For decades, LA has been at the center of the civil rights and immigrants’ rights movements – and Trump’s raids appear to be mobilizing a new generation
Los Angeles is home to nearly a million undocumented immigrants, the largest number of any place in the US. For decades, the city has been a catalyst in the US immigrants’ rights movement.
So when federal agents began conducting raids at workplaces across Los Angeles last week, activists say it’s not surprising that the city rose up in protest.
“We’re seeing it as a struggle to preserve what’s left of American democracy,” Chris Zepeda-Millán, a public policy expert at the University of California Los Angeles, told the Guardian on Monday en route to a protest.
Trump’s decision to send military troops into a majority-Democratic city has been criticized as a deliberate provocation, perhaps one designed to undermine his political rival, California governor Gavin Newsom, and distract from Trump’s current legislative and personal struggles.
