A paleta (ice cream) cart stands abandoned in Culver City. The screams of an Iranian Christian woman echo in the streets of Westwood (the center of Iranian life in LA), knowing that torture, or even death awaits her in Iran. Chemotherapy appointments are cancelled out of sheer terror of leaving the house. A 12-year-old girl, home alone, reaches out to a legal hotline—both her parents were taken and she doesn't know what to do.

Video after video spread on social media of gun-toting masked men appearing seemingly out of nowhere to kidnap gardeners, vendors, laborers or just any random brown person that happens to be walking on the wrong street at the wrong time.

This is Los Angeles in 2025. This is Los Angeles in Trump's fascist America.

ICE says they have kidnapped over 1,600 since early June throughout Southern California. But we don't know how many raids have taken place throughout the region each day. The documentation is happening through grassroots efforts with individual family members, neighbors or social service organizations working to track down families, share video, collect people's cars, food carts or work tools after they've been taken.

But there is another side to this heartless repression.

Through spontaneous outrage, and organized networks, people are putting themselves in the way, demanding this nightmare stop. Random passers-by pull out their phones and courageously get in the face of these federal ICE agents. Some people have physically intervened to prevent these illegal abductions, sometimes getting arrested themselves. In response, ICE agents have pounced on and attacked citizens—arresting Home Depot workers, a young journalist and activist, brutalizing people as they try to scurry away with the people they've kidnapped. 

This too is Los Angeles in 2025. 

What is yet to be determined is which force—as a part of which future—will win out.

Nazi Goons on a Violent Rampage, on Trump’s Orders

As part of their rampaging wave of terror, these federal agents are relying on increased violence. They regularly throw tear gas into crowds who are standing by filming. They smash windows and beat people they're targeting or have captured, as well as anyone else that gets in their way, citizens as well as non-citizens.

Last week, they were caught on film brutally beating a gardener—Narciso Barranco—who was cutting weeds at an IHOP restaurant. He was repeatedly punched in the head, pepper sprayed, and his shoulder was dislocated. 

This week, federal agents engaged in an extremely dangerous raid on a home which seems like it was an act of gangster-like retribution. Without knocking first, a swarm of federal agents in military gear blew up the front door of Jorge Sierra-Hernandez's house in Huntington Park. The force shattered a window and they used a drone to search room by room. Sierra-Hernandez wasn't home, but his girlfriend, Jenny Ramirez, was there with their two small children. She rushed out in terror for her life, having no idea what was happening or why.

Ramirez told the local news, "They didn't identify themselves until I came out, they told me they were from Homeland Security, from ICE." ABC7 wrote: "[Ramirez] pleaded with them to give her an explanation, but instead of giving her an answer, they said 'when we find him he's going to know why.'"

Think about that ominous threat.  

What was the charge? In an ICE raid the previous week—where masses of people surrounded these face-masked thugs at a carwash in Bell—some people were alleged to have hit their cars into ICE vehicles. But this is hard to tell because ICE was driving their unmarked cars erratically. Whatever happened, these federal thugs bombarded this home without any warning, without Sierra-Hernandez even knowing there was a warrant out for his arrest. 

People Organize at the Grass Roots

In opposition to this mass societal terror, neighborhood patrols are starting up as anti-ICE rapid response networks. Restaurants and grocery stores are doing home deliveries so immigrants don't have to leave their homes. There are all kinds of online fundraisers being done to buy out a whole vendor cart so the vendors can survive without risking being abducted. Local runners’ groups are organizing their group runs to be part of "ICE watch networks." 

This resistance is also reaching into local government, churches and other institutions. 

** A couple weeks ago, the Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo tried to gain access to a local ICE detention center and was prevented from entering. He talked to a woman outside whose husband was being held without his medication, and Gordo—who is also a lawyer—agreed on the spot to represent her. So he was able to access ICE's facility as this man's lawyer. He has spoken out at protests, including at a protest at a hotel where ICE agents were staying. The protesters made so much noise that the hotel asked the ICE agents to leave.

** Rev. Michael Pham is the first American bishop appointed by Pope Leo. He was named bishop of San Diego, California in May. Last week, he called for priests, deacons and parish leaders to accompany migrants to court and stand in solidarity with them. 

** Cynthia Gonzalez, the Vice Mayor of Cudahy (a small LA suburb), recently posted a video calling for the youth in the neighborhoods to stand up and defend the immigrants from these unjust kidnappings. She said, "I wanna know where all the cholos are at in Los Angeles. 18th Street, Florencia. Where's the leadership at?... Now that your hood is being invaded by the biggest gang there is, there ain't a peep out of you... Don't be trying to claim no block, no nothing if you're not showing up right now trying to help out and organize." This was met with an outcry from fascists who completely distorted what she was calling for, saying that she was encouraging gangs to attack ICE. She is reportedly being investigated by the FBI, and the head of the "Police Protective League" has called for her resignation. 

** Organizations representing people from different nationalities have spoken out. The executive director of the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Equity Alliance—a coalition of nearly 50 organizations—said, "When ICE comes for one of us, they are coming for all of us.” A group of Black community and religious organizations, organized by Black Women for Wellness, held a press conference in Leimert Park—the cultural heart of Black LA—to speak out against the raids. The press conference was actually disrupted by a group of anti-immigrant Black reactionaries demanding "reparations and not immigration"—joining in on the chorus of attacks against immigrants. But the speakers refused to be deterred and talked about the importance of unity and solidarity in the face of fascism, and escalating attacks. Speakers included Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Black Lives Matter LA, and Black Women for Wellness.

All this is very moving and significant. It's contributing to the outrage and sense of absolute illegitimacy of Trump and these fascist stormtroopers. It's showing the potential for civil and government institutions to be split, causing major shifts and realignments in a way that contributes to defeating this fascism. 

There is also a potential contradiction for the Trump fascist regime in the make-up of their military—but this needs to come out more openly. Right now, the National Guard and Marines are still deployed to LA. They can be seen "protecting" federal buildings and ICE detention centers. At the very beginning of their deployment, they were seen patrolling with ICE agents, but this caused such an outrage, this has been discontinued—for now. Almost 28% of U.S. Marines identify as "Hispanic," and while the numbers aren't known, there is some percentage of that whose parents are undocumented.

Narciso Barranco—the gardener we spoke about above, who was brutally beaten at IHOP—has three sons born in the U.S. Two of his sons are currently serving in the U.S. Marines, and one formerly served. After his father was brutally beaten and kidnapped, Alejandro Barranco said that he and his brothers “feel hurt; we feel betrayed.” That sense of betrayal needs to grow and spread—linked to a recognition that what these troops are being asked to violently defend and enforce is a completely illegitimate fascist regime.

In a recent social media message, the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian talked about how "Donald Trump’s whole fascist regime is caught in a contradiction of its own making," with the repeated and totally dehumanizing "Big Lie" that all immigrants are "criminals and rapists." 

The Big Lies about immigrants, and the brutal, lawless actions carried out on the basis of these Big Lies, is a frontline assault and battering ram in this regime’s move to consolidate its fascist rule. At the same time, acting on these Big Lies—viciously going after immigrants who are not violent criminals—is causing big trouble for the Trump regime: Masses of ordinary people, including large numbers of people who are not immigrants but do believe in basic rights and treating people fairly and decently, have been outraged by these attacks on immigrants and have mobilized in protest against this—as part of the continuing huge protests and resistance overall against the many-sided outrages continually perpetrated by this fascist regime and its ongoing lawless tyranny. (from REVOLUTION #124, Donald Trump’s whole fascist regime is caught in a contradiction of its own making: his continual Big Lies.

But this is still just a start, and things are going to go one way or another. 

The fascist stormtroopers are the front line in an all-sided fascist assault on society. As Bob Avakian speaks to in that same social media message: 

These terroristic attacks on immigrants, and those standing with them, are part of this fascist regime’s overall moves to forcibly impose a return to the kind of situation that existed in this country for most of its existence—where racist oppression and oppression based on sex and gender, and crude, unthinking allegiance to American supremacy are openly proclaimed, and this is being enforced now by a regime full of deranged anti-scientific fanatics, while those who oppose this are violently attacked. This Trump fascist regime is determined to blast ahead to enforce all this with increasing and intensifying police-state tyranny.

Those standing up against these attacks on immigrants need to increasingly see their fight not just as a way to stand up with our neighbors and friends and family—but as a way to prevent this regime from implementing this fascist program. Imagine if every time these ICE agents appear to kidnap people, there are not just dozens or hundreds speaking out against this in mass non-violent protest, but what if there start to be thousands? This can contribute to a situation where the Trump fascist regime is literally not able to implement their fascist program. 

And imagine this getting linked to a recognition that to really STOP these fascist ICE raids, to get the occupying army out of Los Angeles, to STOP the surveillance and repression against immigrant rights groups, and to defeat the whole fascist program all this is part of—the whole fascist regime has to go, NOW! 

This has to be made real through mass, sustained non-violent protest, uniting all who can be united, overcoming divide-and-conquer, not stopping until this regime is driven from power.