After ‘weekend of chaos,’ thousands rally to protest ICE raids and arrest of union leader

Thousands of union members, immigrants’ rights activists and supporters gathered in Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon to demand the release of David Huerta, the California union president arrested and injured during Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids last week.

The protesters were peaceful and boisterous. They sang, chanted, and held signs with slogans such as, “Warm Margaritas B-Cuz F— ICE.” Their presence was in stark contrast to the downtown surrounding them, which was quiet, heavily vandalized and lined with police and National Guard vehicles.

“It’s been a weekend of chaos, not initiated by the working people, the working immigrants of Los Angeles,” Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of Service Employees International Union Local 2015, said in an interview at the rally, which was organized by the union.

“The ICE raids,” he added, “are having a traumatizing and devastating impact on our community … and we have very serious concerns about the conditions of the people that they’re picking up.”

And he said it was important to remember that in Los Angeles, “thousands and thousands of immigrant workers are now having to get through the National Guard, the LAPD, the L.A. County sheriffs, just to be able to get to work, with the fear that they might not come home and that their children might not be picked up from school.”

“I don’t think those are California values,” De La Cruz said. “Right?”

Huerta, the 58-year-old president of SEIU California, was arrested Friday while documenting an immigration enforcement raid in the downtown Fashion District, according to union members who said he was exercising his 1st Amendment rights.

Federal authorities said he deliberately blocked their vehicles, obstructing federal agents’ access to a worksite where they were executing a search warrant. Video of the arrest shows him being pushed by authorities in riot gear until he falls backward, appearing to strike his head on the curb. He was treated at a hospital and then transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Huerta was made his first appearance in federal court Monday afternoon on a charge of conspiracy to impede an officer. He was ordered released on a $50,000 appearance bond. As part of his conditions, he can’t knowingly be within 100 yards of federal agents or operations.

Thousands rally at Grand Park on Monday in support of union leader David Huerta who was recently detained by ICE agents and faces federal charges.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Two of Huerta’s nephews, Raymond Gutierrez and Thomas Magdelino Gutierrez, 39, of Whittier, stood quietly in the crowd. Thomas said he was worried about his uncle’s safety in federal custody and that he, like many others, was sad and scared by the sight of National Guard members in the streets.

He said he had mixed feelings about the graffiti covering buildings throughout downtown. He said he figured the Trump administration and its supporters will latch onto it, showing a Los Angeles they claim is in chaos to justify the use of military force.

But at the same time, he said, he understands the anger behind the spray-painted messages.

“We don’t like seeing our city torn down,” Thomas said. “But I understand the anger. Buildings and property can always be rebuilt and painted over, but families can’t be rebuilt once they are broken apart.”

Jason Petty, a 46-year-old musician from Boyle Heights, said he came to the rally because “this is our community — immigration is us.”

Petty, a former ninth-grade history teacher, said he was born and raised in Los Angeles. He is Black, and his grandmother lived in Watts during the 1965 Watts riots. His father was a Black Panther. And he also lived through the 1992 riots.

The weekend protests against the ICE raids, he said, did not rise to the level of needing the National Guard.

“There’s no comparison,” he said, adding that calling in the military was “completely unnecessary.” “It does not have to be like this,” he said. “This is cruelty on purpose.”

Petty said he has a daughter in fourth grade and that immigration agents recently came to her school. He said he has had to have difficult conversations with her, assuring her she’s safe, but telling her: “You don’t have to worry about it, but mommy and daddy are sticking up for your friends.”

“I should not have to have this conversation,” he said.

Petty said he’d been thinking a lot about his late grandmother over the weekend of unrest. He remembers talking to her during the 1992 riots. Having lived through the Watts uprising, she seemed unfazed, telling her family, “until I see tanks coming down the street, I’m not going nowhere.”

Had she been alive this weekend, and seen the National Guard rolling in, “she wouldn’t have stood for it,” he said.

As police helicopters hovered overhead, Dolores Huerta, the 95-year-old civil rights leader and labor union activist, took to the stage, where she spoke of the nonviolent protests of Ghandi in India.

“If Ghandi can win with nonviolence, can we win with nonviolence?” she asked.

“Yes!” the crowd responded.

“We’re all mad as hell, but we’ve got to turn that anger into organizing energy and convince people that we can win with nonviolent tactics with our marches and our protests,” she urged.

Times staff writer Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.