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Jun 13, 25
Filed under: Editorials, Featured, Immigration, Repression, Solidarity, The State, US
Over the past week, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Los Angeles, fighting to defend their neighborhoods and family members from ICE, facing off with the National Guard to demand those imprisoned by DHS be released, and fiercely pushing back against the brutality of the LAPD. This bravery has been inspiring, especially in the face of bloodthirsty attacks by the state.
Following violent raids on multiple workplaces, thousands have taken to the streets of #LosAngeles against ICE as Trump has sent in the National Guard. Police have injured multiple journalists and @seiu.org leader, David Huerta. Our roundup of spreading protests. itsgoingdown.org/national-gua…
— It's Going Down (@igd.bsky.social) 2025-06-09T08:53:39.550Z
Meanwhile, across the country, thousands more are taking action in solidarity, rallying outside of ICE prisons, shutting down courthouses to stop deportations, demonstrating in support of an SEIU union leader who was brutalized and arrested, kicking agents out of hotels, and demanding corporations cuts ties with ICE.
A groundswell is building – both against the Trump regime and the Democratic party, as millions reject the targeting of pro-Palestinian anti-war activists and massive attacks on social services, labor unions, and healthcare amid an escalating push towards authoritarianism.
A White Nationalist Agenda
The Trump administration’s assault on migrant workers doesn’t come out of nowhere – and it isn’t in response to “crime.” It’s being directed by Stephen Miller, a white nationalist who attended Duke University alongside neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer, infamous for organizing the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA. Alongside Spencer, Miller organized speaking events for white supremacist thought leaders and after leaving college, he began working for Republican politicians. In the lead-up to the Trump presidency, Miller promoted white nationalist publications and groups to further his attacks on immigrants. The New York Times quoted Trump as saying that, “If it was up to Mr. Miller, there would be only 100 million people in this country, and they would all look like Mr. Miller.”
We feed you.They hunt us.
— United Farm Workers (@ufw.bsky.social) 2025-06-11T05:05:34.591Z
Now, Miller is putting his dream of mechanized ethnic cleansing into practice – ramping up deportations, ripping apart families, throwing people into deadly detention camps, and preparing to send thousands to Guantanamo Bay, while hundreds more remain locked inside a slave-labor prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration has terminated protected status for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees while demanding that ICE begin targeting “non-criminals” by raiding workplaces, churches, and schools and arresting those attending court hearings, all in an effort to boost deportation numbers. If we do nothing, the horrors we refuse to confront today will be turned on us tomorrow.
Trump is Not All Powerful
The threats we face from the Trump administration are real. Trump wants to consolidate power for authoritarian ends, build a massive techno-police state, push the US towards open war, silence journalists, jail protesters, and target his opponents while enriching himself and the corporate elite. While the threat that Trump poses cannot be ignored, he also isn’t all powerful. His coalition is already cracking and his poll numbers are tanking. Conditions are getting worse, prices continue to rise, and people are desperate. More importantly, resistance – just like during his first term – is growing.
Just printed a bunch of copies in a rainbow of colors to give out at a local No Kings rally! 🌈
— Laura (@tutusntinyhats.bsky.social) 2025-06-12T15:00:55.263Z
In 2017, it was massive social struggles and popular revolt that set a limit on Trump’s agenda. At the start of his first term, mass protests shut down airports in response to the racist Muslim Ban. Mass antifascist action from Berkeley to Charlottesville shut down the Alt-Right, helping to force out key members of Trump’s cabinet, like the neo-fascist Steve Bannon. In 2018, Trump’s popularity around immigration tanked as images of “kids in cages” rattled even his base, and the Abolish ICE movement threw a collective wrench into the machinery of the deportation machine. By 2020, widespread mutual aid projects stepped up to fill the gaps left by the state’s refusal to address the COVID-19 pandemic and in May, a nationwide uprising broke out in response to the police murder of George Floyd, rattling the foundations of US society and contributing to Trump’s defeat in 2020.
Already in 2025, Trump’s attempts to round up and deport anti-war protesters have hit a wall, with growing protests forcing the state to release multiple international students as well as to return Kilmar Garcia. A wave of ongoing demonstrations, graffiti, and targeted sabotage has also tanked Tesla’s image and stock value around the world, helping to push out of the White House the Nazi-saluting billionaire Elon Musk. So-called “Border Czar” Tom Homan has also complained that widespread grassroots organizing – including rapid response networks, Know Your Rights trainings, and explosive demonstrations – have all contributed to obstructing ICE operations. In the face of this mounting pressure, ICE is turning up the heat, but in doing so, they have hit another impasse: mass resistance.
LA Can’t Fight Alone
In 2020, following the police murder of George Floyd, millions of people took part in one of the largest social upheavals since the Civil War. Cooperating across racial lines, people came together in the streets to physically confront the brutal power of the state in the midst of a pandemic that killed millions of people as the rich celebrated record profits. In the face of murderous vigilantes, heavily militarized cops, and the National Guard, people rose up and opened up space to gather, organize, and defend one another.
Five years later, we face another crisis: the threat of American fascism in the midst of a civilization that is collapsing all around us. We are working more than ever as inflation soars and people cannot afford homes, healthcare, or even food. Wildfires and floods grow worse every year while the ranks of the homeless swell. The only response from both corporate political parties is more police, more prisons, and more repression, while mass media promote conspiracy theories that pit us against each other, inequality explodes, and billionaires push the latest tech dystopia. The center cannot hold.
Seven Steps to Stop ICEcrimethinc.com/zines/seven-…This flier outlines seven projects that you can undertake with your community to build a combative movement capable of resisting the violent attacks of ICE and other federal mercenaries.Please print and distribute!
— CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective (@crimethinc.com) 2025-06-13T07:34:12.746Z
Those in power want to paint our only way forward as a choice between a Trump dictatorship and a neoliberal hellscape. A choice between two competing versions of authoritarian capitalism is no choice at all – it is a death sentence. People in LA are facing down the National Guard sent in by Trump and thousands of riot police and a city-wide curfew, put in place by Democrats.
Like the people taking the streets in Los Angeles, we must choose a third option: fighting our way out and building a new way of life based on cooperation and direct control over the means of existence.
Photo by Michael Muthee on Unsplash
