In early June 2025, a series of state-led immigration raids triggered widespread protests and clashes in Los Angeles and other US cities. Federal agents from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raided a warehouse complex in the Fashion district and several Home Depot parking lots in southern California. Over 260 undocumented workers were detained, prompting immediate resistance from surrounding communities.
By 5 June, demonstrations had erupted in downtown LA, with solidarity marches in Chicago, New York and Houston. According to local reports, more than 70 protesters were injured and nearly 150 arrested. Video footage circulated widely on social media showed police using tear gas, rubber bullets and kettling tactics against demonstrators.
California is home to the USA’s largest population of undocumented people. Some 1.8 million were in the state in 2022, the Pew research centre estimates, 800,000 of them in Los Angeles County, making up more than 8 percent of its total population. About 53 percent are from neighbouring Mexico, with sizeable proportions from El Salvador, Guatemala and the Philippines. They work in agriculture and construction, in restaurants and the service industry, in day labour and landscaping – often for pay that is ad hoc and ‘off the books’.
Los Angeles is a so-called ‘sanctuary city’, meaning the city has policies in place to protect undocumented immigrants from federal immigration enforcement. This includes prohibiting the use of city resources and personnel for immigration enforcement purposes and limiting the sharing of data with federal immigration authorities.
Its sanctuary status stems from a long-standing 1960s commitment to protect immigrants, but don’t be fooled – such protections are not altruistic. They undoubtedly enable the state to achieve the highest nominal gross domestic product (GDP) among all US states owing to the prevalence of extremely low wages.
The unrest in LA underscores the deepening political divide over immigration and the role of sanctuary cities in the USA. While Californian officials argue for the protection of immigrant communities and local autonomy, and the continuance of local exploitation practices, the federal government is asserting its authority to enforce federal immigration laws.
Mainstream media outlets framed the unrest in highly partisan (ie, culture wars) terms. Fox News emphasised “mob violence” and framed the protests as attacks on law enforcement and national sovereignty. CNN and MSNBC, while slightly more sympathetic to the protestors, emphasised the “chaotic response” of the Trump-aligned ICE directorate and portrayed the events as a breakdown in governance rather than as a systemic conflict rooted in class exploitation. Across the board, none of the corporate media outlets questioned the logic of immigration enforcement itself – they debated only the related optics and operational efficiency.
This latest wave of US state repression must be understood not as an isolated policy error, or the maniacal tactics of a fascistic despot who has somehow ‘taken control’ of an otherwise ‘democratic’ America, but as the deliberate deployment of violence to maintain capitalist class relations – a continuity of the existing modus operandi; the implementation of new tactics supporting the same old strategy.
It is through this lens that we now analyse the recent LA riots and the dynamics at play which they reflect.
Trump plays to his core supporters with anti-immigration rhetoric
US president Donald Trump’s performative cruelty on immigration – marked by televised raids, concentration camps for children and bombastic rhetoric – is not a deviation from US state policy but its logical extension. His repeated calls to “restore order” and “defend the border” have nothing to do with national security – they are class war by another name.
President Trump is reminding his reactionary base and the capitalist class that he can keep cheap migrant labour frightened, fragmented and docile, while simultaneously feeding white nationalist sentiment. But what is often missed is that Trump is not inventing this violence – he is merely administering it with less finesse.
The liberal response – framing Trump as uniquely fascist – is a sleight of hand. The Democratic party and its media supporters posture as defenders of human rights, yet the administration of former president Barack Obama deported more people than any US presidency in history – over 3 million, earning Obama the nickname, ‘Deporter-in-chief’.
Democratic president Joe Biden’s record was a continuity of this agenda, not a rupture. Deportations, raids, walls, cages – these are bipartisan tools of a capitalist state tasked with managing the labour supply, protecting the extraction of surplus value, and suppressing working-class organisation and resistance.
When Democrats cry foul, it is not out of solidarity with migrants but to obscure the fact that cheap migrant labour, a malleable workforce and state repression are not a Republican problem – they reflect capitalist necessity and continue under all bourgeois governments.
Bourgeois theatre: Republican v Democrat
The political theatre between Republicans and Democrats is designed to trap the working masses into endless tribal conflicts that ultimately change nothing. Each ‘side’ accuses the other of tyranny while preserving the same class relations.
This division saps revolutionary energy and channels proletarian anger into electoral politics – a terrain where the bourgeoisie always wins.
The ruling class presents two masks, but behind both is the same face: capital. Both presidential candidates are funded by the same elite, so regardless of the outcome, it’s a win-win for the status quo.
Resistance and repression
Immigrant workers have pushed back – protesting, striking and sometimes physically resisting ICE raids. These are not mere immigration issues; they are class conflicts.
Their resistance is not about national identity but survival under capitalism – where the local exploitation of undocumented workers by capitalist enterprises is essential to maintaining profitability.
The raids don’t target capitalists employing undocumented workers – they target the workers themselves. The locations of the recent raids reveal the truth: capital demands cheap, disposable labour, and the state’s role is to manage that process through fear and repression.
This is not about legality or security – it’s about maintaining a pool of hyperexploitable workers with limited rights, so profits can remain high and resistance can be kept low.
Divide and rule
The ultimate strategy of the state – whether fronted up by a Republican or Democrat White House regime – is to divide the working class: to pit documented against undocumented, white against black, native-born against immigrant.
The riots, the spectacle, the partisan outrage – these are diversions. They prevent us from seeing the simple, undeniable truth: that there are only two sides. Not Democrat versus Republican, not liberal versus conservative, not white versus brown, not legal versus illegal, but bourgeoisie versus proletariat, ruling class versus working class.
Until the working class clearly sees the enemy for who it is – the capitalist class and the imperialist state apparatus – there will be no end to exploitation, deportations, raids and repression. Donald Trump is not the problem. Neither was Joe Biden or those who came before. The system of capitalism is the problem.
We must reject the false divisions sold to us by media and mainstream politics. The working class must unite across all lines – citizenship, race, gender or status – and recognise that our common enemy is the system that exploits, divides and disciplines us all.
The streets are not burning because of one man’s presidency. They are burning because the capitalist state is waging war on the proletariat. Whether it wears a red tie or a blue one, the ruling class cannot be reformed – it must be overthrown.
