Solidarity Uprisings Bloom From LA

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Mass rebellions with a high concentration of working class people have been initiated in cities across the country in response to the ultra-reactionary chief of US imperialism Donald Trump ordering thousands of National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles in a feeble attempt to snuff out the people’s uprising.

The Worker highlights just a few of the many solidarity demonstrations to have taken place, with more reporting to come.

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Austin, TX:

In Austin the people took to the streets June 9 in what was a planned demonstration by a revisionist organization. The revisionists failed in their attempts to bridle the people; in spite of the combined forces of liberalism, revisionism, and reaction the people did not back down. The planned march, with approximately 700-800 people according to eyewitness accounts, left from the Texas state capitol with the destination of the J.J. Pickle Federal Building which houses the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Upon arrival the protesters delivered speeches and anti-ICE messages were painted on the building’s façade.

The Austin Police Department moved in on the planned route and began amassing forces. At this moment the revisionist organizers attempted to end the demonstration with a return to the Capitol. Their capitulation to the forces of reaction meant that a large part of the protest went with them. Organizers among the people insisted that the protest remain at the Federal Building where ICE is located. A crowd of about 150 remained, comprised of the more energetic and combative elements.

One woman spoke of the role of the state and imperialism behind the deportations, “LA is a shining example of resistance, they call us thugs, outside agitators, and uncivil, but why should we be civil? These police shoot at us, gas us, kill us! They tear children away from their families, they kidnap people and keep them in these dungeons, yet they have the audacity to demand our civility!” She concluded “Why are we poor? Why can’t we afford rent? Afford food? Afford to live in this country? They want us to blame this on immigrants, they want to pit us against each other, to attack each other. You see these pigs [police] out here, with their armor and their guns, they want to strike fear into our hearts so that we retreat. But, behind all of that armor, they are the real cowards, they are the armed enforcers of the ruling class. They do all this because they fear us, the masses, the working class, from fighting back.”

The energy of the crowed remained high, as around 200 led away by the revisionists returned without them. The APD and Texas Department of Public Safety declared an unlawful assembly, ordering the crowd to disperse and immediately attacking the demonstrators with the same intensity and weaponry deployed against the people in the May Uprisings of 2020. These include bean bag rounds, tear gas, pepper spray and night sticks. The City of Austin has already paid out $27 million in legal settlements arising from injury lawsuits against the police from the May Uprisings.

The masses armed only with flags of the oppressed nations of Latin America and Palestine fought back bravely. Road construction equipment such as water barriers and electric scooters were used for barricades, and rocks were used in combative resistance injuring three officers, with another treated for unknown injuries. A total of 12 protesters were abducted by police. Charges include criminal mischief and resisting arrest.

New York City:

Protesters marched into Trump Towers in New York City on Monday (06/09) as they chanted “Bring them back!” and read the name of migrants in the US who were deported to El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison. 24 were arrested after protesters occupied the lobby for nearly an hour.

A second protest took place in Lower Manhattan on Monday, where workers and activists gathered to demand the release of California’s President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) David Huerta, who was violently arrested by ICE on Friday in Los Angeles after observing the ICE raids taking place.

On Tuesday, thousands marched through the streets against ICE. A separate, more militant protest continued later into the night and surrounded the ICE building, chanting “It is right to rebel, NYPD go to hell!” After an ICE van pulled out of the building later in the night when the protest had relatively quieted, several protesters breached police barricades to block it and were violently arrested by NYPD.

Commenting on the role of NYPD in defending ICE, one protester told The Worker “Never lose sight of the fact that it’s called ‘the thin blue line’ for a reason. These people are just hired guns, and this sentiment is always there and felt by everyone. The politicians send us in conflicting directions but the sentiment that something’s not right is still there.” Another protester expressed her opposition to the upcoming mayoral race in NYC and about the electoral system in general: “The two party system is bullshit, it’s like we’re being held hostage, it’s blackmail, an illusion of choice.”

A more militant demonstration took place Saturday (06/07), where roughly 100 protesters confronted ICE agents outside of their office and successfully prevented their vans from leaving by linking arms. NYPD responded violently, using pepper spray against protesters and arresting several, with one person taken away in an ambulance.

The Saturday protest was in response to ICE’s terrorizing ambush tactics in the city, where they wait for migrants to show up to their court hearings and arrest them. At least two high school students, among others, have been ambushed by ICE outside of their immigration appointments over the past few weeks in NYC.

San Francisco, CA:

On Sunday the people of San Francisco combated the police, burning vehicles outside of the ICE office on Sansom Street. Police received glass bottles thrown through the air and fist fights from the protesters. Trashcans and traffic cones were used to block roadways, with police barricades repurposed into weapons in the hands of demonstrators, glass storefronts of banks smashed, and San Francisco police department vehicles vandalized. The street had been redecorated with slogans such as “death to ICE.”

Over 150 demonstrators were arrested and at least two police injured. As in Los Angeles, Waymo electric robotaxis have been targeted by demonstrators—Waymo is owned by Alphabet, the tech monopoly owner of Google.

On Monday the demonstrations continued across San Francisco thousands strong, denouncing Trump’s deployment of national guard and Marines and denouncing the federal prosecution against SEIU union leader David Huerta—federal prosecutors are seeking to imprison Huerta for the maximum six years for “felony conspiracy to impede an officer” after his violent arrest while observing an ICE raid in LA. For their part, opportunists denounced the people’s rebellion from the night before and called for solely peaceful protest according to monopoly media reports.

As in Austin, opportunists attempted to disperse the crowd in the evening but smaller groups of demonstrators rallied and continued the fight, engaging in street battles with the police and spray painting pro-Palestinian solidarity messages and anti-ICE messages on bus stops and a McDonald’s restaurant. Police attacked demonstrators, targeting one waving a flag of a Palestinian national liberation faction, and targeted a monopoly media reporter, slapping the phone from his hand and pushing him over.

This is a developing story.

Image: Anti-ICE demonstrators in downtown Austin TX on June 9, outside the J.J. Pickle Federal Building which houses ICE offices and detention cells. Photo retrieved from Reddit.

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