Trump's secret police are terrorizing American streets
The altercations are growing more tense — especially in Los Angeles.
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Narciso Barranco was trimming the grass with a weed whacker last Saturday outside of an IHOP in Santa Ana, California, when masked Border Patrol agents showed up.
The agents pepper-sprayed Barranco and pinned him to the ground, punching him repeatedly in the face as bystanders watched in shock, one of them recording the disturbing scene on his phone.
The Department of Homeland Security now claims its officers were in the right in attacking Barranco, because the father of three Marines “ASSAULTED” the officers, the agency claimed on X. DHS’s evidence: a second video that shows Barranco briefly pointing the tool toward an agent who was pepper spraying him while the landscaper and father of three Marines tried to run away.
The video of Barranco’s brutal detainment has gone viral as further evidence of the brutality of Donald Trump’s immigration raids that have swept across California and other states. Videos of immigration agents roughing up immigrants, bystanders, activists, or people recording the incidents surface online every day now.
Many of the incidents are being caught on camera by citizens, bystanders, and activists in the Los Angeles area. They show the aggressive and often inhumane tactics used by immigration agents who are concealing their identities with masks.
On Tuesday in downtown LA, a man who activists say is a street vendor was taken down by several immigration agents. The scene quickly devolved into chaos as bystanders pulled out their phones. One agent — who had just put his taser to the man’s head as he lay on the ground underneath two other officers — pointed the weapon at the face of a woman who was recording the scene.
Meanwhile, right-wing media, Republican politicians, the White House, and immigration agencies are in full celebration mode. The same scenes of masked agents grabbing immigrants off the streets that have drawn outrage from many Americans are being saluted by Republicans and the American right as the embodiment of law and order.
What would you call it in another country?
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has called on the Senate to pass the budget reconciliation package — named by Trump and Republicans as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — because it will allow for the hiring of 18,000 additional immigration agents, including 10,000 new agents at ICE alone.
At the same time, the Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration and will allow what’s known as third country renditions — snatching immigrants from American streets and sending them to countries where they have no ties. The court also recently granted sweeping immunity to Trump’s immigration agents from being sued for violating the civil rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.
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As ICE and other agencies have taken to the streets to carry out the mass deportation plans of Trump and top aide Stephen Miller, Americans, mostly in large, Democratic cities, have pushed back. The scenes have been chaotic, leading to large demonstrations in Los Angeles and clashes with law enforcement there. In recent days, Angeleno responding to ICE raids have been glitter-bombing agents. Protesters in Portland have at times blocked the entrance to and vandalized a federal building where ICE operates.
Now, Trump’s promise to increase immigration raids in other large cities like Chicago and New York — along with increased manpower for immigration agencies like ICE in Trump’s big bill — signal even more conflict ahead. Speaking in Los Angeles last Saturday, Vice President JD Vance said that resistance to the raids has caused “a bit of a morale problem” among immigration agencies.
“Border Patrol officials tell me that they feel like the local government is siccing violent mobs on them when they go out into the community to enforce the nation’s immigration laws,” Vance said at a press conference, adding that Border Patrol says its agents have been confronted by protesters “within 15 minutes” of trying to arrest immigrants.
Vance went on to allege that protesters have been “obstructing” agents, and claimed without evidence that Angelenos were “preventing [agents] from doing their jobs and endangering their lives.”
California has been ground zero for these conflicts. There, citizens and activists have documented the raids and occasionally clashed with authorities carrying them out. In response, local police and federal agents have arrested and detained US citizens, a photographer, a labor leader, and others.
On June 6, raids at a Home Depot and a clothing manufacturer sparked outrage, leading to large-scale protests across Los Angeles. Then, on June 9 in Compton, immigration agents in tactical gear arrived in what appears to be a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle (MRAP), a military vehicle used to protect troops from improvised explosive devices. They raided a home and arrested several people.
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As protests spread in LA, leading to clashes with local police as well as Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and the Marines, the city braced for the No Kings march on June 14. There, local police cleared a largely-peaceful crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets.
The same day, masked agents from ICE, the US Border Patrol, and DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations — kitted out in tactical gear and bearing assault rifles — raided an Los Angeles County flea market. The agents apparently asked patrons where they were from before arresting just two immigrants. Border Patrol then posted a hype video of their raid.
Elsewhere, Trump’s immigration forces have arrested hundreds of Dominicans in Puerto Rico, where music star Bad Bunny has joined the growing number of Americans documenting Trump’s immigration raids and harsh treatment of migrants at the hands of masked police.
On June 17, Bad Bunny posted a video of what appears to be an immigration raid in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
ICE and other immigration agencies have raided car washes in California, a horse racing track in Lousiana, a neighborhood in New Jersey, the streets of Chicago, and, of course, Home Depots throughout California. Immigrants who have showed up to court hearings or appointments with immigration agencies have been detained and deported, prompting two members of the National Guard in Chicago to accompany their mother, who is seeking citizenship, to an immigration facility.
“Are you fucking serious, bro?”
Trump’s masked immigration goons aren’t just arresting undocumented immigrants, they’re also threatening and detaining US citizens — and not just in high-profile cases like New York mayoral candidate Brad Lander, Sen. Alex Padilla, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Rep. LaMonica McIver, and Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan.
On June 18, immigration agents arrested Adrian Andrew Martinez, a 20-year-old US citizen, at a Walmart in Pico Rivera, California. Martinez pulled up next to agents as they were detaining a janitor. After briefly moving the janitor’s cart, an agent pushed it out of the way and knocked Martinez to the ground. He got back up and was eventually taken down by several officers. Border Patrol then claimed that Martinez had punched two officers. But Fox 11 in LA obtained security footage of the incident showing no punches from Martinez.
The next day, at a Home Depot in Hollywood, Job Garcia, a US citizen, was filming immigration agents as they arrested immigrants. As an agent smashed a truck window to detain the person inside, Garcia yelled “Are you fucking serious, bro?” Agents then swarmed Garcia as his camera pans to the ground. “Get him down!” an agent yells. “Get the fuck down!”
The agent demanded Garcia give up his hands.
“You want it? You got it, sir. You fucking got it,” the agent says as he takes Garcia’s phone and sets it on the ground. “You want to go to jail? Fine.”
It’s not clear what crime, if any, Garcia will be charged with. He has since been released.
The same day, the LAPD arrested a photographer, Anthony Orendorff, at the scene of an immigration raid at a Costco in Pacoima, California. Local activists say Orendorff is being held without bail.
In addition to covering their faces, ICE agents are also apparently dressing up as construction workers to nab immigrants, according to videos shared by activists in Pomona, California. And there are growing questions about the identity of the officers roaming the streets in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
LA Mayor Karen Bass noted on Tuesday that some of the agents seen in the city in recent days and weeks are wearing generic bulletproof vests. Videos posted of interactions with agents show some wearing black vests bearing the word “POLICE.” These vests can be purchased online.
“They show up without uniforms. They show up completely masked. They refuse to give ID,” Bass said at a press conference after officials at Dodger Stadium refused to admit immigration agents. “Who are these people? And frankly, the vests that they have on look like they ordered them from Amazon. Are they bounty hunters? Are they vigilantes? If they’re federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?”
The scenes of aggressive, masked agents are reminiscent of the world’s most authoritarian regimes, where police and the military act with impunity against citizens. These masked agents are quickly becoming the face of Trump’s immigration crackdown, and have prompted calls to make it illegal for the agents to conceal their identities.
Two state Democratic lawmakers in California have introduced a bill that would prohibit ICE agents from wearing face coverings. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu noted that police in her city don’t wear masks, and compared ICE agents to mask-wearing members of the neo-Nazi gang NSC-113.
Acting ICE director Todd Lyons took issue with Wu’s comparison, saying his agents are under a grave threat from Americans opposed to the agency’s work and noting that he himself had been doxxed, resulting in “masked protesters” showing up at his home.
Meanwhile, federal agencies routinely post photos of immigrants detained in their raids, and Trump himself has loudly proclaimed that Americans shouldn’t be allowed to wear masks at protests — and that anyone doing so should be arrested.
“What do these people have to hide, and why?” Trump asked on Truth Social.
Republicans across the country have been introducing bills that would make it illegal to wear a mask at a protest — part of what the International Center for Not-For-Profit-Law says are more than 350 “anti-protest” bills introduced nationwide since 2017.
Despite the constant, prideful touting of their work across social media — the ASMR video of immigrants being boarded onto a plane, hype videos of agents who look like they’re headed into a warzone, drone shots of the border — Trump’s immigration agencies increasingly don’t appear willing to tie their agents’ actual identities to the president’s mass deportation operation being carried out on American streets. In return, Americans on the streets of California and elsewhere look like they’ve had just about enough of Trump’s secret immigration police snatching up immigrants and citizens alike.
That’s it for today
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Under this government it is now the Unsafe States of America. Unsafe for visitors, unsafe for immigrants, unsafe for citizens, unsafe for everyone but the #ConArtists in Washington.
He cut thousands of jobs from the IRS—specifically the ones who go after complex tax cheats—and will cost taxpayers tens of millions in lost tax revenues but he wants 18k new ICE goons to round up innocent brown people. What a fiscal genius.