ICE Terrorizes Los Angeles While Trump Cheers From the Sidelines

It’s hard to describe what it feels like to watch your city become a political prop. To see Los Angeles — a city as complicated, vibrant, and resilient as any in the country —turned into a stage for one man’s obsession with cruelty disguised as policy.

As ICE agents storm factories, detain workers, and instill fear in immigrant neighborhoods, Donald Trump isn’t here. He’s not in the streets. He’s not facing the people whose lives he’s disrupting. He had spent the night before at a UFC event in Las Vegas, basking in adulation, cheering for knockouts while ICE knocked on the doors of hard-working families in my city.

This is what grandstanding looks like when it wears a uniform.

More than 100,000 arrests have already been made in his second term. ICE is conducting more than 2,000 arrests a day, a number that dwarfs even Trump’s first term numbers and makes the Biden-era enforcement look like a different century. And these aren’t just “violent criminals” being apprehended, no matter how many times the talking points insist otherwise. They are factory workers, students’ parents, longtime residents with no criminal records — people whose only “crime” was showing up for work while undocumented in a system that depends on their labor and demonizes it at the same time.

This hits home for me in a way I wish it didn’t. I spoke last week to a student whose parents were caught up in one of these ICE raids — at a manufacturing plant just a few miles outside the city. His voice cracked as he told me what happened. His mom, he said, may have broken her ankle while trying to flee the chaos. His father, as of now, seems to be okay. But their son isn’t. Because he’s not just scared for their safety— he’s scared that this government, this president, is targeting people like his family on purpose. And he’s right.

While federal agents in tactical gear march through our neighborhoods, Trump is posing for cameras in Las Vegas, waving at fans, and tweeting about how strong he is. And Fox News, in true form, is running defense for him like their paychecks depend on it—because they do. In one headline after another, Fox insists that Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass are “letting LA burn,” that immigrant communities are rioting out of control, that Democrats are the real threat to public order. They paint federal crackdowns as heroism and local outrage as anarchy.

That’s not journalism. That’s gaslighting on a national scale.

In this warped version of reality, working-class immigrants aren’t scared parents—they’re criminal invaders. Local leaders aren’t navigating chaos — they’re collaborators in crime. And Los Angeles isn’t standing up for its people — it’s being portrayed as a war zone. This narrative doesn’t just misinform — it dehumanizes. And it’s dangerous.

Let’s also stop pretending that this is just about Trump. It’s not. It’s also about ICE as an institution — a garbage organization that has long since abandoned any pretense of justice or integrity. The agency was born out of fear and paranoia after 9/11 and has grown into one of the most unaccountable, abusive forces in the federal government. Its culture rewards cruelty, punishes compassion, and operates in the legal gray zones that make constitutional scholars cringe. From courthouse arrests to separating families at the border to raiding workplaces without warrants, ICE has made a career out of treating human lives like contraband. And every last agent following these unconstitutional orders should be ashamed of themselves. “Just doing your job” is not a defense when your job is morally bankrupt. The badge does not absolve you. You are not keeping anyone safe. You are terrorizing communities and destroying trust in law enforcement — often while hiding behind masks and shields. If ICE had even a fraction of the courage they pretend to, they’d blow the whistle instead of kicking down doors.

Let’s be clear: Mayor Karen Bass is taking this seriously. She isn’t hiding. She isn’t minimizing what’s happening. In a recent interview with KTLA, she acknowledged the fear and outrage coursing through the city and pushed back firmly on Trump’s escalation, saying plainly, “We will not stand for this.” That kind of clarity matters right now. It may not show up in national headlines, but on the ground, it tells people they’re not alone.

And yet, that hasn’t stopped the hate. The rhetoric being aimed at Bass and Newsom is disgusting. Trump called Newsom “Newscum” in a tweet that racked up retweets from people who think the cruelty is the brand. Other GOP voices have said Bass is more concerned with “protecting illegals” than preserving order. One Republican even made the grotesque comparison that Bass fights harder for immigrants than she did against wildfires. Imagine hearing that as someone whose family is in danger of deportation — and then being told your mayor is the problem.

Gavin Newsom, for his part, has strongly condemned the deployment of federal troops to California. Calling the move “purposefully inflammatory,” he warned that it would only escalate tensions. And he’s right. Trump used Title 10 to federalize California’s National Guard without the state’s consent — a move that’s already raised constitutional alarms from legal experts across the country. It’s military theater meant to intimidate, not protect.

But Newsom’s past choices complicate the narrative, and we can’t ignore them. This is the same man who, back when he hosted a talk show, gave airtime to white supremacists under the guise of hearing “both sides.” That stain doesn’t just disappear. It’s part of why some people in our community feel conflicted about his leadership now. Yes, he’s standing up publicly. Yes, he’s refusing to cower to Trump’s authoritarian impulses. But his past indulgence of racist voices still echoes. And the people most vulnerable to ICE raids — Black and brown Angelenos — don’t have the luxury of forgetting.

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Meanwhile, Trump’s so-called justification for all of this is that he’s protecting the American economy. That would be laughable if it weren’t so grotesque. Because let’s be honest: you don’t protect the economy by terrorizing the people who keep it running. Immigrants aren’t draining the system — they are the system. They staff our kitchens, our warehouses, our hospitals. They clean our offices, care for our elders, and manufacture the products that line our shelves. When Trump sends ICE into factories, he’s not just harming families—he’s disrupting workflows, slowing production, and making it harder for businesses to function. This isn’t economic patriotism. It’s sabotage.

There’s a reason the raids feel targeted. They’re not random. They’re a message. Trump knows California is a sanctuary state. He knows Los Angeles is a city of immigrants and progressives and unapologetic dissent. And that’s exactly why he chose us. It’s not about crime. It’s not about law and order. It’s about sending a warning: If you resist me, I’ll make you pay. That’s what authoritarianism looks like when it wears an American flag lapel pin.

And Fox News is helping sell it.

With every chyron that says “BASS LOSES CONTROL OF LA,” with every segment that blames the victims instead of the aggressors, they are laundering propaganda and calling it patriotism. Their viewers aren’t seeing the tear gas. They’re not hearing from the children whose parents were dragged away. They’re not interviewing the student I spoke to this morning. They’re watching a manufactured crisis being fed to them in slow motion, designed to rile them up and keep them afraid.

But Los Angeles isn’t afraid. Not like that.

We’ve seen this before. We’ve lived through crackdowns, riots, wildfires, and pandemics. We are not a city that hides. And we will not be bullied into silence now. The people being targeted in these raids are not criminals. They are our neighbors. Our coworkers. Our students’ parents. And the more Trump tries to vilify them, the more determined we are to protect them.

You can bring in the National Guard. You can flood our streets with ICE. You can scream about “law and order” from the comfort of your luxury box. But you cannot scare this city into submission.

Because we’re still here. We’re still standing. And we are watching.

Kristoffer Ealy is a political science professor who teaches at California State University Fullerton, Ventura College, Los Angeles Harbor College, and Oxnard College. He is the author of the upcoming book Political Illiteracy: Learning the Wrong Lessons. Read the original article here.

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