Thousands of protesters in Los Angeles rallied against ICE on Friday, January 30, in confrontations that led to federal agents being blockaded inside a detention center. The rally, which started at the city hall, eventually marched down to the Metropolitan Detention Center in the downtown area of the city. This came on the heels of the recent murders of Renee Good, Keith Porter Jr., and Alex Pretti by ICE agents, actions which have triggered widespread outrage and protest around the country.
At the Metropolitan Detention Center, protesters began closing in on the entrance to the building. ICE agents inside threatened to shoot the protesters, but the door was forcibly closed, preventing this from happening. A dumpster reading “FUCK ICE” was moved in front of the entrance, blocking it off.
Eventually, armed officers wielding shields emerged from the building and began attacking the combative masses gathered there. By 8:45 PM that night, Los Angeles Police Department issued a dispersal order. Many were not dissuaded, and confrontations with police ensued for several hours. At one point, police fired on the crowd with a variety of “less lethal” weapons such as pepper balls. By the following morning, eight people had been arrested; six for “failure to disperse.”
Los Angeles’ mayor Karen Bass was quoted as stating “I think the protests are extremely important, but it is equally important for these protests to be peaceful, for vandalism not to take place. That just hurts the city. That does not impact the administration in any kind of way that is going to bring about any type of change.” This is a clear attempt to paint concrete action and mass resistance as aberrant, and actually counterproductive to the goal of ending ICE. Democratic politicians like Bass traffic in the language of protest and resistance in order to attack actual mass actions, and prevent the emergence of revolutionary leadership by funneling the masses back in the old dead ends of electoralism and reformism.
A worker in Los Angeles interviewed by The Partisan provided more background on the protests:
“Los Angeles has a long tradition of militancy – most recently the summer rebellions in 2020 during the George Floyd protests when the National Guard was called out for weeks and during the Anti ICE protests in summer 2025 when both the marines and national guard were deployed.
With the protest at the Metropolitan Detention Center, I think it’s important to highlight the work being done by disciplined workers in the community self defense coalition.
These are the people on the frontlines patrolling neighborhoods in Los Angeles and confronting ICE agents during raids. Their work is not as heroic as protests but they are daily hitting the streets and working with communities to form the first line of defense against deportations.”
It must be emphasized that violence and struggle are key to concretely winning demands, and to ultimately succeeding in class struggle against the ruling class and for socialism. While many anti-ICE protesters today may not conceive of that struggle as linked with the struggle for socialism, it is precisely these struggles against the ruling class and its agents which will pave the way for real liberation. The emergence of revolutionary leadership develops amidst class struggle, mainly through practice and two-line struggle between the revolutionary and reformist road within the working-class movement.
Many around the country are increasingly rejecting the illusions of the State and its bourgeois democracy. It is precisely in moments like these that a principled, militant, class-conscious, and revolutionary anti-fascist movement must be built. This is done with the weapon of organization, or more precisely, is done with the organizational implementation of a correct and revolutionary political line. That is the only way to end ICE and its ilk once and for all.
