Protests against immigration crackdown continue in Los Angeles for a fourth day
Demonstrators gathered outside Los Angeles City Hall Wednesday as protests against the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration continued in LA for a fourth day.
Since Sunday, protesters have been marching through LA streets carrying signs blasting ICE raids and advocating for immigrants, blocking the 101 Freeway on the first day of demonstrations. For the last three days, the Los Angeles Police Department has ended up declaring each of the gatherings "an unlawful assembly" and forcing them to disperse. Students from schools in East Los Angeles and South Los Angeles have walked out of their campuses in joining the protests.
U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement, ICE, has been planning on ramping up raids in major cities such as Chicago as part of a sweeping crackdown. Within his first month in office, President Trump issued a series of executive orders moving to shut down admissions for asylum seekers and refugees, tasking the military with border enforcement and attempting to eliminate birthright citizenship — a right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment for more than 100 years.
On Wednesday, as protests continued in LA, a federal judge in Maryland temporarily blocked the executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship from taking effect nationwide. Advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have filed lawsuits in challenges to some of the other immigration-related orders.
In downtown Los Angeles, LAPD issued several traffic advisories Wednesday, announcing demonstrators had gathered on the steps of City Hall just before noon before marching back to the building about an hour later.
A day earlier, aerial footage captured students at Bravo Medical Magnet School in Boyle Heights walking from the campus toward city hall. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho had encouraged students not to stay home, and instead, to protest "within the school facilities."
Last week, the school district handed out "Know Your Rights" cards to students and staff in preparation for potential ICE raids, offering information on how to respond if approached by federal agents.
Some of the signs carried by protesters Wednesday featured messages such as "School is for education, not immigration" and "My parents fought for my future, now I'll fight for theirs."
On Monday, protesters gathered in downtown LA as part of a National Day of Action, with about 1,000 people filling two freeway overpasses for the 101 before police blocked freeway ramps to keep them from marching onto the freeway. The same day, demonstrators gathered at city hall to support the nationwide initiative, "A Day Without Immigrants."
"The message is to the people, don't be scared and that we have rights as a community, as immigrants – don't be scared," said one of the protesters at the gathering, Elizabeth Henriquez.
Across the U.S., some businesses closed Monday as part of the nationwide initiative, from hair salons to grocery stories, the Associated Press reported.
Demonstrations against the Trump administration's immigration policies have also broke out in other parts of Southern California, including areas of the Inland Empire and Ventura County.