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June 11, 2025 15 mins

In the news this week: On June 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began a series of raids in Los Angeles, and their actions were the boiling point after months of violent apprehensions. 

Protests grew and the federal government sent unsolicited troops as a response, which only heightened tensions. We speak with Cal Matters reporter Sergio Olmos about the administration’s excessive crackdown, how we got here, and why this is happening in the Sanctuary city of LA. 

“Los Angeles is a very diverse place,” and going after people in low-paying jobs with assault rifles “is not a very popular thing here," Olmos said.

Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
An eighteen year old girl got the call while she
was at school.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
She was told, it's.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Something's going on where your dad works, and she came
down here tearfully, not understanding necessarily, but actually had a
visual of her father through the window of that story.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Last Friday, ICE agents arrived in Los Angeles with a
clear plan detain undocumented immigrants.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
This is the Abbas Apperil store where the FBI, Homeland
Security and ICE agents perform to raid a couple of
hours ago.

Speaker 5 (00:30):
Were just now seeing some people that are being detained.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Their first stop was at an apparel manufacturer in the
city's fashion district, locally known as the Guiones or the
Santi Alleys, where many workers are immigrants, some undocumented. It
was the first of several raids that day, the beginning
of a militarized operation.

Speaker 6 (00:51):
Three blocks away, I saw the labors running from our
Ocahom depot. I took off my heels, grabbed my megaphone
and ran in that direction.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
DHS reported that it detained more than one hundred immigrants
in a matter of hours. Hundreds of Angelinos of all
races and backgrounds gathered outside the La Federal Building calling
for an end to immigration raids in their sanctuary city.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, there are several hundred people that are outside the
federal building and detention center, and you can see here
the crowd is starting to back up because of something
that just they released, some type of substance.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Protests were in reaction not only to the ICE raids
that day, but to months of increasingly violent actions against
immigrant populations across the country. We've all seen the countless
videos on social media of ICE agents breaking car windows
to detain people, and surveillance footage of plane clothes agents

(01:56):
taking students with visas in what a bystander might see
as a kidnapping. We've seen images of US born kids
and young adults sobbing as their hardworking parents with no
criminal records are taken by ICE and LA reacted.

Speaker 5 (02:14):
Los Angeles is a heart of the Mexican and Central
American community here in the United States. We're fighting for
the right to live and to exist, and to work
and to feed our families. There is nothing extreme about that.
We don't want violence, but we also aren't going to
sit by and see our people be kidnapped and see
our community be attacked by any federal agency or local

(02:35):
law enforcement we won't do it.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Protests remain mostly peaceful, but in the evening, demonstrators began
clashing with Department of Homeland Security officers outside the federal
building in downtown La. DHS responded by shooting tear gas
and non lethal projectiles. Some protesters started throwing things at
the agents. Now at eleven Chaos so Robson's armed federal
agents conduct sweeping immigration rates across Los Angeles. In the

(03:01):
following days, Trump ordered the deployment of over two thousand
National Guard troops and approximately seven hundred Marine Corps. At
one point, they began protecting ICE agents as they conducted
immigrant attentions, all at a cost of more than one
hundred and thirty million dollars to taxpayers. Their unsolicited presence
only angered locals and the governor even more.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Donald Trump's government isn't protecting our communities. They're traumatizing our communities,
and that seems to be the entire point. California will
keep fighting. We'll keep fighting on.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
Behalf of our people, all of our people, including in the.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Courts from FUDRO media and PRX. It's Latino USA. I'm
Mariano Josa. Today protests police and the federal government's uninvited
presence in a sanctuary city to understand how we got

(04:03):
here and where all of this is potentially headed. We're
speaking with Setio Almost. He's an investigative reporter at the
nonprofit news organization cal Matters said, who has been reporting
on the ground in Los Angeles. He joins us now
said here, welcome to let you know USA.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Thank you so much for having me. So first of.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
All, we're going to talk about what's been happening. But
I did see your social media posts that while you
were covering the protests on Sunday night in LA you
were actually hit by a rubber bullet. So can you
tell us what happened and how you're doing.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
I'm doing fine. It was a less lethal round LAPD.

Speaker 6 (04:39):
The Los Angeles Police Department was shooting a lot of
them off at protesters. They were pushing back the crowd
away from the Federal building, and the Federal building is
where the California National Guard was. This is the two
thousand troops that the Trumpe administration sent against the wishes
of the governor here, and the LAPD was pushing protesters
away so that protesters couldn't actually engage, see throw things,

(05:00):
yell at any of the federal agencies. So in order
to get the crowd moving back, LAPD was shooting a
lot of these less lethal rounds. You know, we're used
to saying rubber bullets. They're really not rubber bullets. They're
kind of these projectiles that are very common across the country,
and they hurt, so you have to take great care
when shooting these off. And what we saw was not
a lot of great care, just hundreds of rounds shot

(05:21):
into the crowd.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
If you see the video where I.

Speaker 6 (05:24):
Get shot in the chest, I'm like in the middle
of a crowd and LAPD just kind of shoots off
this forty million million and hits me in the chest
and I can't walk away in pain.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Have the protests that you have been witnessing the protesters
have they been overwhelmingly peaceful?

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Overwhelmingly peaceful.

Speaker 6 (05:45):
Yeah, Especially in the daytime, it's a lot more people
with signs and chanting. As it gets later into the night,
the crowd demographics change. There's a little bit younger. It
is Los Angeles, the Dodgers one here they burned a bus,
so like, let's not you know, this is a place
with a lot of people. And when you ever have
hundreds of people gather together, it doesn't take that much
for a couple of people to start throwing water bottles

(06:06):
or rocks or whatever at police. And what happens is
police respond with force. You know, these things are called
less lethal. They're not non lethal because they can kill you.
They say, do not aim at the head or neck area,
because they can be lethal. If you're shot in the head,
they will give you a concussion. If you're shot in
the eye, you could have severe brain damage and die.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
So, seidyo, is there something about Los Angeles summer twenty
twenty five where said here almost who's got a lot
of experiences saying okay, I'm watching for this.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (06:41):
So if you're thinking about this, is this something new
to me? We've seen a similar thing happen during the
First Time administration where they wanted to send out federal
agents to go quote unquote quel protests. You know, people
here in Los Angeles do not like the idea of
federal agents coming in and raiding home epos, right, I mean,
it's not even that political. Los Angeles is a very

(07:04):
diverse place, and you know the idea of going against
working people who are trying to get not very glamorous,
low paying jobs, and going after them with kevlar and
assault rifles. And that is not a very popular thing here.
Los Angeles is many things, but it is not really
about that.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
All around the city.

Speaker 6 (07:22):
The talk right now is about these raids and this
federal response to treating the city as if it's you know,
under siege, as if it's enemy territory, the way that
Steven Miller talks about it's Los Angeles being occupied territory.
I mean, that's quite offensive to people who live here, right, Like,
nobody here thinks that way about Los Angeles. And so
the protests you see outside the Federal building, it's moms,

(07:42):
it's it's stats, even some children, people bring their dogs. Right,
They are mostly peaceful. That being said, there's always going
to be younger people in the crowd who throw things
at police officers, and the way law enforcement responds, that's
on them. Do they have to launch hundreds of rounds
into a crowd. The training that they get by California

(08:02):
Posts would say, no, you don't just launch these into
a crowd to disperse people.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
It's important said here if you could just remind anyone
who's listening why and how this was sparked to begin with.

Speaker 6 (08:20):
These protests were sparked off because of raids that occurred
in Compton and Paramount. You know, very diverse parts of
Los Angeles and working people being angry that the border
patrol would be coming into their neighborhood just snatching people up.
This was very public and the idea of militarized federal
agents and kevlar and green kit that don't look very

(08:42):
different from a paramilitary group like the Proud Boys, not
easily distinguishable, not dressed in the normal law enforcement attire.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
That's what sparked off these protests.

Speaker 6 (08:53):
It's a very kind of popular backlash that's occurring right
now Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Trump has really made it a priority to go full
on in terms of deporting immigrants, immigrants with green cards,
immigrants who are undocumented, which is even more concerning seeing
that just a couple of weeks ago we learned that
the Trump administration has set a quota for ICE to

(09:17):
detain three thousand people a day. Said he, I want
to hear a little bit more about what you see
California doing in terms of the legal avenues that they
can use to get the National Guard out of their state,
because basically what you're pointing to is an increased militarization
in response to people attempting to protest non violently.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (09:42):
So I'll give two specific California examples of how this
is playing out the way this is now practically happening
in the streets of California. And one example is El
Central Border Patrol recently posted a photo where they arrested
two men of Chinese nationality. Their infraction they did not
have their green cards on them, and they posted this

(10:04):
as if they were criminals.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
They have green cards.

Speaker 6 (10:07):
So this is an example where port Patrol's sending out
a message that we set up a checkpoint and you
don't have your green card on you, we're going to
treat you like a criminal.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Now, is that a criminal? Of course not.

Speaker 6 (10:18):
Of course you're supposed to have your green card on
you if you crossing the border, right, But nobody carries their
green card to go to the grocery store. You don't
want to lose that thing, right. My parents have green
cards and I took my dad to Bakersfield. Is like,
do you have your green card on you just in case?
And He's like, I don't carry that on it. I
don't want to lose it. But this is an example
of what does it now mean if you have a
green card? Are you a criminal if you don't carry it?

(10:38):
That is practically happening now. The second example of this
kind of escalation, there is a man who was picked
up by a border patrol in Pomona here in Los
Angeles few weeks ago, Martin Maheen Leon. He is a barber.
He's in his late fifties. He has no criminal record,
but he was deported before. He has a house here,

(10:58):
he has kids here, he has a mortgage, he pays
his property taxes. I know all this because I was
in his hearing with the judge running through his whole life,
and the judge turned to the federal prosecutor and said,
you want him incarcerated with no bail, And the federal
prosecutor said yes. The judge said, you have lost credibility
in my courtroom. He let him go without posting any bail.

(11:18):
He just said you're getting out today. When they arrested
this man, they came with guns to his temple. This
is the way this is practically playing out things that
are not dangerous, are being treated as if they're very dangerous. Now,
you asked in terms of what can California do. The
thing about California that's different from many other states is
that we have a law here SB fifty four which

(11:39):
says that local agencies, anybody who practices law enforcement in
California from like the city, the county, the states, cannot
assist in immigration enforcement. This is not like Colorado or Texas.
When you get pulled over here, no agency will ask
you about your immigration status. They will not be enforcing that.
And what we're seeing now with these rates and home

(12:00):
depots here in Los Angeles and Santa Ana, you're not
seeing higher patrol. You're not seeing local police help because
they're not allowed to by state law. And again, what
does that mean practically? It means the border patrol's coming in.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
I wonder if you can give a sense to our
listeners about the issue of calling what's happening in La
an insurrection.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
So what we're seeing in LA is not an insurrection.
It is a protest.

Speaker 6 (12:26):
These are people coming out saying I don't like what
the government's doing. I disagree with this, which is our
right as Americans and I've been in other countries where
that's not the case. Well, it was in Ukraine where
there's a war now, and I covered the war there
in twenty twenty two. They will all tell you that
it started in Madan, a protest there when the government overreached,

(12:47):
tried to strip them of their rights, and they were like, no,
we disagree, and it was a violent protest. They forged
themselves their identity as we will not tolerate being under
the heel of a dictator. Now, Americans are always like that.
We are not a meek people. Immigrants also are not
a meek people. I think when the government does something

(13:08):
and to say we're going to quell protests, this is
not American. This is not an insurrection. This is the
way it goes if you're going to have a democracy.
The call insurrection is a term of persuasion. They're trying
to convince people this is more dangerous than it is.
It is not like that. What I'm saying is a
protest as American as I've seen any other protests. And

(13:29):
so I'm very optimistic that when someone with force tries
to say shut up, people are not indifferent to that.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
They care.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Sa if you're almost investigative reporter for cal Matters. Thank
you so much for taking some time for speaking to
me here at leat you know usay while you're out
there covering the story of Los Angeles twenty twenty five,
the summer that is going to potentially change our country forever.
Thank you said here for being on the ground and
documenting it. We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
This episode was produced by Monica Morales Garcia. It was
edited by Andrea Lopez Gruzado and our managing editor Fernanda Echavari.
It was mixed by Stephanie Lebo and j J. Grubin,
fact checking by Roxanna Guire and Diego Perdomo. The Latino
USA team also includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Ellis, Victoria Strada,

(14:45):
Rinaldo leanoz Junior, Luis Luna, Lori mar Marquez, Julieta Martinelli,
Marta Martinez, Tasha Sandoval, and Nancy Trujuiro. Penilee Ramirez, Maria
Garcia and I are co executive producers and I'm your host,
Maria Josa. Join us again on our next episode. In
the meantime, I'll see you on social media.

Speaker 5 (15:05):
Yes, Choe Latino USA is brought to you in part
by the Levi Strauss Foundation, outfitting movements and leaders fighting
for a more just and abundant world, with the support
from the International Women's Media Foundation as

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Part of its Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice in the
America's initiative, and the v Day Foundation
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