The Trump administration’s war on immigrants is expanding. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday confirmed its deportation operations would ramp up in Chicago and other major U.S. cities in the coming weeks. When the new fiscal year kicks in October 1, Immigration Customs and Enforcement can begin tapping billions in new funds from President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. With the agency seeking to hire 10,000 new agents, Americans can expect more violent raids snatching their neighbors off the streets.
The epicenter of America’s anti-immigrant campaign has been Los Angeles and its surrounding cities, where thousands have been arrested since June. Almost every day this summer, federal agents from ICE and U.S. Border Patrol have stalked Home Depot parking lots, car washes, and immigrant communities across Southern California, detaining people based on ethnicity or language.
“If they break LA, they can break any community in this country.”
But as the Trump administration’s war on immigrants expands, so does the resistance against it.
“It’s important that they break LA,” said Ron Gochez, a high school history teacher and leading member of the LA-based grassroots group Unión Del Barrio. “If they break LA, they can break any community in this country.”
Gochez and Unión Del Barrio are a part of the Community Self-Defense Coalition, a network of dozens of grassroots groups. The network conducts daily street patrols to warn their neighbors of possible ICE activity.
Filmmaker Brandon Tauszik embedded with Gochez and other members of Unión Del Barrio throughout the summer for The Intercept. In the documentary film “A City Fights Back: How LA Defends Itself Against ICE,” activists show a multifaceted strategy of opposition. They drive the streets in search of federal agents, monitor highway off-ramps to flag suspicious cars entering their communities, organize protests, and recruit and train new members willing to combat ICE.
For Gochez, a high school teacher and a father, the stakes are increasingly personal.
On August 8, federal agents snatched up high school student Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, 18, while he was walking his dog in Van Nuys, days before he was set to begin his senior year at Reseda Charter High School. He remains in ICE detention at a privately owned facility 80 miles away in Adelanto, California. Days later, agents detained at gunpoint Nathan Mejia, 15, outside of Arleta High School before releasing him later that day.
Both Mejia and Guerrero-Cruz are students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where Gochez teaches. In the film, he reflects on how his fight is intertwined with that of the next generation.
“It’s a constant reminder why we struggle and why we do what we do,” he says, while playing with his son. “One day when we’re no longer here and he’ll be here, and maybe his children, they’ll have a better life than what we had and what our parents had — so we’re fighting for the next seven generations, and he’s next up.”
This project was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project with funding made possible by The Puffin Foundation.
Contact the author:
Related
Latest Stories
Osama Bin Laden Won
The architect of the September 11 attacks dreamed of the destruction of America. In the last 25 years, his wish has come true.
Chilling Dissent
Fired After the Charlie Kirk Revenge Purge, They’re Still Unemployed
A year after his killing, people who lost their jobs for criticizing Charlie Kirk are still suffering under the erosion of free speech.
Chilling Dissent
Pentagon Employee DataRepublican Posts Inside Info About Hacks Against the Far Left
A far-right hacker that touts cyber attacks on leftist sites has close ties to DataRepublican, the X account of a Pentagon employee.