angeles, communities across the Southland say they still feel the damage—and point to fresh federal funding and vows of “mass deportations” as evidence that the assault on due process is not sl

This Saturday marks a grim anniversary in Los Angeles: one year since President Trump unleashed what the author describes as a deportation “deluge” that rippled across the country and left parts of the city quiet for weeks like “the coronavirus shutdown days.”

The story begins with a day at Pacific Palisades and the reopening of the Thomas Mann House—shut down for months of cleaning after it survived the Palisades fire. As speaker after speaker at the event praised the author’s prescient warnings about the slow burn of totalitarianism in Germany. text messages began landing on a phone: news of immigration raids near downtown Los Angeles on a scale and number “not seen in decades.”.

Masked federal agents soon spread across Southern California, and protests followed. Many of those arrested. the author says. had no criminal record. but the White House portrayed the sweeps as targeting “hardcore criminals.” Protesters. the author adds. were charged with federal crimes on scant evidence. And in the streets, the raids did not only target noncitizens—masked agents, the author writes, asked U.S. citizens of Latino heritage to produce ID to prove they were in this country legally.

The impact stretched everywhere. The author describes raids reaching workplaces, residential streets, courthouses, and public spaces including MacArthur Park and a Home Depot. The disruption also reached major venues, including Dodger Stadium’s parking lot. The author recounts that no one. in their view. was safe from what they call a toxic “alphabet soup” of federal agencies tasked with removing people without papers. “damn the cost.”.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is described as deploying the National Guard and sending Marines to quell dissent—an escalation the author compares to a “Star Wars” Sith lord. Those raids. the author says. left large swaths of Los Angeles as quiet as a shutdown. and some areas “still haven’t rebounded” and “might never.”.

The author writes that commemorations are planned this weekend across the Southland to remember the people and the “tranquility” lost over the past 12 months. The author also says an “official caravan of cruelty” led by former Border Patrol commander at large Gregory Bovino departed Los Angeles after a few weeks for other U.S. cities, including Chicago and Minneapolis—but deportations and detentions in Los Angeles, the author writes, have never completely stopped.

The anniversary comes as federal plans expand beyond Los Angeles. The author points to border czar Tom Homan. who recently vowed that “much more is just over the horizon. ” saying last month in opening remarks for the Border Security Expo in Phoenix: “You ain’t seen s— yet.” The author then quotes Homan’s continuation: “This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming.”.

In the personal account at the center of the piece. the author keeps an orange whistle—picked up last fall while visiting Chicago—as a reminder of those early weeks. The author writes that Bovino. at the time overseeing operations in Chicago. has since become an apostle for deporting 100 million people. “as if anything remotely close to that many undocumented people lived in the U.S.” In Chicago. residents adopted the whistles as an inexpensive warning in case “la migra was rolling in. ” and as a call to action.

The author describes how whistles were tied to practical fears during the raids—when cellphone service went down around the Metropolitan Detention Center during the first weekend. Chicago organizers learned how Angelenos had communicated under pressure. The author also says Los Angeles activists helped spread the template nationwide.

While the author notes that no one in their immediate circle of family or friends has been detained—because people close to them had legalized their status before Trump “poisoned our country”—the author says the experience still reached them. They describe having nightmares about ICE taking away loved ones and even themselves. and say their passport “has never left [their] side since last summer” and “probably never will again.”.

The piece returns to the question of who would be targeted, and what people saw. The author writes that the first few weeks brought tear gas canisters and pepper balls thrown at activists. Businesses shut down out of fear. Social media, the author says, turned into a stream of men and women chased down by anonymous agents. Telephone poles. the author adds. were covered in fundraising pleas for families whose breadwinners. as described in the author’s account. were either rotting in a faraway detention center or sent back to their home countries.

The author argues that the administration likely counted on apathy or tacit approval—pointing to a history of U.S. deportation and roundup campaigns. In that framing. the piece compares the 2020s raids in Los Angeles to the rounding up of Japanese Americans during World War II. and to the Eisenhower administration deporting hundreds of thousands of Mexican nationals in the 1950s during a program known as Operation Wetback. The author also writes that only Latinos and progressive allies seemed to care when Immigration and Naturalization Service raids spread in the 1980s. and when anti-immigrant resolutions and propositions were passed or proposed in the 1990s.

Even the author’s memory of earlier mass mobilizations plays into the story’s emotional center. The 2006 immigration marches. the author writes. were among the largest rallies the United States had seen up to that point. yet they attracted people from only some parts of the city. This time. the author says. it felt as if “all good Angelenos rose up”—from the Westside to Boyle Heights. from Wilmington up to Sylmar—people who had never engaged in street-level resistance buying out street vendors to reduce exposure to possible detainment. setting up mutual aid societies. and forming neighborhood patrols.

In the same telling. people accompanied immigrants to court hearings. took them into their homes. and handed out know-your-rights cards at businesses—described with particular personal detail. including that the author’s wife does so at her restaurant. The author writes that people “saw beloved neighbors. ” “favorite street vendors. ” and even high schoolers nabbed. and therefore did not buy the White House line that it only went after “the worst of the worst.”.

The author links that organizing to concrete outcomes: the role of whistles. the role of communication when cellphone service went down around the Metropolitan Detention Center. and a shift away from singular heroes toward collective action. In that comparison. the author points to the difficulty of cutting down a movement when “everyone’s a leader. ” invoking the finale of “Spartacus.”.

There’s a turn at the end that brings the anniversary back to the present day. The author says that this weekend’s slogans will include “Never again,” but also urges people to say “Bring it on.” They argue that the country can’t assume the worst is behind it.

The author points to a specific policy step they say happened just days before: “Just yesterday,” the U.S. Senate approved $70 billion more for ICE and the Border Patrol over the remainder of Trump’s term. Ending with a line attributed to Thomas Mann—“Tolerance becomes crime. if extended to evil”—the author closes on a vow that Los Angeles is more ready than before to face off again against what they describe as the “dark thugocracy” of Trump and his “confederacy of goons.”.

Los Angeles raids ICE Border Patrol Tom Homan Gregory Bovino National Guard Marinesto deportations immigration policy protests whistle campaign