When immigrant rights advocates saw the number of people attending demonstrations across the country protesting the Trump administration’s mass deportation operations, they cheered.
Then photos of burning cars across Los Angeles started to go viral.
“Anybody that burns a car, anybody that throws a rock, anybody that reacts with violence, they might as well be on the payroll of Donald Trump,” said former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, a Democrat who was arrested at immigration protests during the first Trump administration. “People come together because there’s a ruthless regime that is just destroying families left and right, but they’re going to see that narrative is lost.”
Protests in Los Angeles over Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations have attracted national attention after a few turned violent, with some attendees setting cars on fire or throwing rocks at authorities. The protests have continued over the past few days, and President Donald Trump has activated the state’s National Guard and sent in U.S. Marines to quell the demonstrations against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom, sparking another debate over federal authority.
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Gutiérrez and other advocates say the images of violence distract from what the protests are supposed to be about.
“The stories of that grandma, of that husband who never returned home, of people who work in the fields and work in factories, and nobody writes about them,” he said. “Every time there’s an act of violence, another one of those stories gets untold.”
The Trump administration has been aggressive in trying to boost its deportation numbers, which have lagged behind the lofty goals pushed by the president. In an attempt to drive up its numbers, ICE agents were reportedly told to go after random groups of people who were suspected of being undocumented, a break from the way operations are usually conducted and a break from the administration’s promises to deport the “worst of the worst.”
The raids in LA, along with the arrest of high-profile activists, have only served to ratchet up tensions in the city.
“I certainly don’t want to see anybody being violent or destroying public property, because I do think it takes away from the message and from the goal here,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice. “Which is, again, to show that people are standing up and speaking out against the mass deportation agenda.”
Now photos of people on top of burning cars and confronting the National Guard are spreading, despite the fact that the protests have been confined to a relatively small area in downtown Los Angeles. The Republican narrative about the protests has sought to emphasize alleged lawlessness in blue cities and frame the protests as an attack on American identity.
“These criminals injured police, threw rocks at police cars and officers, burned vehicles, shut down freeways and lobbed Molotov cocktails all because the Trump administration was removing violent, criminal, illegal aliens from the city,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “These attacks were aimed not just at law enforcement, but at American culture and society itself.”
But not everyone was so negative about the situation. Some emphasized how important the protest movement is in showing the unpopularity of Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
One advocate, who requested anonymity out of fear that their organization would be targeted, said it’s the tipping point they’ve been waiting for. They also felt the administration’s narrative would only be successful if Democrats shied away from calling it out. So far, that hasn’t happened.
“They all are very disciplined on message and use it to sort of justify their extreme language and their extreme actions,” the advocate said of the Trump administration. “I would only be worried about it if advocates and Democrats remained silent in countering those attacks.”
Cárdenas said that Americans will resist measures like sending in federal troops to arrest citizens, no matter what Republicans say.
“It’s not surprising that the right is going to use images that tell another story, because I think it’s in their interest,” she said. “At the end of the day, what’s undeniable is that people are raising up and rejecting this mass deportation agenda, and for the most part they’re doing it in a peaceful way.”
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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