How we as a community stand together and resist injustice
Wanton destruction obscures a much larger national defiance to authoritarianism
On Sunday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth regarding the escalating situation in Los Angeles. In the leaked letter, Noem directs the Department of Defense to, among other things:
..support to our law enforcement officers and agents across Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Federal Protective Services (FPS), as they defend against invasive, violent, insurrectionist mobs that seek to protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations, and who seek to prevent the deportation of criminal aliens.
The protests in Los Angeles started after ICE agents conducted immigration sweeps on Friday. The same day migrants were arrested in a Home Deport parking lot, US citizen and union labor leader David Huerta was arrested outside a business in L.A.’s Fashion District protesting an ICE raid.
Fellow union leader Manny Pastreich in New York City told union members and protesters, “Everything we hold dear is under attack. Unions, workers, freedom, immigrant communities, healthcare, the constitution, our union brothers and sisters. We must fight back. We reject these attacks on our communities and demand the immediate release of our union brother David Huerta.”
April Verrett, international president of the SEIU, the second largest union in the United States and the union to which Huerta belongs, said the “SEIU protects the rights and dignity of hard-working people, and the safety of workers in the workplace. Imagine what it feels like for thousands of workers around the country to be attacked by masked men with weapons, or to bear witness to their co-workers getting dragged away, knowing their kids may not see them again. We demand David Huerta’s immediate release and an end to these abusive workplace raids.”
Three days after his arrest, in which Huerta suffered injuries, he has been released from the hospital and no longer is in federal custody after posting a $50,000 bond. Upon his release, Huerta said:
What happened to me is not about me; This is about something much bigger. This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that’s happening. Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals. We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice. This is injustice. And we all have to stand on the right side of justice.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest public employee union in the US, declared “Americans have a constitutional right to free speech. That right was violated when Ice agents violently arrested and injured Huerta as he peacefully observed immigration enforcement activity in his community. Huerta was exercising his legal right to speak out and bear witness.”
Protests have continued, vandalism has ensued and as of today, 4000 National Guard troops and 700 marines (costing $134 million) have been ordered to the city of Los Angeles with the authority to detain people until local law enforcement can arrest them. The troops’ official mission is to protect federal property and personnel. The Pentagon has indicated troops will protect ICE officers.
Yet what immigrants being arrested at Home Depot and elementary schools belong to “foreign terrorist organizations” as Secretary Noem suggests?
Protests against immigration raids have since spread across the nation to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, San Fransciso, Seattle and more. And on Saturday, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US Army, which coincidentally is also Trump’s birthday and Flag Day, “No Kings” rallies are scheduled to take place in every state in the union.
On the “No Kings” website:
On June 14—Flag Day—President Trump wants tanks in the street and a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday. A spectacle meant to look like strength. But real power isn’t staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else.
No Kings is a nationwide day of defiance. From city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, we’re taking action to reject authoritarianism—and show the world what democracy really looks like.
We’re not gathering to feed his ego. We’re building a movement that leaves him behind.
The flag doesn’t belong to President Trump. It belongs to us. We’re not watching history happen. We’re making it.
On June 14th, we’re showing up everywhere he isn’t—to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.
On Trump’s birthday, a military parade in Washington D.C. costing upwards of $45 million will feature thousands of soldiers marching, dozens of tanks rolling and helicopters and other aircraft overhead. Yet, in spite of the royal display, more than 1800 rallies are scheduled to occur outside the nation’s capital defiantly standing for what American’s Founding Fathers fought, killed and died for - “No thrones. No crowns. No kings.”
