Masked and armed federal agents carried out sweeping immigration raids in Los Angeles on Friday, while others pounced on migrants at a New York courthouse in forceful displays of United States President Donald Trump’s crackdown on people without papers.
From courthouses to hardware store parking lots in two of the most diverse cities in the world, federal agents wrestled migrants into handcuffs and unmarked vehicles.
Agents used extreme tactics, conducting unprecedented raids on at least three areas of Los Angeles to detain dozens of people.
At one sweep less than two miles from Los Angeles City Hall, agents threw flash-bang grenades to disperse angry crowds of people following alongside a convoy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles as protesters hurled eggs and epithets at the agents, media reported.
“As a mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place,” LA Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.
“These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who grew up in LA’s Santa Monica, insisted on social media platform X that Bass had “no say in this at all”.
“Federal law is supreme and federal law will be enforced.”
Service Employees International Union leader David Huerta was briefly detained while documenting one of the raids in Los Angeles, according to media reports.
“Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals,” Huerta said in a statement after his release.
Homeland Security Investigations spokesperson Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe told the Los Angeles Times that federal agents were executing search warrants related to the harbouring of people illegally in the country.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Friday afternoon to demand the release of detainees, broadcaster ABC7 reported.
The largely peaceful rally was later ordered to disperse by police, with some violent clashes between protesters and riot police being reported.
