Several hundred workers, organizers and immigrant advocates gathered in palm-tree-dotted MacArthur Park on Tuesday to denounce the Trump administration and immigration raids it has carried out in the city and in other parts of California.
Rows of parked cars clogged a stretch of Park View Street in the morning, blocking traffic. Scrawled on windshields and bumpers in chalky white and printed on taped signs were slogans “ICE out of LA” and “Stop the Trump terror.”
From atop a truck, Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta addressed the crowd.
“Our fight is for working people. … It’s a fight against authoritarianism. It’s a fight to restore democracy in this country,” said Huerta, who was injured and detained by law enforcement in early June while documenting the first major immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles this summer. “Everybody wants to know, how is Los Angeles? And I tell them Los Angeles is ready to fight.”
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Raids since early June in Los Angeles have swept up hundreds. The ongoing threat to the many immigrant workers that local labor groups count among their members, as well as criminal charges of conspiracy to impede an officer brought against Huerta, have ignited protests in recent months.
Labor groups said they are pushing for an end to the raids and to the presence of federal agents in Los Angeles, as well as the release of immigrants detained and a stop to the expansion of private detention centers.
On Tuesday, speakers urged people not to purchase from major companies including Home Depot, Walmart, Target and fast-food restaurants that they contend are not doing enough to protect their employees.
“We aren’t notified that these activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations. We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate,” said Home Depot spokesperson George Lane in an email.
“We are going to take back MacArthur Park,” said Felipe Caceres, an organizer with SEIU 721. “For 24 hours we are reclaiming our power to stop the Trump terror. For 24 hours we are going to boycott companies.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The park, which is nestled in the heart of a dense immigrant community, has become a symbol ever since July 7, when federal agents descended on it with horses and armored vehicles, carrying rifles and in tactical gear.
“It’s important to reclaim this space, where ICE staged a show of force. So that’s what we’re here to do,” said Marissa Nuncio, executive director of the Garment Worker Center.
Local unions and labor groups have rallied to support their members in recent months.
The Garment Worker Center has worked to deliver food to garment manufacturers sheltering at home and held “Know Your Rights” trainings. As car wash workers across the region have been snapped up in raids, the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center has scrambled to track deportations and connect families with legal services.
The union representing Southern California hotel workers, Unite Here Local 11, has pressed hotel owners to push back on the Trump administration’s rhetoric and provide additional protections for the many in its workforce who are asylum seekers, immigrants with Temporary Protected Status and recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
Cooks and cashiers with the California Fast Food Workers Union this week penned a letter to fast-food businesses urging them to commit to protecting workers by barring federal agents from entering spaces that they do not have proper warrants to enter.
“Fast-food worker bosses, whose side are you guys on? Are you going to sit here and just let [the federal government] run all over us? We’re asking you today to stand up with us and protect us,” said Anneisha Williams, a member of the union on the state’s Fast Food Council, at the Tuesday rally.
Molly Weedn, a spokesperson for Protect Los Angeles Restaurants, a coalition of local and national restaurant and franchise industry groups that has clashed with the fast food union, said that many business owners across L.A. “stand with California’s immigrant community.”
Nearly 60% of restaurants across the state are minority-owned, Weedn said.
“Our industry is built and run by immigrants, people of color and women who pour their hearts into serving their communities,” Weedn said.
Lizzet, a McDonald’s employee in Los Angeles who walked off the job at midnight Tuesday along with some co-workers, said in an interview that she joined the protest because she and co-workers have feared going to work.
“What’s happening right now is unjust,” said Lizzet, who asked not to be identified by her last name for fear of reprisals.
