As federal agents rushed to arrestimmigrantsacrossLos Angeles, they confined detainees – including families with small children – in a stuffy office basement for days without sufficient food and water, according to immigration lawyers.
One family with three children were held inside aLos Angeles-area administrative building for 48 hours after being arrested on Thursday immediately after an immigration court hearing, according to lawyers from theImmigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), which is providing non-profit legal services in the region.
The children, the youngest of whom is three years old, were provided a bag of chips, a box of animal crackers and a mini carton of milk as their sole rations for a day. Agents told the family they did not have any water to provide during the family’s first day in detention; on the second day, all five were given a single bottle to share. The one fan in the room was pointed directly towards a guard, rather than towards the families in confinement, they told lawyers.
“Because it was primarily men held in these facilities, they didn’t have separate quarters for families or for women,” saidYliana Johansen-Méndez, chief program officer at ImmDef. Clients explained that “eventually they set up a makeshift tent in an outside area to house the women and children. But clearly, there were no beds, no showers.”
They have since been transferred to a“family detention” centerinDilley,Texas, a large-scale holding facility retrofitted to hold children with their parents that was reopened under theTrumpadministration. Lawyers, who had been largely blocked from communicating with immigrants arrested amid theramped-up raids in LA,said family members were able to recount the ordeal only after they were moved out of state.
Hilda Solis, an LA county supervisor, said on Wednesday evening she was concerned about a “deeply disturbing incident” in the city’sBoyle Heightsneighborhood involvingtwo unmarked vehiclesoperated byImmigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice)agents crashing in to a civilian car with two children inside and deploying teargas to apprehend an individual. She said she had also learned of an incident of Ice attempting to detain a member of the press.
Thenearly 5,000 US military personnelin the city now exceeds the number of US troops in bothIraqandSyria.
The increasing raids come as Ice ramps up its efforts to meet a reported quota of 3,000 detentions a day set byStephen Miller,Donald Trump’sWhite Housedeputy chief of staff. The city has seen days of protest over Trump’s immigration crackdown and the subsequent military deployment.
USimmigrationofficials carried out further “enforcement activity” inCalifornia’s agricultural heartland and theLos Angelesarea as the conflict between the state andDonald Trump’s administration intensified on Wednesday.
Immigrant advocacy groups reported multiple actions across the state, where an estimated 255,700 farm workers are undocumented, and said agents pursued workers through blueberry fields and staged operations at agricultural facilities.
The raids have been sharply criticized by advocacy groups and local officials, who said they were “outraged and heartbroken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) activities targeting immigrant families”.
“When our workforce’s lives are in fear, the fields will go unharvested, the impact is felt not only at the local level, but it will also be felt at the national level,” saidJeannette Sanchez-Palacios, the mayor ofVentura, a coastal city just north ofLos Angeles. “Everything will be affected and every American who is here and relies on the labor of these individuals will be affected.”
Immigration activities have continued in theLos Angelesarea as well, where officials say people have been detained outside Home Depots and in front of churches.Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, said the raids have created a deep sense of fear in the region and that theWhite Househas provoked unrest. The night-time curfew she put in place this week will stay in place as long as needed, including while there are ongoing raids and a military presence in the city, Bass said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Here is a Guardian graphic showing where the curfew inLos Angeleshas been imposed.
US marineswill joinnational guardtroops on the streets ofLos Angeleswithin two days, officials said on Wednesday, and would be authorized to detain anyone who interferes with immigration officers on raids or protesters who confront federal agents, reports Reuters.
PresidentDonald Trumpordered the deployments over the objections ofCaliforniagovernorGavin Newsom, causing a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and animating protests that have spread from Los Angeles to other major cities, includingNew York,AtlantaandChicago.
Los Angeles on Wednesday endured a sixth day of protests that have been largely peaceful but occasionally punctuated by violence, mostly contained to a few blocks of the city’s downtown area.
The protests broke out last Friday in response to a series of immigration raids. Trump in turn called in the national guard on Saturday, then summoned the marines on Monday.
“If I didn’t act quickly on that, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now,” said Trump at an event at theJohn F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
According to Reuters, the US military said on Wednesday that a battalion of 700 marines had concluded training specific to the LA mission, including de-escalation and crowd control. They would join national guard under the authority of a federal law known asTitle 10within 48 hours, not to conduct civilian policing but to protect federal officers and property, the military said.
“Title 10 forces may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances such as to stop an assault, to prevent harm to others, or to prevent interference with federal personnel performing their duties,” the northern command said.
Department of Homeland SecurityspokespersonTricia McLaughlinsaid in a statement:
If any rioters attack Ice law enforcement officers, military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain them until law enforcement makes the arrest.”
US armyMaj Gen Scott Sherman, who commands the taskforce of marines and guardsmen, told reporters the marines will not carry live ammunition in their rifles, but they will carry live rounds.
More on this story in a moment, but first here is a summary of the latest developments:
A curfewcame into effectfor the second consecutive night in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, where police used horses and munitions to disperse protesters. Police declared the gathering near city hall unlawful shortly before the curfew, and began firing and charging at protesters shortly afterwards.
Donald Trumpwas booed and cheered whileattending the opening nightof Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center, his first appearance there since becoming president and appointing himself chair.
All 12 members of the prestigious Fulbright program’s boardresigned in protestof what they describe as unprecedented political interference by theTrump administration, which has blocked scholarships for nearly 200 American academics.
David Hoggwill not run againfor a vice-chair position at the Democratic National Committee, after members voted to void and re-do his election. The move ends months of internal turmoil over Hogg’s outside activism, particularlyhis vowto primary “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats.
Los Angeles county district attorney Nathan Hochman said media and social media hadgrossly distorted the scale of protest violence.“There are 11 million people in this county; 4 million of which live in Los Angeles city. We estimate that there’s probably thousands of people who have engaged in legitimate protest, let’s say 4,000 people,” Hochman said.