Federal Tear Gas Deployment at LA Detention Center: The Playbook
Approximately 200 protesters refused to leave the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles even after federal officers positioned on the rooftop fired tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd. Over two days in late January, thousands demonstrated against immigration enforcement operations. This smaller group—the ones who stayed as green and yellow clouds of chemical irritant dispersed across Alameda Street—showed a different kind of resistance.
The January 30-31 actions were about staying put despite consequences, returning the next day after being gassed, and forcing federal authorities to choose between tolerating occupation or deploying violence against people engaged in civil disobedience.
Operation Metro Surge, the federal government’s massive operation that deployed over 3,000 masked and armed agents in Minneapolis before expanding nationwide, has created a new phase of enforcement that activists are still figuring out how to counter.
The Two-Day Confrontation
Friday afternoon brought hundreds to City Hall and the detention center. Students walked out across the city—Los Angeles Unified School District reported 80 percent attendance compared to the typical 90 percent, meaning roughly 60,000 additional students were absent beyond the normal absence rate (though not all additional absences can be attributed to walkouts). Long Beach Unified reported about 3,000 students left classes. UCLA students organized a campus gathering with speakers addressing ICE enforcement and the specific killings that had triggered the national mobilization.
As darkness fell, most protesters went home. The 200 who remained established what looked like an occupation. LAPD ordered people to leave at 5:45 p.m. for the area around Alameda Street between Union Station and First Street. The crowd held position. Federal authorities said the gathering was illegal, citing bottles, rocks, and other objects thrown at officers.
Then came the chemical weapons. Between 5 and 6:30 p.m., federal officers positioned on the rooftop set up tables as shields at windows above the building entrance. An officer with an orange rubber bullet gun fired at least five rounds toward the crowd. Pepper balls and tear gas followed, creating large clouds that dispersed down the street.
LAPD put the city on high alert. Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement. Eight arrests were made—six for failure to disperse, one for assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, one for curfew violation.
40 to 50 people remained standing in front of the detention center by 7 p.m., facing a line of officers on Alameda Street. The tear gas hadn’t ended the occupation.
Saturday brought hundreds back. The scene stayed mostly peaceful through the day, with speakers at Grand Park and City Hall. Signs read “I like my ice crushed” and “Mothers, don’t let your sons grow up to be ICE holes.” Cyclists organized a “Unity Ride” in Santa Monica honoring Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse and cycling enthusiast who’d been fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis.
Saturday evening brought renewed confrontation. Around 9:30 p.m., LAPD issued another unlawful assembly order. Federal authorities reported people throwing bottles, rocks, and “industrial size/commercial grade fireworks” at officers. Tear gas was deployed again. LAPD issued a citywide high alert at 10 p.m. One arrest for felony evasion, 47 adults and three juveniles cited for failure to disperse. One officer sustained a leg injury.
Chemical weapons on Friday night didn’t prevent mobilization on Saturday.
Coalition Structure and Who Mobilized
The protests grew out of groups that already existed—immigrant rights organizations, student networks, labor unions that had been organizing for years. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) provided legal services and strategic guidance. But the immediate coordination came from a broader coalition using nationalshutdown.org as a hub, listing over 300 actions planned in 50 states.
That coalition included the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Community Movement Builders, the ANSWER Coalition, various Immigrant Rights Alliance chapters, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, faith-based organizations, and tenant unions.
Students drove significant participation. Hart LippSmith, a junior from Sequoyah School in Pasadena, led people downtown with chants and a megaphone. UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk and LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho postponed a scheduled joint appearance “in light of the anticipated national shutdown and the potential for student walkouts”—the organizing had reached institutional leadership.
Unions brought organized support. That connection traced back to the May 1, 2006 “Day Without an Immigrant” mobilizations, when the Multi-Ethnic Immigrant Workers Organizing Network mobilized hundreds of thousands throughout the city.
People directly affected by detention drove the moral urgency. Irene Alvarez waved a sign reading “End ICE Brutality” from above the 101 Freeway: “I’m standing in solidarity with everything that’s going on in the world, standing here for my immigrant parents, standing here for my immigrant neighbors that came from nothing to something, that came for a better life.”
This organizing at different levels—established groups providing resources, grassroots activists driving direct action, spontaneous participant networks, institutional allies—created resilience. But it also meant no single leadership could make decisions during high-stress moments like chemical weapons deployment.
Measuring Effectiveness
The stated goals included ending ICE operations in LA, closing detention facilities, and investigating federal agent conduct. The immediate goal was keeping up visible opposition despite repression. The solidarity goal was honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Good by demonstrating that federal enforcement would face nationwide resistance.
Media coverage was substantial. Major LA outlets provided detailed coverage both days. The visual of federal officers on a detention center rooftop firing chemical weapons into a crowd generated compelling imagery that circulated widely. Video showing green and yellow irritant clouds and people covering their eyes while police deployed sound cannons created the kind of vivid evidence that can create public sympathy.
The March 25, 2006 “La Gran Marcha” in downtown LA drew between 500,000 and 1.5 million people. The May 1 “Day Without an Immigrant” boycott demonstrated economic power. Yet the immediate political goal—preventing passage of the Sensenbrenner Bill through the Senate—succeeded while the longer-term goal of reform failed. More significantly, ICE raids intensified afterward, with deportations increasing by more than 100,000 annually compared to 2005 levels in the years following 2006.
Massive mobilizations don’t automatically translate into policy victories. They can cause backlash and increased enforcement.
The 2018 Occupy ICE movement in Portland provides another precedent. The occupation started June 17, 2018, disrupting ICE operations temporarily and generating media attention over multiple weeks. Federal officers were escorting ICE employees from the facility as people blockaded the building. But on June 27, federal officers in riot gear forcibly evicted people around 5 a.m., arresting eight. The broader “Abolish ICE” movement that peaked in summer 2018 didn’t achieve the policy objective of eliminating the agency.
The LA protests demonstrated willingness to maintain presence and accept consequences despite state violence. 200 people remained after chemical weapons deployment, and hundreds returned the next day.
Researcher Erica Chenoweth found that movements with ongoing participation from at least 3.5 percent of the population tend to succeed in their objectives. This research mostly looked at regime-change movements rather than policy reform within established democracies. The LA protests likely reached somewhere around 0.005-0.05 percent of the city’s 3.9 million population participating in ongoing actions. The 200 who remained after tear gas deployment represented the core participants—well below the threshold Chenoweth’s research suggests predicts success.
Mayor Bass had to make a public statement, showing political pressure. She emphasized that “these tactics spread fear in our communities and threaten basic safety in our city,” while cautioning people that “the protests are extremely important, but it is equally important for these protests to be peaceful, for vandalism not to take place.” She warned that violent actions give “exactly what I believe this administration wants to see happen” and that “don’t be surprised if the military reenters our city.”
Congressional attention appeared to increase. House Judiciary Committee Democrats sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding records about the killing of Alex Pretti and asking why a civil rights investigation wasn’t being conducted into Renee Good’s death. The letter specifically referenced accusations that “someone affirmatively ordered federal law enforcement to instead investigate Ms. Good’s widow” and that “someone affirmatively ordered line agents to block state prosecutors from accessing key evidence.”
The arrest numbers—eight on Friday, 50 citations on Saturday—suggest either police restraint after chemical weapons deployment or successful evacuation before arrests could be made.
The deployment of tear gas and pepper balls against people engaged in civil disobedience—rather than violent confrontation—raised constitutional questions that create ongoing legal and political debates.
Historical Precedents
The Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s provides the original example of organized, faith-based resistance to enforcement. Beginning in response to the U.S. government’s refusal to grant asylum to Central American refugees fleeing civil conflict, religious congregations declared themselves sanctuaries in defiance of federal law. The first public sanctuary declaration occurred March 24, 1982, when Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson posted banners declaring “This is a Sanctuary for the Oppressed of Central America.” By 1985, over 500 churches and synagogues had joined the sanctuary network.
The federal government’s response included Operation Sojourner, a ten-month investigation sending paid informants into sanctuary communities. Prosecutions of sanctuary activists under alien smuggling statutes followed. Despite losing their legal cases, sanctuary activists won significant public sympathy. The movement eventually contributed to policy shifts, including Congress passing legislation in 1990 allowing Salvadorans and Guatemalans in the U.S. to apply for Temporary Protected Status.
Ongoing, morally-framed civil disobedience can shift both public opinion and policy over multi-year timescales, even when facing federal criminal prosecution.
The May Day 2006 protests, which the 2026 LA actions echoed in coalition structure and multi-ethnic participation, represent the most directly relevant historical precedent. The protests began in response to proposed legislation that would have criminalized undocumented immigrants and those assisting them. Between March 10 and May 1, 2006, between 5 and 6 million largely Latino immigrants and their supporters filled streets in more than 100 cities.
While the immediate political goal—preventing passage of the Sensenbrenner Bill through the Senate—succeeded, the longer-term results proved mixed. The big protests didn’t turn into reform with legalization pathways. Instead, the backlash was substantial: the Minuteman Project militia experienced membership growth following the May 2006 boycott. Most significantly, ICE raids intensified during the final years of the Bush administration and continued throughout the Obama presidency.
The May Day 2007 demonstrations provide another relevant precedent regarding escalation of police violence. During the rally at MacArthur Park in LA, LAPD commanders sent more than 200 officers in riot gear to break up what witnesses described as a peaceful assembly. Officers used batons and shot rubber bullets into fleeing crowds, causing injuries to women, children, media reporters, and at least one pregnant woman who suffered a miscarriage. The incident resulted in a historic $13 million settlement and the creation of new LAPD policies on First Amendment activities.
That precedent shows how police violence in LA specifically has produced legal accountability and policy change—a potential pathway for 2026 actions if federal authorities’ tear gas deployment generates similar litigation.
The 2018 Occupy ICE movement shows what worked and what didn’t about detention facility occupation tactics. The Portland occupation began June 17, 2018, when activists called for an end to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” family separation policy. By June 19, federal officers were escorting ICE employees from the facility as people blockaded the building. On June 25, Homeland Security issued eviction notices to the more than 100 remaining people, warning of prosecution under federal statutes for obstructing the facility.
The occupation continued despite legal threats. However, on June 27, federal officers in riot gear forcibly evicted the people around 5 a.m., arresting eight. While the Portland occupation generated national media attention and shifted conversations about ICE abolition, it didn’t achieve permanent facility closure or policy change.
The 2020 Minneapolis police uprising following George Floyd’s death provides the broader context for understanding 2026 protests. The George Floyd uprising sparked massive mobilizations—with the largest single protest in U.S. history occurring June 6, 2020, with approximately 2.3 million people participating throughout the country—and demands for police abolition and defunding. It shifted mainstream political rhetoric about policing and generated policy changes including state legislation limiting qualified immunity and restricting chokeholds.
The success of the 2020 movement in shifting discourse and achieving some policy change may have created expectations among 2026 immigrant rights activists that visible mobilizations could achieve similar results on enforcement.
Potential Pathways for Impact
Documenting Everything for Legal Cases
The May Day 2007 MacArthur Park incident, where LAPD deployment of batons and rubber bullets resulted in a $13 million settlement and creation of new departmental policies, shows what legal challenges can do. Similarly, the ACLU has filed multiple lawsuits challenging unconstitutional use of force, including tear gas, with settlements requiring departments to provide proper warnings and adhere to minimum force guidelines.
A legal team focused on documentation could collect evidence of chemical weapons deployment. This includes video footage from multiple angles, photographs of affected areas, medical documentation of injuries, wind pattern analysis determining whether gas affected unintended targets, witness statements, and officer statements on camera justifying the deployment. The goal would be building a legal case demonstrating that federal authorities violated Fourth Amendment rights through indiscriminate tear gas deployment.
Chemical weapons deployment raises constitutional questions that federal courts have proven willing to address. The specific tactic of positioning officers on a rooftop and firing chemical agents downward into a crowd shows they deliberately fired chemical weapons without aiming at specific people. A lawsuit could set a precedent that limits federal authorities’ ability to deploy chemical weapons during future protests.
Working with Local Government
The Sanctuary Movement’s success in generating broad faith-based support and municipal commitment, with over 80 cities eventually passing sanctuary policies limiting cooperation with federal enforcement, shows this approach can work. Creating specific laws that LA City Council and Los Angeles County Supervisors could pass limiting local government cooperation with ICE might get faster, more tangible results.
Proposals could include requiring warrants for facility searches, prohibiting use of local detention space for ICE detainees, and removing ICE access to local law enforcement databases. Los Angeles already has 1979 police policy instructing officers not to concern themselves with status. Building on existing policy rather than demanding federal-level change might prove more achievable.
Economic Pressure Campaigns
The May Day 2006 “Day Without an Immigrant” boycott demonstrated the power of immigrant workers demonstrating their economic contributions. Studies of nonviolent movements show that economic pressure through strikes, boycotts, and work slowdowns often proves more effective than protest marches alone.
Creating ongoing economic campaigns showing the costs of enforcement to LA’s economy could create tangible pressure. This could involve worker-to-worker campaigns with union members and undocumented workers. It could mean mapping which employers depend on immigrant labor and which industries face disruption from ICE raids. Supporting worker centers and cooperative enterprises that provide economic security independent of ICE vulnerability could build long-term resilience.
Working with Investigative Journalists
Investigative journalism exposing conditions in detention facilities has led to policy changes in the past. ProPublica’s reporting on ICE detention has led to congressional hearings, investigations, and policy changes regarding medical neglect and dangerous facility conditions. The ACLU’s lawsuit documentation of conditions at California City Detention Facility generated legal cases and media attention.
Partnering with investigative journalists and documentary filmmakers to produce reporting on conditions in the LA Metropolitan Detention Center and other Southern California detention facilities could generate different political pressure than protest visibility or legal arguments. Getting public records about deaths, medical incidents, use of force incidents, and facility inspections, then creating videos and articles that make abstract concerns about detention humanly concrete, could shift public opinion in ways that abstract policy arguments don’t.
Building Alliances Throughout Movements
The Movement for Black Lives uprising in 2020 created explicit connections between police violence and enforcement, with activists pointing out that deportations are a form of state violence analogous to police killings. Studies show that movements succeed when they create broad coalitions addressing connected problems, not isolated single-issue campaigns.
Explicitly connecting enforcement opposition to broader demands for police and prison abolition could bring out more people and pressure multiple institutions at the same time. Documenting connections between local police departments and ICE through data sharing, joint operations, and facility sharing, then organizing joint actions involving both immigrant rights activists and police accountability activists, could build broader coalitions. Creating funding and legal support mechanisms that serve people arrested in both contexts recognizes that the same vulnerable populations are targeted by both systems.
What Comes Next
Multiple organizations had advertised additional walkouts planned for February 6 at numerous LA-area high schools, with Instagram posts promoting gathering at Ted Green Park to “protest ICE & what they are doing to our community.” These upcoming actions suggest the January events were meant to be the beginning of a growing campaign rather than a one-time action.
The immediate federal government response appeared likely to involve continued Operation Metro Surge enforcement without modification of tactics. Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche had downplayed the civil rights investigation into Alex Pretti’s killing as merely a “standard investigation by the FBI,” suggesting the institution is committed to defending federal agents’ conduct rather than reconsidering enforcement approaches.
However, congressional scrutiny appeared to be increasing. House Judiciary Committee Democrats requested Justice Department records by February 2, demanding information about the Alex Pretti investigation and requesting explanation for the decision not to conduct a civil rights investigation into Renee Good’s death. Several House committees launched their own inquiries into Operation Metro Surge, with both Democratic and some Republican senators questioning federal tactics.
Federal Judge Kate Menendez issued an injunction preventing arrests and pepper spraying of people peacefully observing ICE operations in Minnesota, finding that ICE likely violated First Amendment rights. However, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently blocked this injunction, suggesting that federal courts disagreed on the balance between First Amendment protections and enforcement operational needs.
The Trump administration had made mass deportation a campaign promise and central policy priority, with Operation Metro Surge representing an implementation of that commitment rather than an anomaly. Changes to state policy might be easier to get, particularly in California, where the Democratic-controlled legislature was considering nearly a dozen bills aimed at shielding immigrants in the country illegally.
The chemical weapons deployment didn’t suppress the movement—it seems to have sparked continued commitment and elevated national attention to enforcement practices. Whether ongoing, escalating action can achieve the stated objectives of closing detention facilities and ending ICE operations remains an open question. Past examples show that lasting policy change requires years of pressure on multiple fronts simultaneously.
The immediate priorities for organizers appeared likely to include supporting arrested people through the criminal legal process, continuing coordination of planned February walkouts, and building strength for ongoing opposition to detention facilities. The question of whether the movement would escalate to more disruptive tactics—including longer occupations, blocking supply chains, or other forms of economic action—would be decided by organizer discussions and movement consensus.
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