Last week, there was a news “leak” that ICE would be coming to Los Angeles; the ICE actions did not materialize until Friday when three homes were raided. All week long, community defense coalitions and rapid response networks organized by social service agencies and legal groups patrolled and canvassed, while ways to report ICE went up on ad hoc civilian platforms and TikTok accounts widely used by immigrants. Nine million “Know your rights” cards—known as “red cards”—have been distributed nationally, and the LA Times and Spanish media have printed extensive articles so that people know their rights. Because of this, many do not open their doors or speak to ICE if those agents don’t have the proper legal warrants. ICE said their goal was to arrest and detain 120 people over the weekend—by Sunday night, they had 12 people in custody.
There were three private homes raided on Friday in Pico Union and South Central. At one of them, ICE broke the doors down before even showing a warrant. Like Gestapo storm troopers, they busted down the doors, turned everything in the home upside down and punched holes in the walls. At one place, ICE claimed they were looking for human traffickers but left with an 18-year-old woman who had missed an immigration hearing and had no criminal record. At each home they raided, ICE agents were met not only by organized resistance but people in the neighborhoods coming out of their houses to help their neighbors. People in the neighborhood took videos and called on friends from nearby to come. Crowds yelled at ICE and the LAPD which was also on scene. (The LAPD is prohibited by city sanctuary laws from participating in immigration enforcement.) Some even blockaded the streets with their cars. The fear that normally has people retreating more deeply into the shadows is breaking, and there is a feisty mood—lifted by the large outpouring of people who took the freeways and walked out of schools in early February to say: we are here, we are human beings, this is our home and we are not going anywhere.
Immigrant March Through Downtown Los Angeles
Families came with their kids who carried their own toy bullhorns, fiercely leading chants. “No one is illegal here—power to the people.” @therevcoms
On Saturday, the interfaith religious coalition CLUE mobilized hundreds of people from different congregations, social service organizations and the labor union UNITE in a march for dignity. The march brought out a spirited and much-needed show of other nationalities and concerned clergy, teachers and professionals standing together with the immigrants. The spirit of the people was loud and joyous, with people bringing horns, noisemakers and bullhorns and chants that echoed off the buildings downtown. Families came with their kids who carried their own toy bullhorns, fiercely leading chants. “No one is illegal here—power to the people.” There was a real sense of urgency that Trump is moving to shut down the sanctuary cities and that people would have to unite in love and mass mobilization to defend the sanctuary laws which stand as a real impediment to the declared intentions to ethnically cleanse the country of immigrants. The rally closed with a rabbi with the coalition letting people know that when the federal government comes for the immigrants, they are not only coming for the immigrants—that we are here to stand with them.
Refuse Fascism brought out a contingent to march in unity and to bring the message that these raids, the ominous opening of detention camps at military bases where immigrants will have NO access to due process, the deployment of thousands more U.S. military to the U.S. border, and Trump’s executive order designating English as the “official language” of the U.S. is reminiscent of what happened in Nazi Germany. This is fascism—fascism that is blatantly stripping trans people of their civil rights, fascist white supremacy that is criminalizing DEI (“diversity, equity, inclusion”), including as the rationale for shutting down of whole agencies in the federal government.
“Fascism changes the way the country is ruled. Fascism eliminates basic civil and democratic rights. Openly oppressive and repressive, fascism rules by decree, backed up by brute force and violent thugs. Fascism has direction and momentum. Dissent is criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is targeted along a trajectory that leads to horror. It is necessary, but not enough, to fight each attack as it comes. We must take the offensive against the whole Trump/MAGA program and direction.” (from Refuse Fascism statement, February 2025)
THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity also joined the march, distributing the important new statement from Bob Avakian: “Trump’s fascist rule, like Hitler’s before him, is a regime of horrors—and is completely illegitimate.” People appreciatively reached for the printed flyer of the message that gave not only the sober and urgent assessment of the situation, but also outlined how Trump/MAGA fascism can be defeated.
Scattered throughout the crowd were homemade signs calling Trump a fascist, and during the march the revcoms talked with members of the clergy, many who definitely think what we are facing is fascism but did not necessarily see why it needed to be named. It needs to be named because it is very hard to win a fight if people don’t know, or won’t really confront, the nature of the enemy, and they won’t be able to do that if those who do say they know withhold that information!!
People wanted to know why we felt this fascism could be defeated, how millions could be mobilized in time, or if the American people had it in them to do this. People were themselves grappling with, but at the same time not fully confronting, the problem with waging defensive battles as group by group are bludgeoned. The lessons of history are that far too often people have played it safe and waited until it was too late. This is the question of the hour for people in the institutions to really reckon with. Good work and service will most certainly not survive by operating inside the rules allowed by a regime rapidly and forcibly hammering into place a fascist form of open dictatorship that is far more dangerous than the monstrous crimes Hitler's rise to power brought to the world.
Refuse Fascism Masses at the Detention Center
Later that afternoon, Refuse Fascism assembled in front of the federal detention tower where the immigrants being detained in LA are held. Family members of the people being held here have shown up daily to bring signs with messages written for their loved ones and telescopic lenses to look in the windows, just hoping to catch a glimpse of their family members. For a few hours, Refuse Fascism held a speak-out to deliver its message to the detainees and an art-build where they painted a 25-foot banner on black material with the message “Trump Must GO.”
People in the detention center could see the speak-out from their windows and flashed mirrors to let us know they could hear us on the sound system. They made so much noise that the banging coming from inside the tower could be heard on the street below. People took the mic to deliver messages to the detainees. A high school student from Friday's walk-out in the San Fernando Valley spoke about having been in foster care since she was eight and knowing what it's like to suddenly be removed from your family and to no longer be able to make those memories; she expressed her love and sorrow for what people are being put through. A young woman who has been protesting since the freeway takeover asked people to say the name of Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, a high school student from Gainesville, Texas who committed suicide after being bullied and threats made to Latino students that their families' immigration status would be reported and their parents would be deported. She recounted her own memories of coming home at age nine and her parents telling her if they did not come home, it was not because they did not love her or had abandoned her but because they had been deported, and the mark that leaves on your life. She spoke to how her parents had made it possible for her to live a life that she has dedicated to taking care of cancer patients, and she said that now she does not care what happens to her—she has thrown herself to making this nightmare of fascism stop.
A speaker for the Refuse Fascism LA chapter said, “This isn’t about politics anymore. This is right vs. wrong. This is about racism and hatred. This is fascism. This has to be stopped now. We don’t have time to wait. Innocent people are dying and their blood is on the hands of the American government.”
As people came to the mic and played music, they also made plans for a march in West Hollywood on March 8 International Women's Day (IWD). They also planned on watching Trump's Tuesday address to Congress in West Hollywood while they fan out to get the local businesses and people living in a vibrant neighborhood that is a center of LGBTQ life to plaster the area with posters for the nationwide protest IWD: Stop the War on Women and LGBTQ People/In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America/The Fascist Trump Regime Must Go!