ICE Out of LA! National Guard Out of LA!

Stop ICE Raids and Deportations By Any Means Necessary!

• Build community, student, and worker defense guards to stop ICE raids and deportations!
• Trump’s fascist presidency is illegitimate! ICE is an illegitimate Gestapo force! They both must be defeated!
• Only our independent movement can make LA a real sanctuary and defeat Trump
• Trump is a weak fascist and must go now!
• Ignore Democratic Party politicians and any and all “community leaders” who ask the movement to turn the other cheek to fascism!
• LA communities have a right to defend ourselves!
• Without struggle, there is no progress!
• Los Angeles leads the resistance against Trump’s fascist regime
• Victory to Palestine! Victory to LA! Victory to our national, independent, and mass militant movement against fascism!

PDF of English flyer

PDF of Spanish flyer

Donald Trump’s illegitimate fascist government is weak and must be defeated the LA way. On Friday, June 6, the communities of Los Angeles responded with courage and boldness to a military invasion on the city by ICE, FBI federal forces, and LAPD. The latent and explosive power of LA, led by Latino youth, was stronger than Trump’s war on our immigrant communities.

ICE and federal forces in full military gear mobilized and acted more with the objective to provoke a riot in LA, than to carry out mass immigrant raids. The LA communities’ mobilization defended our immigrant communities and defeated Trump’s attempt to provoke a riot that could have garnered the kind of international attention needed to distract everyone from his current political crisis and advance his fascist program of a repressive police state. LA Mayor Karen Bass and LAPD have made clear once again that, for them, LA is not a sanctuary city and that they are more than willing to cooperate with ICE raids and provocations, regardless of what their press statements say. ICE failed in their two objectives to carry out mass arrests from their raids and also to cause a riot in LA acting like an invading military force viciously waging war on overwhelmingly peaceful protesters.

The movement continues to improve at organizing ourselves in local communities across Los Angeles and other cities nationwide to confront ICE raids and deportations. Our tactic of community defense guards has resulted in success and has become more clear; word of potential ICE activity is shared through existing local alert networks with pictures and/or videos, location details and time, accompanied by a call to action. Community members rapidly mobilize with signs, bullhorns and determination, joining local neighbors to confront ICE agents. Our communities have learned that, instead of alerting people to stay away from ICE activity and creating panic in the community, the best thing we can and must do is to organize and build on our community defense guard networks to mobilize an immediate response to drive ICE out. We are learning how to be bold in action, applying the right tactics to confront ICE agents, block their vehicles and express our mass power. These past days, LA has shown us that, with conscious leadership, boldness, and collective action, we can succeed in freeing immigrants detained on the spot.

On Friday, ICE thugs in full military gear kidnapped people going to ICE check-ins, at an Ambiance warehouse in downtown LA’s Fashion District, and at a Home Depot in the Westlake/MacArthur Park area. The community was quick to respond in militant fashion. Brave and angry Latina/o youth led the way in confronting ICE agents during the raids, blocking and surrounding their cars, ultimately driving them out of these community sites. Hundreds of people were also quick to mobilize to the downtown LA federal detention center later in the day, where the confrontations continued, cheered by immigrants detained inside the building. The mass actions on Friday set the tone for the next day.

On Saturday, June 7, ICE agents were once again staging another raid at a Home Depot in Paramount city, in which over 85% of the population identifies as Latino. The community was alerted, and, emboldened by the example of the previous day, showed up in force, preventing another ICE raid. Our community refused to be intimidated and remained in the area until it was clear that no raid would be carried out.

This is the LA way! Independent, mass, militant, direct actions, intervening in the ongoing struggle, is how we protect our immigrant communities and how we can defeat Trump’s attacks. Our actions are saving countless lives, keeping immigrant families together, and making LA a real sanctuary city, where it is safe for immigrants and unsafe for ICE kidnappers.

All Trump and his entourage of stooge federal department heads can do is make more bombastic threats of forceful repression like sending the national guard to LA, but this has not and must not deter our anger and determination to act. This disgusting spectacle of military vehicles, armored SUVs, and vans parading through the streets of Los Angeles, at times protected by LAPD and LA Sheriffs, was nothing but smoke-and-mirrors and provocations from a weak Trump government in the middle of a deepening crisis.

Despite all the fanfare, after two days, ICE could not arrest more than 150 people. This is still unacceptable, but considering that the LA area has over twenty million residents, with an estimated one million of them being undocumented immigrants, ICE’s numbers of an “Operation at Large” are pathetic and an utter failure. This is not the way Donald Trump can fulfill his promise to his racist supporters of eleven million deportations. Continuing this spectacle by threatening to send an additional two thousand National Guard troops to put down protests in LA is yet another Trump attempt to scare and provoke our movement. But more than that: it is an attempt to cover up his failures by trying to seem stronger than he actually is, especially at a point when Trump is increasingly weak.

Our movement can and must see beyond the headlines and cowering, almost non-existent, Democratic Party opposition. Trump is failing to successfully carry out his attacks on immigrants. Stories of communities all over America coming to the defense of immigrants against ICE raids are increasing daily. Detained migrants in high-profile raids are quickly being released. Kilmar Abrego, a Salvadoran green-card holder previously sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador, was returned to the U.S., signifying another failure. Trump’s erratic policy of tariffs on imports that is wrecking the economy, his failures on immigration, and the total incompetence of his political appointees to carry out his fascist program, are causing Trump to lose support from a section of big capitalists. This is best exemplified in the telenovela drama between Trump and other egomaniac Elon Musk. This weakening is the result of the ongoing resistance nationwide. The national movement for victory for the Palestinian struggle, led by college students turning their universities into dynamic centers of struggle, is defying the cowardice and complicity of their liberal administrations attempting to repress them. The mass mobilizations in the streets against Trump’s racist attacks on minorities, against his attacks on LGBT+ people and on democracy—particularly the militant and growing movement in defense of immigrants—are the most militant and powerful force capable of defeating Trump’s attacks.

BAMN will continue to provide leadership in action and popularize our tactic of Community Defense Guards. The only way to change history is to actively take part in it, and LA is leading the way. We can and will stop more raids as we learn to act collectively and consciously with boldness through experience. ICE knows that they are hated anywhere they go, especially in our black and Latina/o neighborhoods. They are not so brave when confronted by small and/or large groups of people determined to stop them. Any community confrontation with ICE kidnappers can quickly explode into an urban uprising. We should not shy away from confrontation, and must always consciously act to collectively assert our superior power.

We invite you to join BAMN, and to take action to organize and develop community defense guards in your school, worksite and/or neighborhood. Our movement must develop a conscious leadership to continue building the strength of our movement on an independent basis.

6/8/2025