Historic state repression is reigning in the United States’ second largest city Los Angeles, following a weekend of protests, arrests and violence.
Angry protests began Friday following mass arrests during immigration raids in heavily Latino neighborhoods of the city, as the administration of Donald Trump has vowed to wage the biggest deportation operation in US history.
What I’m seeing is a coup by thugs who are taking people off the street, out of their homes, kidnapping them.
They’re wearing masks, they’re not even identifying themselves, and nobody’s getting a hearing.
I can’t live in a country like that. And this reminds me of 1930s Germany.
Protester 01
It is a major historical development. For the first time since the most famous anti-Jim Crow demonstration in Selma, Alabama in 1965, the President has sent in the National Guard Military Reserve without a request from the state governor.
Despite the outcry from opposition Democrats, 4,000 Guardsmen are now patrolling Los Angeles, along with 700 of the Marine Corps, the military’s primary war fighting branch.
I think they are causing the problem. It wasn’t, just as this isn’t, a violent protest. If you bring violence to a crowd, there’s going to be a confrontation and violence. So they are controlling it, and that is, in part, what they want. They want that narrative.
Protestor 02
But whatever is going to happen, we’re going to be out here in the streets.
I mean, we see what happened in LA; things escalate quickly when the police get involved. Things have escalated in DC before when police get involved.
So it’s going to be a rough summer, I think.
Protestor 03
The increase in immigration raids follows the White House recently raising its immigration arrest quota to 3,000 arrests per day.
Polls show a majority of Americans approve of Trump’s deportation plan, but that could change amid the historic repression.
You know, there’s a lot of folks who are seeing things on the TV and on their phone, and it doesn’t really, you know, impact them, because they don’t really get the experience.
They just hear about people disappearing, and don’t think, but these people are real.
These people matter. These people impact you more than you know, and and I hope that there’s a change in the support for these deportations.
Protestor 04
The pro-immigrant protests may mark the beginning of a long, hot, political summer which could approach the levels of cultural turbulence not seen since the George Floyd protests in 2020.
