Zachary Miller
Read our editorial on mass deportations here, and the ongoing struggle against it here.
On Saturday (06/21), landscaper Narciso Barranco was beaten and arrested by federal agents while at his job in Santa Ana, California. That afternoon, armed masked men wearing US Border Patrol Police vests approached Barranco. Videos show Barranco being pepper-sprayed, violently pinned to the ground, hit repeatedly on the head and neck, and later put in the backseat of an unmarked car. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official, attempting to justify the brutality inflicted, claimed Barranco had attempted to evade and assault the federal agents with a weed whacker. Barranco’s family maintain he was acting in self-defense and feared for his life.
On Tuesday (06/24), Andrea Velez was abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being dropped off at work by her mother and sister in Downtown Los Angeles. According to the family, men without any identification on their vests or license plates approached Velez, picked her up off the ground, and carried her away to one of the unmarked vehicles. Velez, a US citizen, appeared in a federal court the following Thursday, absurdly charged with assaulting a federal officer and accused of “forcefully obstructing” the officers in the process of her own wrongful abduction. She was released on a $5,000 dollar bail and entered no plea. She will reappear in court on July 17th.
The same day, twelve miles away in Pico Rivera, Los Angeles County, Adrian Andrew Martinez was brutally detained by federal agents while defending another worker being detained. The incident occurred in a parking nearby the Walmart where Martinez works. Martinez confronted federal agents after witnessing the agents use unnecessary force to detain an elderly janitor, attempting to reason with the officers and advocate for the janitor’s safety. Martinez was then thrown to the ground and arrested. “I was just speaking, like telling them that’s wrong, what you’re doing is not right,” said Martinez, “They took it the wrong way and threw me to the floor, and from then a man grabs me by my neck and throws me into a trash can thing.” Martinez told local monopoly press, “They didn’t read me my Miranda rights…. They just basically kidnapped me, is what it seemed.”
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli posted on X that Martinez “was arrested for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face after he attempted to impede their immigration enforcement operation.” However, video evidence clearly contradicts the claim. To save face, they have charged Martinez with “conspiracy to impede a federal investigation”. A day after the incident, hundreds of local residents took to the streets to protest Martinez’s arrest.
While monopoly media outlets and Democrat politicians have feigned outrage over the brutal arrest of US citizens by federal immigration agents, they feed into the division between US citizens and non-citizens to justify the terror against the latter, all the while attempting to disarm the masses through calls for “non-violence” and “peaceful protest”. Nevertheless, across the country people have increasingly begun to directly confront ICE agents and organize to expel them from their cities and towns.
Photo: Federal agents violently arrest Adrian Andrew Martinez in Pico Rivera, Los Angeles County. Retrieved from Instagram.
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