Stepped-up \u2018enforcement activity\u2019 to fulfill arrest quotas leads to reports of agents chasing workers across farmland<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US immigration<\/a> officials carried out further \u201cenforcement activity\u201d in California\u2019s agricultural heartland and the Los Angeles area as the conflict between the state and Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s administration intensified on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Immigrant advocacy groups reported multiple actions across the state, where an estimated 255,700 farm workers are undocumented, and said agents pursued workers through blueberry fields and staged operations at agricultural facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The raids have been sharply criticized by advocacy groups and local officials, who said they were \u201coutraged and heartbroken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) activities targeting immigrant families\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen our workforce\u2019s lives are in fear, the fields will go unharvested, the impact is felt not only at the local level, but it will also be felt at the national level,\u201d said Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios, the mayor of Ventura, a coastal city just north of Los Angeles<\/a>. \u201cEverything will be affected and every American who is here and relies on the labor of these individuals will be affected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Immigration activities have continued in the Los Angeles area as well, where officials say people have been detained outside Home Depots and in front of churches. Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, said the raids have created a deep sense of fear in the region and that the White House has provoked unrest. The nighttime curfew she put in place this week will stay in place as long as needed, including while there are ongoing raids and a military presence in the city, Bass said at a press conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hilda Solis, an LA county supervisor, said Wednesday evening she was concerned about a \u201cdeeply disturbing incident\u201d in the city\u2019s Boyle Heights neighborhood involving two unmarked vehicles<\/a> operated by Ice agents crashing in to a civilian car with two children inside and deploying teargas to apprehend an individual. She said she had also learned of an incident of Ice attempting to detain a member of the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nearly 5,000 US military personnel in the city now exceeds the number of US troops in both Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The increasing raids come as Ice ramps up its efforts to meet a reported quota of 3,000 detentions a day set by Stephen Miller, Trump\u2019s White House deputy chief of staff. The city has seen days of protest over Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown and the subsequent military deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Los Angeles police announced they arrested more than 200 people in the city\u2019s downtown area on Tuesday, after crowds gathered in defiance of the overnight curfew in the neighborhood. The LAPD said it had carried out more than 400 arrests and detentions of protesters since Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crackdown came after California\u2019s governor, Gavin Newsom, filed an emergency request to block the Trump administration<\/a> from using military forces to accompany Ice officers on raids throughout LA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has ordered the deployment of 4,000 national guard members and 700 marines to LA after days of protests driven by anger over aggressive Ice raids that have targeted garment workers, day labourers, car wash employees and members of immigrant communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across the country, NBC reported<\/a> that Ice was preparing to deploy tactical units to several more cities run by Democratic leaders, citing two sources familiar with the plans, who named four of the cities as Seattle, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Wednesday, dozens of mayors from across the Los Angeles region banded together to demand that the Trump administration<\/a> stop the stepped-up immigration raids that have spread fear across their cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m asking you, please listen to me, stop terrorizing our residents,\u201d said Mayor Jessica Ancona of El Monte, who said she was hit by rubber bullets during a raid in her city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking alongside the other mayors at a news conference, Bass said the raids spread fear at the behest of the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe started off by hearing the administration wanted to go after violent felons, gang members, drug dealers. But when you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you\u2019re not trying to keep anyone safe,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to cause fear and panic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newsom and the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, have alleged in a pair of lawsuits<\/a> filed on Monday and Tuesday that Trump\u2019s takeover of the state\u2019s national guard, against the governor\u2019s wishes, was unlawful. On Tuesday, a federal judge declined to immediately rule on California\u2019s request for a restraining order and scheduled a hearing for Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a speech, Newsom condemned Trump for \u201cindiscriminately targeting hard-working immigrant families\u201d and militarising the streets of LA, recounting how in recent days Ice agents had grabbed people outside a Home Depot, detained a nine-months-pregnant US citizen<\/a>, sent unmarked cars to schools, and arrested gardeners and seamstresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s just weakness masquerading as strength,\u201d the governor said. \u201cIf some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant based only on suspicion or skin colour, then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In past days, thousands of troops have been deployed to LA over the objections of Democratic officials and despite concerns from local law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US military troops in the city do not have the authority to arrest people, but they are allowed to temporarily detain individuals until law enforcement agents arrest them, Maj Gen Scott Sherman, who is leading the deployment, said on Wednesday. National guard troops on the ground in Los Angeles have already done so, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 700 US marines who will be deployed are receiving training on civil disturbances and will not have live ammunition in their rifles while in the city, Sherman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Los Angeles county sheriff, Robert Luna, said on Wednesday, however, that federal troops do not have the power to arrest or detain: \u201cSo if they are out in the field, they may be there, but they are working in conjunction with federal authorities. It could be Ice, border patrol, there\u2019s a whole host of acronym federal agencies that they\u2019re working with.\u201d Luna also said he was unaware whether Marines were already on the ground in the city, but that local law enforcement was trying to \u201cimprove communication\u201d with the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, said he expected the military would remain in the city for 60 days at a cost of at least $134m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump defended the military deployment on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday morning, writing: \u201cIf our troops didn\u2019t go into Los Angeles, it would be burning to the ground right now, just like so much of their housing burned to the ground. The great people of Los Angeles are very lucky that I made the decision to go in and help!!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deployment of the national guard and marines is strongly opposed by California<\/a> Democrats, as well as by every Democratic governor in the US. Alex Padilla, a California senator, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that protests against Ice and the subsequent legal showdown between his state and the government was \u201cabsolutely a crisis of Trump\u2019s own making\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said: \u201cThere are a lot of people who are passionate about speaking up for fundamental rights and respecting due process, but the deployment of national guard only serves to escalate tensions and the situation. It\u2019s exactly what Donald Trump<\/a> wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Padilla said the Los Angeles sheriff\u2019s department had not been advised of the federalisation of the national guard. He said his office had pressed the Pentagon for a justification, and \u201cas far as we\u2019re told, the Department of Defence isn\u2019t sure what the mission is here\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, officials in Los Angeles have sought to reassure the public that the situation in the city remains largely peaceful and calm. At a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Nathan Hochman, the district attorney of Los Angeles<\/a> county, pointed out how images of unrest on television and social media have misled many Americans about the nature and scale of the mayhem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you only saw the social media and the media reports of what\u2019s going on over the last five days, you would think that Los Angeles is on the brink of war,\u201d Hochman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut let me put this in perspective for you. There are 11 million people in this county; 4 million of which live in Los Angeles city. We estimate that there\u2019s probably thousands of people who have engaged in legitimate protest, let\u2019s say 4,000 people,\u201d Hochman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat means that 99.9% of people in Los Angeles city or generally Los Angeles county have not engaged in any protest at all,\u201d he continued. \u201cNow, amongst the people who have engaged in protest, we estimate that there are hundreds of people, let\u2019s say maybe up to 400, to use rough percentages, who have engaged in this type of illegal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo what does that mean?\u201d Hochman asked<\/a>. \u201cThat means that 99.99% of people who live in Los Angeles \u2026 have not committed any illegal acts in connection with this protest whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n