Cedar Monroe with Kenia
Leer la versión en español.
Over the past several months, Los Angeles has taken center stage in opposition to mass arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that was just given more money than any other federal law enforcement agency in the United States. Los Angeles is the second largest city in the U.S. and a third of its population is first-generation immigrants. On July 5, 2025, I spoke with Kenia, who is organizing with Union de Vecinos, the East Side Local of the Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU). She reflected on what is happening right now in Los Angeles and what lessons and questions we might take from it as a movement. This article is based on those reflections.
Context
Los Angeles is caught in the crossfire of a warring ruling class. The Trump administration has been eager to target California, a blue state that is seen as a bastion of liberalism. Los Angeles, with its large immigrant population, is seen as a particular target. “It is like they are trying to make an example out of us,” Kenia says. She points out that L.A. has been through a lot in the past five years. The pandemic was devastating, with over 36,000 deaths reported in the city over three years. The subsequent economic crisis has food prices soaring, with eggs at the cheapest market in L.A. costing $8.99 in January. Fires at the beginning of the year devastated whole communities, with over 16,000 structures destroyed. Kenia said, “It feels like we are going from crisis to crisis. In many ways, the government is trying to normalize these crises and telling us we are ok and life should go on as if nothing has ever happened.”
The Beginning: Raids
Kenia says that communities in L.A. did not expect the administration’s crackdown on their communities, with their long history of immigrant rights organizing. She recalls that she was returning from a training in the Midwest when her phone started blowing up with news of the arrest of David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union – United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW). While he has been charged with “conspiracy to impede an officer,” she notes that the response on the streets of L.A., attempting to stop ICE arrests, was not a systematic or conspiratorial effort. Rather, the popular responses to ICE have been organic and not organized, which in some ways show the disunity of local communities.
ICE was clearly seeking to arrest people in large numbers to reach quotas, and the organic resistance that developed on the streets was in response to that. When ICE agents targeted Paramount, a region with few community organizations and largely Mexican immigrants, residents responded with unorganized “pure rage.” In Compton, people refused to let their neighbors be taken. While street responses to ICE raids have been spontaneous and unorganized, they have also successfully reduced the number of people being arrested. Instead of being able to arrest 50-100 folks at a time, ICE is resorting to raiding grocery stores and Home Depots, where they are only able to arrest a few people at a time, not reaching their target quotas.
Official responses
Kenia says that communities on the ground have been disappointed to see the response of the city government of L.A. Before Jan 1, city officials said they would not collaborate with ICE, but during the large-scale raids, the city used their police force to manage the crowds and arrest protesters, while the mayor called for peaceful protests in response. One tactic people were using was calling 911 to report kidnappings when ICE showed up. However, Kenia said that too often, the police would create a perimeter to protect ICE officers. She said this was in marked contrast to the stance taken by the Los Angeles United School District. When ICE targeted schools and graduations, L.A. Education Secretary Alberto Carvalho announced that protective measures would be taken, from increasing support for students to establishing perimeters of protection with school police around all graduation sites. In Bell, the city also stepped up. Police and Fire officers escorted ICE out of the community at one point, and the city has issued a statement of support to the community.
Building a counter narrative
Kenia believes that messaging and building alternative narratives is particularly important in this moment. “The violence came with ICE,” she said. “No one would have been acting in violent resistance without that… Our communities are not violent. We are being provoked into violence. We are being forced to defend ourselves.” Dominant narratives are trying to get people to be upset with and blame protesters. “How do we see them not just as protesters, but as saviors of our communities in this moment?” she asks.
While the Marines and the National Guard are being weaponized against activists to strong-arm L.A. into submission, she thinks this can also offer chinks in the narrative. She says that in California, many people serving in police forces, in the Marines, or in the military have undocumented parents. They are finding themselves with conflicting loyalties: duty to country but also duty to their families. One story made the national news: a father of three Marines was brutally detained and assaulted by ICE.
She says these raids are a symptom of the failure of the federal government to provide the American people what they promised. Nearly half of Latino voters voted for Donald Trump in the last election, banking with over half of American voters on his promises that the economy would improve, that tariffs would force the world into submission, that federal corruption would be addressed. Instead, the world has pushed back against U.S. hegemony, large numbers of federal employees have lost their jobs, the U.S. has initiated war with Iran, and a bill has been passed that strips access to health care, needed programs like SNAP (food stamps) and other essential programs related to social welfare, and taking the last safety nets that people have. All Trump’s base seems to have left is anti-immigration policies.
Kenia says we need to be more open to organizing these people once they come out of the anesthesia. People are regretting their support of Trump. “People are going to have to make choices,” she says. It is important that we highlight what the real problems are, highlight the contradictions of the current administration, and point out when cities are not protecting the communities they say they are serving.
Next Steps
Kenia highlights some key things that organizers in L.A. are wrestling with as they have become ground zero for U.S. anti-immigration enforcement. She highlights that people are facing very real challenges to their material conditions. People are afraid to leave their homes, they are losing paid work, and they increasingly are unable to pay their bills and rent. As an immediate step, Union de Vecinos is calling for a rent strike and demanding an Eviction Moratorium. They had been building a campaign to mobilize workers to team up and repair their own homes, instead of waiting for landlords, but now people are facing losing those homes.
At the same time, she points out that it is important to be strategic. It is not sustainable to rush from one ICE raid to another. Nor is it useful to abandon long-term goals to address this current crisis. So what are some strategies for building something long-lasting?
Make strategic alliances: This moment is an opportunity, Kenia says, to collaborate with other organizations that are working to stop the raids and to make connections with organizations that never worked together in the past. It is time to leave behind past grievances and disagreements between different groups and meet in this moment. There is a need for strategic alliances– to “look beyond our differences and work together.”
Encourage global perspectives: Kenia insists that we have to connect with what is happening in the rest of the world, for several reasons. First, no one leaves their country and migrates without imperialism and takeover of their jobs and livelihoods where they come from. Immigration into the United States is directly linked to the imperialism of the U.S. and the ruling class. Second, what the US and Israel have been doing in Palestine, for example, is a warning of just how violent and destructive our future can become if we don’t fight back. Palestinian occupation also started small, but cities like L.A. can see a vision of their own future if we allow military occupation now.
Organize our political base: Kenia says that organizing our political base is key. What kind of organization do we want after this spike in activity is over? How can organizers use this present moment to build power and a political base? She says, “We are urging people and communities to start talking to their neighbors and start organizing very locally: what is your territory, your block, how are you going to protect it? Who are the people in your neighborhood to protect, where are the safe houses, what do you need? What are the projects of survival needed in these times?” She says they are organizing food distributions through seven neighborhood committees, a way to start organizing building by building, block by block. “If everyone organizes and controls their block, it makes it more difficult for [our opposition],” Kenia says. Organizers are also figuring out ways to support people who, for example, are afraid to show up to their SNAP and welfare appointments. Most of these appointments can now be done online. She asks, “How do we share that information and have people in neighborhoods who can help you submit a request to do your appointments online?”
This current crisis offers an opportunity for growth, she says, “to bring in more people, to change the narrative.” As Los Angeles builds its resistance, it is also building models for resistance throughout the country.
