Provoked protests and violence

Provoked protests and violence

by the editorial team of Sozialismus.de

Background to Trump's authoritarian deportation policy

[This article posted on 6/10/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.sozialismus.de/kommentare_analysen/detail/artikel/provozierte-proteste-und-gewalt/.]

At the end of last week, the US border control agency responsible for deporting migrants without legal residence permits (United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement – ICE) randomly arrested day laborers who were looking for work outside a hardware store in Los Angeles, as they usually do. This sparked protests in the city and elsewhere.

According to the Los Angeles Times, however, it was primarily an Instagram video post by local politician José Luis Solache that drove people onto the streets. On Saturday morning, he had observed ICE officers lining up in front of a Department of Homeland Security office across from the hardware store: “Many residents are showing up to show that they are not welcome here.”

The day before, ICE agents had already carried out four raids at businesses in the city. Spontaneous protests broke out in front of a clothing company, among other places. Armed security forces with armored vehicles cleared the way so that the arrested migrants could be transported away. When union leader David Huerta protested, he was knocked to the ground and arrested.

US President Donald Trump seems to want to make California – a Democratic stronghold – an example of his tough immigration policy. The news channel CNN comments: “It's the showdown the White House has been waiting for.” The images of protests and demonstrators waving Mexican flags are a gift to the president. He is using them to reinforce his view of immigration as an “invasion” or “occupation” of the US. Back in May, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller called for an increase in daily migrant arrests and reportedly threatened department heads with dismissal if their daily quotas were too low.

The effects of Trump's long-announced tougher immigration policy are becoming clear. Thousands of irregular Latin American immigrants have been arrested and many of them deported, despite criticism from civil rights and human rights activists. The president had declared a state of emergency on the US border with Mexico for this purpose. In addition, the US Congress has already passed a tougher immigration law, the “Lakes Riley Act.” Under this law, people without valid residence status will be detained in immigration detention centers not only for serious crimes but also for minor offenses, such as shoplifting.

In the first week of Trump's second term, nearly 2,400 migrants were arrested, and ICE is now releasing new figures every day. The arrests are allegedly targeting immigrants with criminal records. A presidential spokeswoman last week spoke of the “largest mass deportation in history.” However, there were also hundreds of arrests every day under Joe Biden's Democratic predecessor administration – an average of 311 in 2024, compared to 467 the year before.

The deportations could increase in the coming weeks and months, as Trump announced in his inaugural speech on January 20 that “millions and millions” would be deported. His “border czar,” ICE Director Tom Homan, told Fox News: “You will see the number of arrests steadily increase across the country.” This will require more financial support from Congress, he said. The migrants deported by the Trump administration so far have been flown mainly to Mexico and Guatemala. The Mexican government is now planning to set up reception camps.


Transition to authoritarian politics

Trump is forcing the Democrats into a difficult balancing act over the tightening of deportation policy. Their lax migration policy cost them the election in November. How strongly would they now stand up for migrants? Any kind of sympathy for undocumented people is labeled by Republicans as treason and collusion with criminals. For Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker, the protests in Los Angeles show that “one side is enforcing the law and protecting Americans, while the other side is defending illegal immigrants and siding with lawbreakers.”

This authoritarian immigration policy led to protests and violent riots. Peaceful demonstrators blocked major roads in Los Angeles, some threw fireworks at police officers, while other activists took advantage of the situation to loot shops or set cars on fire. The police used tear gas, flash grenades, and “non-lethal” projectiles and banned further demonstrations in the city center. Nevertheless, relatively small and mostly peaceful protests continued.

Some turned violent. “ICE out” was chanted, garbage bags were set on fire in the streets, and border patrol cars were pelted with rocks. The ‘chaos’ was limited to a small area, the Los Angeles Times noted, "but it was enough to provide dramatic television images. And it was an important trigger for the Trump administration to send 2,000 National Guard troops to LA."

The following day, the US president ordered part of the California National Guard to be placed under federal command for 60 days to protect federal buildings and personnel. This was because the protests in California were “a form of rebellion against the government of the United States.” On Monday afternoon, the president mobilized another 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 active Marines. Trump has so far refrained from invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the military domestically for police tasks such as arrests.

George H.W. Bush was the last president to mobilize the National Guard to control serious riots in Los Angeles in 1992, at the request of the governor at the time. Trump, on the other hand, not only bypassed the current governor, but also insulted the Democrat as “scum”: “If Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass can't get their act together, the federal government will solve the problem,” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. On Monday, he even called for Newsom's arrest.

Newsom and Bass condemned the violence. But they accused Trump of deliberately trying to fuel the protests by sending in the National Guard. The governor wants to sue the president: “Donald Trump is pouring gasoline on the fire. Deploying the National Guard to a state without consulting the governor is illegal and immoral.” He called on protesters to remain peaceful and not fall into Trump's trap. The call for his arrest was a “clear step toward authoritarianism.”

The mayor of Los Angeles, also a Democrat, Bass told Nation Public Radio that local police had the protests under control, which had arisen in response to the wave of ICE arrests, but “now the city is a powder keg.” Even migrants who had shown up for regular interviews with immigration authorities had been arrested, including those with children who are American citizens. Many immigrant families in the US currently fear being torn apart.


Who are the immigrants without legal residence status?

The number of illegal immigrants in the US is likely to have risen in the last two years, according to various alternative data sources. For example, encounters with migrants at the US borders reached record levels in 2022/23, and the number of applicants awaiting a decision on their asylum application rose by about one million by the end of 2023.

In addition, by December 2023, around 500,000 new immigrants were admitted to the country on probation under two federal programs—the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) program and the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program. Groups such as these have traditionally been considered part of the unauthorized immigrant population, but almost none of them appear in the estimates for 2022.

According to estimates by the Pew Research Center from July 2024, on which the following figures are based, the number of illegal immigrants in the 11.0 million in 2022. These are based on the 2022 American Community Survey, the most recent year available. The increase from 10.5 million in 2021 reversed a long-term downward trend from 2007 to 2019. This is the first sustained increase in the number of illegal immigrants since the period from 2005 to 2007. However, the number of illegal immigrants living in the US in 2022 was still below the peak of 12.2 million in 2007.

The number of illegal immigrants from Mexico has fallen from a peak of 6.9 million in 2007 to 4.0 million in 2022. Mexico has long been the most common country of birth for illegal immigrants and remains so.
From 2019 to 2022, the number of illegal immigrants grew from nearly every region of the world, but especially from the Caribbean, South America, Asia, Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa.
The number of illegal immigrants rose between 2019 and 2022 in six states – Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Texas. Only California saw a decline.
In 2022, around 8.3 million US workers were illegal immigrants, up from 7.4 million in 2019. The 2022 figure is essentially in line with previous highs in 2008 and 2011.

In 2022, illegal immigrants accounted for 3.3% of the total US population and 23% of the foreign-born population. These shares were below the peak levels of 2007 but slightly above those of 2019. At the same time, the number of legal immigrants grew steadily from 24.1 million in 2000 to 36.9 million in 2022. This growth was due to the rapid increase in naturalizations from 10.7 million to 23.4 million. The number of legal permanent residents fell slightly from 11.9 million to 11.5 million. As a result, 49% of all immigrants in 2022 were naturalized US citizens.

Illegal immigrants live in 6.3 million households with a total of over 22 million inhabitants. These households account for 4.8% of the 130 million US households. In 86% of these households, either the head of the household or their spouse is an illegal immigrant. Nearly 70% of these households are considered “mixed-status” households, meaning that they also include legal immigrants or US-born residents. In only about 5% of these households are the illegal immigrants unrelated to the head of household or spouse. In these cases, they are likely to be workers or roommates.

Of the 22 million people living in households with illegal immigrants, 11 million were born in the US or have legal residence permits. This includes 1.3 million US-born adults who are children of illegal immigrants, as well as 1.4 million other US-born adults and 3.0 million legally immigrated adults.

Approximately 4.4 million children under the age of 18 born in the US live with an unauthorized immigrant parent. This represents approximately 84% of all minor children living with an unauthorized immigrant parent. In total, approximately 850,000 children under the age of 18 are unauthorized immigrants in 2022.


How are the mass deportations being carried out?

In principle, after arrest, a US court decides on the deportation of migrants who do not have valid residence permits. If deportation is ordered, they are transported to their countries of origin by US Army aircraft or civilian aircraft and handed over to the authorities there.

Trump's strategy is to increase the number and deport them even faster. One of his first measures was to shut down the “CBP One” app, which allowed migrants to apply for asylum online and make appointments. The shutdown also canceled asylum appointments that had already been made.

The US government also announced last week that irregular immigrants can now be arrested in churches, schools, and hospitals. Legally, this was already possible before. However, a special regulation previously stipulated that US immigration officials could not operate in such “sensitive locations” without special permission.

The current deportations of Latin American migrants in particular are being staged for public effect. Among other things, the White House is posting images of “criminal” migrants on its social media account. This is one reason why the arrests and deportations are perceived as particularly brutal. In addition to Colombia, Brazil has also complained about the inhumane treatment of deportees.