Los Angeles, California is currently experiencing ICE raids, which have led to protests and clashes with the National Guard. President Trump has deployed the National Guard without the approval of Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, sparking outrage and concern about the misuse of the military. Diana Ragsdale, a community organizer, believes the raids are part of a larger effort to create a "Make America White Again" movement, which is racist and oppressive. She argues that the goal is to serve only certain groups and harm others, and that the ultimate goal should be to create institutions that serve the needs of the people in a fair and just way.
On Friday, June 6th, some of the 3.8 million residents of Los Angeles began peacefully protesting the many ICE raids that have been brought upon their neighborhoods within the sanctuary city by this current administration. However, despite the fact that everyone from the LAPD to Mayor Bass to Governor Newsom told the current administration that they were in full control of the situation, President Donald Trump chose to deploy the National Guard anyway.
This act, combined with ICE aggressively conducting raids with nothing more than the suspicion that undocumented aliens might be present at random locations, turned what started out as peaceful protests into a series of clashes.
Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration quickly took advantage of these mostly minor skirmishes to whip itself into a frenzy. By Sunday, Trump escalated matters by deploying hundreds of Marines into the city while threatening both Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom with prison time if they tried to stop him. However, his hubris dwindled a bit when reporters asked him what crimes Bass and Newsom would be charged with (he couldn’t name one) and reminded him of the illegality of deploying Marines against civilians.
But with the fuse already lit, these protests have now entered their fourth day as civilians and law enforcement have collided into what some are calling the most volatile protests in LA’s history.
The National Guard is a group of military-trained individuals who answer to their respective state governors and, ultimately, the President. They are typically deployed during domestic emergencies. These emergencies can be, but are not limited to, natural disasters, civil unrest, or help with law enforcement.
The last time that a President deployed the National Guard without the approval of a state governor was in 1965 under President Johnson when he called on troops to protect civil rights activists.
President Trump allegedly deployed the National Guard to protect ICE agents from “insurrectionists,” according to Senior White House Aide Stephen Miller. Still, most view his actions as yet another test to see how far he can go in stripping America of its democratic freedoms. What better state to attack than California, long viewed as the ultimate bastion of freedom? And what better way to do that than to directly utilize his Presidential power to undermine and disregard the First Amendment rights of those annoyingly free Californians?
A Connection with Operation Lone Star
In 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott approved the Operation Lone Star Initiative. This initiative was created to “protect Texans and Americans from the border crisis.” What this operation allowed was the deployment of both the Texas National Guard (TNG) and the Texas Department of Public Safety (TDPS) to the southern border.
Both the TNG and TDPS are supposed to be working around the clock with federal partners to deter crossings of the border, to arrest cartel members, and to arrest human smugglers. However, there have been multiple findings of unconstitutional policing and the prosecution of U.S. citizens. So how do these findings directly correlate with what is happening in California?
In short, ICE agents, both in California and Texas, are not using the proper protocols and rules to ensure that they are detaining illegal immigrants. Since the increased ICE raids, more civilians are noticing ICE detain everyone except the actual threats to this country. They are detaining those based on whether they fit a profile, not whether or not they broke the law.
Assuming they can even find anyone to even illegally detain. After all, for all of Trump’s howling about Los Angeles being a warzone hellscape, and despite the presence of the National Guard and Marines (there to allegedly protect property), ICE walked away from all the disruption they caused with all of 121 arrests made. Nowhere near the 3,000-per-day quota that this administration has become desperate to meet. Not even in this city of 3.8 million.
A Call Answered
To discuss the turmoil and the outright authoritarianism happening in the country, I was able to speak with Diana Ragsdale. Ms. Ragsdale is a community organizer and educator, a former city council member. She is also the founder and former director of her community-based non-profit titled ICDC organization, which provides business development opportunities and affordable homeownership opportunities.
I asked her thoughts on the current ICE raids, and she replied that “It’s oppressive in nature. What we have to understand, in particular African Americans, is that immigration is not simply a Latino issue. It also impacts African people, and people who a part of the African diaspora.”
“Institutional racism is a part of this entire initiative. You can call it white supremacist. The MAGA movement is really about ‘make America white again.’”
“Both actions, both initiatives stem from the policies being racist and oppressive.”
Diane Ragsdale
According to Ms. Ragsdale, racism is merely a tool that is used to divide people who have things in common. Along with that, the immigration movement is along both racial and class lines. She warns that Black people cannot afford to ignore reality. The immigration issue will continue to subject people of color even more to longstanding systemic racism, especially due to the 14th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment, in lay terms, dictates that all citizens who are born in the U.S. are considered American citizens. That is called birthright citizenship.
Ms. Ragsdale also drew a connection between Trump’s willingness to let in white South Afrikaners in promotion of the lie that white South Afrikaners face the threat of genocide in their country. Which was not only completely false but adds more contextual evidence that Trump’s entire plan is to make America a haven for whiteness. Completely stripping it of its identity of being a melting pot of hundreds of different cultures and people.
“The ultimate goal is to create new systems that serve us all, in a fair and just way. We have to create institutions that serve the needs of the people.”
Diana Ragsdale
Instead of multiple levels of the government working together to protect and serve all citizens, Trump is weaponizing his power to serve those he wants to serve and harm those who are considered disposable to him.
What Does This Mean?
Photo Credit: Stephen Silva
The protests in LA have created solidarity with the rest of the country, as massive cities have also begun to protest ICE raids in their communities. Ongoing protests have led to multiple arrests in the city of Austin, Texas, with more protests slated for this weekend as the “No Kings” Protest. Last night (June 9th, 2025), there was a massive protest right in the city of Dallas. The Dallas Weekly was able to get a quote from one of the protestors, Stephen Silva Brave.
Brave: “My name is Stephen Silva-Brave. I’ve lived in Dallas my whole life, but I’m also a citizen of the Lakota Nation, and my people have moved across this land long before it was called the United States. Migration is natural across species and cultures, but what’s unnatural is calling human beings ‘illegal,’ separating families, and criminalizing people just for trying to live. I was at the protest for over an hour, and the energy was peaceful, loving, and full of unity. In the short time it took me to walk to my car and drive back around, I saw police in full riot gear confronting a crowd that had been calm and organized. It makes you wonder who they’re really protecting. We all have a responsibility to show up, not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do something to stand with the marginalized and be a good relative.”
Photo Credit: Steven Silva
Watching the President of the United States repeatedly deploy members of the military to stop ongoing peaceful protests is both sad and fearsome enough. Watching what was once a proud legacy of media seemingly turn a blind eye to the increasing illegality of his actions — violating the Posse Comitatus Act — is positively frightening. Trump was never playing the role of the President correctly, but now that his fervor for fascism is slowly proving that he is not serving the people. He is serving himself, and what he wants.
From that disastrous bill still rattling around in the Senate, to the (not really) deportations, to threatening the press, evidence abounds that this administration has slipped deep into fascism. However, the willingness of the people to protest in face of authoritarian bullying proves that they’re going to have to come up with more than putting soldiers in our faces to end what we know our free and democratic country can be.
People will not be silenced. No matter how much Trump attempts to criminalize the First Amendment.
Zahiyah Carter is a Tennessean who was forced to move to the Lone Star State. She is a sophomore at Paul Quinn College, the oldest HBCU west of the Mississippi River. She is a Strada Scholar who is also...
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