ICE’s police-state tactics spark public rebellions

Ordinary Americans try to block heavy-handed immigration enforcement

Screengrab from video by Sandi Bachom.

When federal agents in full combat gear and long guns descended on their local Italian restaurant, San Diego residents got in their way. When people in plainclothes grabbed immigrants showing up for their court appearances, New York residents tried to block their vans. When federal agents raided a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis, an angry crowd surrounded them. When ICE agents tried to gain access to a home posing as electrical workers, a suspicious Tucson neighbor yelled out warnings. When ICE raided construction sites in Tallahassee, protesters called them Nazis and cowards. When masked officials tried to arrest a gardener in Western Massachusetts, business owners told them to back off.

As the Trump regime’s push to deport undocumented immigrants becomes more expansive, more duplicitous, more hostile, and more tyrannical, ordinary Americans aren’t just being silent witnesses. They’re getting outraged, and they’re jumping into action.

These cases are just from this past week alone.

San Diego

In San Diego on Friday, an angry crowd grew outside the Buona Forchetta restaurant as about 20 heavily armed ICE agents handcuffed and interrogated employees inside, arresting four of them.

Residents shouted at the federal agents, surrounded and hit their vehicles, and tried to prevent them from leaving. The ICE agents threw flash-bang grenades to disperse the crowd and make their escape.

Video of San Diego residents yelling “Shame! Shame!” and forcing heavily armed and armored agents out of their neighborhood went viral.

A GoFundMe to raise money to support detained Buona Forchetta employees stood at over $122,000 (more than twice its goal) as of Wednesday morning.

Elected officials responded angrily as well. San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera called it “state-sponsored terrorism” in a post on Instagram.

“The scenes that we saw play out on the streets were absolutely unacceptable,” said Rep. Juan Vargas. “Why were ICE agents armed to the teeth as if they were entering a war zone, storming restaurants? Why were ICE agents aggressively shoving people against the walls and handcuffing every worker in sight?”

“This was to intimidate,” Vargas said, “and to bring terror and fear into everybody’s hearts, especially immigrants here. Well, I’ve got to tell you one thing, we’re not scared here. We’re not intimidated. We’re fighting back, and we’re saying this is not going to happen in our community.”

New York

Last Wednesday, the New York Police Department arrested 23 protesters who were attempting to block the path of two ICE vans. ICE agents were using the vans to transport immigrants detained that day when they arrived for scheduled appointments at immigration court and an ICE office.

Protesters gathered peacefully outside the courthouse loading dock. After they refused to disperse, police tackled them.

Video journalist Sandi Bachom captured the scene. “I have to say I’ve been in some violent situations that were provoked, but this was a peaceful, LAWFUL demonstration,” Bachom wrote. “Observers and activist groups gathered to protest the ICE arrests earlier inside the immigration court at 201 Varick, and it escalated into the most intense, brutal arrests, out of nowhere! This is Trump’s America. Homeland Security and NYPD Rapid Response officers. Take care out there my friends. Know your rights. Keep each other’s backs.”

Neighborhood resident and medical doctor Son Mun, whose arrest was captured on video, explained the circumstances on Instagram:

I went to observe, chant, take photos and videos, and most importantly let the immigrants who had been abducted know that some of us are not staying silent or ignoring the unlawful inhuman treatment of immigrants.

Earlier some of the protestors tried to block ICE vans. The cops didn’t seem to care about that and just watched. Later when the protestors were at another entrance and on the sidewalk the notoriously violent SRG [Strategic Response Group] unit of the NYPD showed up. They had just turned on their loudspeaker to tell protestors to disperse but gave no opportunity to disperse and started violently arresting people and blocking some from leaving then arresting them for not dispersing.

I did not want to get arrested and even though I was on the other side of the street when the arrests started, the cops were so crazy that I was planning on leaving. But I saw how violent the cops were being and since I have a medical background, I stuck around filming and observing. I noticed a young guy on the ground who I was concerned would be seriously injured. I yelled at the cop who was kneeling over the young person that he was going to seriously hurt the protestor. That cop then got up and shoved me hard then screamed for his colleagues to arrest me.

After I was handcuffed I spent a long time in the police van, then spent several hours in a jail cell at police headquarters.

I have an appearance next month. If they don’t dismiss the charges I plan on requesting a hearing and will not pay any fines.

Minneapolis

On Tuesday, a massive raid by heavily armed agents on a Minneapolis taco restaurant sparked angry protest from neighbors, although federal officials said it wasn’t actually an immigration raid.

A photographer for the Minnesota Reformer captured the federal agents spraying mace at protesters who had tossed traffic cones and trash cans to block vehicles from leaving.

According to KARE TV, the FBI claimed the activity as its own -- but ICE didn’t deny its involvement. An ICE spokesperson called it a "groundbreaking criminal operation," and said it was the first in Minnesota "under the Homeland Security Task Force umbrella — marking a new chapter in how we confront complex, multidimensional threats."

No arrests were made.

Many posts on social media captured the scene, including this shot of an armored vehicle equipped with a sound cannon -- parked near an awning bearing the slogan “make tacos, not walls.”

Tucson

KGUN 9 TV in Tucson showed video of ICE agents posing as local electricity workers to gain entrance to a residence – and of a neighbor confronting them and getting them to leave.

Christine Cariño said the agents were in unmarked vehicles, asked her unusual questions, and claimed that they worked with Tucson Electric Power.

In the video, Cariño told her neighbor not to open the door. “You’re lying. You’re not in uniform,” Cariño told one of the men in the video.

Asked for her advice to others, Cariño told KGUN: “Pay attention. You know, if you are able to help, help. Do the right thing. It's only right. It's humane.”

As KGUN also reported, the ICE agents’ actions may have violated the Fourth Amendment.

Tallahassee

In what was possibly the largest and most indiscriminate immigration sweep of Trump’s second term, federal agents raided a huge construction site in Tallahassee and detained over 100 people.

Outside, according to the Tallahassee Democrat, protesters “shouted slogans and held up signs reading ‘Protect families not tear them apart’ and ‘ICE out of TLH.’" Here is some video of some protesters.

The Democrat reported:

Ray D'Amico, general superintendent for the plumbing contractor at the construction site, watched his employees, who were zip-tied and waiting to be processed by federal agents.

"This is infuriating. This is absolutely ridiculous," D'Amico said.

Once word got out about the raid, he said, other construction sites in town stopped for the day and workers went home.

"They basically shut down Tallahassee," he said.

With much of the construction site’s workforce gone, supervisors are shaking their heads, wondering how these projects will get finished.

The construction workers were building a student housing complex that overlooks Florida State University, the Democrat reported:

Intermingled with workers who waited for the raid to end were students and residents who also gathered around the outskirts of the construction site watching law enforcement conduct the raid. Some stood in disbelief while others resorted to yelling at officers, calling them "Nazis" and calling them cowards for not removing the masks that some agents wore….

"Good job everyone, you've destroyed families once again," a lady protesting yelled out at law enforcement as the last bus filled with detainees rolled away.

Western Massachusetts

The Berkshire Eagle reported from the small town of Great Barrington that federal agents there arrested one of two men at their landscaping job site on Friday morning -- but a local business owner harbored the second man and protected him from arrest.

Linda Shafiroff, co-owner of Creative Building Solutions, “said that she and her business partner, Sarah Steiner, argued with approximately six to eight officers during the incident, asking them to take off their masks and present some form of identification or warrants. The officers refused, she said.” Then they left.

Shafiroff said the incident made for “the most bizarre morning of my life…. I felt like I was in North Korea… This put a fire in me.”

High School Student Protest

Meanwhile, as the Guardian reports:

Students at Massachusetts’s Milford high school staged a walkout on Monday to show support for their classmate Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, who was headed to volleyball practice when he was detained over the weekend by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents who were actually looking for his father.

Big Protests Ahead

On the 81^st anniversary of D-Day, Friday, June 6, United for Veterans and 50501 are joining forces to hold a major rally in Washington, as well as supporting rallies in the 50 states.

As part of WorldPride 2025 events being held in Washington, there will be a rally and march on Sunday, June 8.

And June 14 is No Kings Day, with events all over the country but not in Washington DC, as counterprogramming to Trump’s birthday military parade in the Capital.

Moral Monday

At the monthly “Moral Monday” protest in Washington, faith-based protesters including Bishop William Barber were again arrested while praying in the Capitol Rotunda.

Here is some video of the event, which included a march and a news conference at the steps of the Supreme Court. The focus was on the cuts to healthcare programs in the GOP budget bill.

“We come today to pray against this bill that instead of caring for the sick, caring for the hungry, hurts the sick, and hurts the hungry,” Barber said in the Rotunda. Instead of helping the disabled, he said, “somebody has decided to give more money to those that don’t need it.”

He continued: “They are not waste, people who need Medicaid. God, you know that. They’re not fraudulent. They’re your children. They’re your creation. And we come to stand with your creation.”

Mark your calendar for the upcoming Washington Moral Mondays on July 7, August 4, and September 8.

Law Firms Get What They Deserve

Don’t miss this wonderful, vindicating article in the Wall Street Journal (gift link):

At least 11 big companies are moving work away from law firms that settled with the administration or are giving—or intend to give—more business to firms that have been targeted but refused to strike deals, according to general counsels at those companies and other people familiar with those decisions….

In interviews, general counsels expressed concern about whether they could trust law firms that struck deals to fight for them in court and in negotiating big deals if they weren’t willing to stand up for themselves against Trump….

In total, the capitulating firms, which include some of the industry’s largest and best-known, agreed to provide about $1 billion in pro bono work.

The agreements were supposed to buy peace and allow the firms to move on, but in the weeks since they have caused rifts between partners, alienated some younger associates and created problems with some longtime clients.

Lawsuit Watch

• A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to provide transgender inmates with hormone therapy and social accommodations such as appropriate clothing while a lawsuit over Trump’s executive order defining “sex” continues.

• Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has filed a federal lawsuit against interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution over his arrest on specious and swiftly-dropped trespassing charges at a federal immigration detention facility. The suit also accuses Habba of defamation.

• Harvard University has asked for summary judgment against the Trump administration for canceling billions of dollars in research funding. “Over the last two months, the Government has abruptly—without any process or reasoned explanation—ended that longstanding partnership in a manner that flagrantly violates the First Amendment multiple times over,” the suit says, adding that “This ‘shoot first, aim never’ approach to the termination of Harvard’s funding is the very definition of arbitrary decision-making.”

Things to Read

• Will Bunch writes in his Philadelphia Inquirer column that not holding a “No Kings” event in Washington is a mistake, and that a head-on confrontation with Trump’s birthday parade is precisely what is called for.

• Don’t miss the open letter signed by over 6,000 scientists and others decrying a May 23 executive order that, as the New York Times reports, puts Trump’s political appointees “in charge of vetting scientific research and gives them the authority to ‘correct scientific information,’ control the way it is communicated to the public and the power to ‘discipline’ anyone who violates the way the administration views science.”

• Civil resistance expert Maria J. Stephan writes in Just Security that organized noncooperation by key pillars of society – when “workers deny their labor and skills, businesses withhold financial contributions, bureaucrats do things slowly or ineffectively, faith organizations stop providing moral approval, soldiers defy orders to use violence against protestors” – is key to the success of pro-democracy movements.

• Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, provides a great primer on “What is Habeas Corpus? Why Does It Matter?”

• Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, asks in the Guardian: “Have we reached peak Trump?” He writes: “The checks and balances of US democracy have proved remarkably resilient. The shock and awe of his early days has given way to a grinding of gears, a political program that, because of widespread resistance, is becoming more sound than fury.” And he concludes: “This is no time for despair. Resignation is wrong. Resistance is working. We must keep it up.”