The riots that started last week in Los Angeles in protest of illegal immigration deportations have ignited in other cities, sparked by labor groups funded by the left.
Hundreds of people have been arrested in violent uprisings in Los Angeles, while smaller gangs of protesters have sprung up in Austin, Texas; Boston; New York City and other metropolitan areas. It’s led to claims of a coordinated effort from left-wing organizations to throw the nation into chaos over President Trump’s immigration policies.
Police in New York on Tuesday night clashed with hundreds of protesters outside the federal building that houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is leading Mr. Trump’s effort to round up thousands of migrants every day.
In Austin, police arrested more than a dozen anti-ICE protesters. Three cops were injured by large rocks thrown by the protesters, local news outlets reported, and one officer was spat on.
In Omaha, Nebraska, protesters hurled rocks and jumped on the front bumper of an ICE vehicle participating in a raid of a meat-packing plant.
Hundreds more demonstrators gathered downtown later in the day, coordinated by a workers-rights group and LULAC, a Hispanic civil rights organization.
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Like Omaha, the protests in the Texas capital were organized by left-wing groups. The Party for Socialism and Liberation planned the Austin march, which later in the evening escalated into protesters damaging property and a confrontation with police, who dispersed the crowd with pepper balls, local news outlets reported.
The Service Employees International Union, the Communist Party of the United States and pro-immigration groups organized and participated in New York’s protests. The CPUSA social media handle urged followers on Tuesday to ramp up demonstrations against ICE.
“All across the country, we’re standing up against ICE, Trump and the MAGA menace,” party organizers posted on X. “Don’t be provoked by cop violence. ICE melts under the [people’s] heat. Turn it up!”
Police clashes with protesters happened Tuesday on a smaller scale in Boston, Denver, Dallas and Chicago, where people gathered in opposition to the president’s mass deportation.
Mr. Trump campaigned on securing the southern border and removing millions of illegal immigrants who poured into the country during the Joe Biden presidency. The administration has emphasized the deportation of criminals, but protesters say many others with no criminal records — other than breaking the law by entering the U.S. illegally — have been rounded up.
The biggest clashes continue in Los Angeles, where thousands of protesters have burned cars, damaged other property and blocked traffic. More than a dozen law enforcement officers have been injured. Mr. Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to restore order to the city, and Mayor Karen Bass imposed a nighttime curfew.
Hundreds of protesters have been arrested.
The Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights is one of the main organizers of the Los Angeles protests, and dozens of its members were arrested this week.
Until recently, the group was receiving six-figure funding from the Homeland Security Department. The organization’s $100,936 contract was terminated in March, said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security.
Half a dozen left-wing organizations also coordinated to protest in Los Angeles, among them Indivisible and the L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, which called the ICE raids “ethnic cleansing” and posted a hotline to “report ICE activity.”
The White House on Wednesday criticized Ms. Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom for embracing “radical views” about illegal immigrants and provoking the violence in the city.
“President Trump will never allow mob rule to prevail in America,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “The most basic duty of government is to preserve law and order.”
