LA Detention Protests Follow Century-Old Pattern of Facility Sieges
Protesters surrounded Los Angeles’s Metropolitan Detention Center on January 30, refusing to leave even as federal agents deployed tear gas and pepper balls from the building’s rooftop. They were following a strategy that goes back more than a century—deliberately surrounding and blocking an important building to challenge the government and force it to change its policies.
The two-day occupation outside the downtown detention center, part of a coordinated “National Shutdown” protesting ICE raids, follows the same playbook as the 1936-1937 sit-down strikes that paralyzed General Motors, the Freedom Riders who occupied segregated bus terminals in 1961, and the 2018 Occupy ICE actions that shut down detention facilities for weeks.
The January 30-31 Occupation
The demonstration started peacefully. Thousands converged on downtown Los Angeles locations on January 30, with speakers addressing crowds outside City Hall and in Grand Park throughout the afternoon. Protesters held signs reading “I like my ice crushed” and “Mothers, don’t let your sons grow up to be ICE holes” while music played and vendors sold buttons bearing the tagline “resistance is beautiful.”
As evening approached, about 200 protesters remained outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street, standing near the building and refusing to disperse when police told them to leave. Federal agents said the crowd was breaking the law around 9 p.m. and told people to leave multiple times.
According to law enforcement accounts, protesters began throwing bottles, rocks, and what police called “industrial size fireworks” at officers. Federal authorities stationed on the building’s rooftop responded by deploying tear gas into the crowd.
Video documentation shows an officer in riot gear on the building’s rooftop firing at least five rounds from what appeared to be a weapon designed not to kill, creating large clouds of green and yellow tear gas that rolled through the crowd below.
Witnesses reported protesters covering their eyes and ears, some attempting to flee while others stood their ground. One 22-year-old protester described the experience: “It’s burning and I can’t even open my eyes” as his friend poured water to alleviate the effects. Medics treated injured people at the scene.
The LAPD put the entire city on emergency alert at 10 p.m. Officers arrested between five and more than 50 people for refusing to leave, with additional arrests for charges including attacking officers with dangerous objects.
The chemical weapons didn’t end the occupation. On January 31, hundreds of demonstrators returned to the facility. New participants arrived and previous attendees came back despite the previous night’s tear gas. The LAPD maintained its citywide emergency alert, and new dispersal orders were issued as evening approached again.
The federal decision to deploy officers to the rooftop and use chemical irritants from that elevated position created powerful visual imagery: federal agents on a facility’s roof firing chemical weapons at American citizens using their right to protest. That image circulated widely through both mainstream and social media.
Coalition Behind the Protests
The protests emerged from a coalition of immigrant rights organizations, student activists, union members, and longtime protest organizers who’d been mobilizing in response to intensified federal immigration enforcement across the country.
The protests started because of what happened in Minneapolis, where federal agents had killed two U.S. citizens—Renée Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24—during ICE raids. These killings sparked nationwide solidarity actions, with coordinated protests occurring in multiple cities on January 30 as part of a “National Shutdown.”
In Los Angeles, the organizers used existing immigrant rights networks that had been mobilizing since the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign began in 2025. The “ICE Out of Everywhere” branding connected LA protests to a national movement.
Students played a major role in the protests. Numerous high school and university students participated in school walkouts coordinated with the downtown occupation. Students from schools across Los Angeles County—including Long Beach, Pasadena, and multiple LAUSD schools—organized walkouts on January 30, with some traveling downtown to join the main demonstration.
Hart LippSmith, a junior from Sequoyah School in Pasadena, led protesters in downtown Los Angeles with chants of “ICE out of L.A.” while holding a megaphone. Student motivation stemmed from direct personal impact—many had classmates affected by immigration raids or family members with undocumented status. One student explained: “There are times when protesting is more necessary than going to the classroom.”
Union participation brought organization and resources to the protest, with various service sector unions represented among the marchers. Unions have long understood that immigration enforcement threatens worker organizing by creating fear among immigrant workers.
The union presence provided not only more protesters but also the ability to organize legal support, medical assistance, and communication systems that kept the occupation going across multiple days.
Historical Precedents: Labor Sit-Down Strikes
The labor movement’s sit-down strikes of 1936-1937 are the most famous historical example. In the Flint sit-down strike against General Motors, workers occupied multiple GM plants for more than forty days, fighting off police and the National Guard to retake them. They ultimately forced GM to recognize the autoworkers union.
The sit-down strike worked because physically occupying the factories made it impossible for management to operate the plants or bring in replacement workers. By January 1937, sit-down strike tactics had spread so widely that they stopped work for 150,000 workers at fifty General Motors plants from California to New York, creating so much pressure that GM agreed to bargain with the UAW union.
As courts and the National Labor Relations Board began holding that sit-down strikes were illegal and that participants could be fired, the tactic declined. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 583 sit-down strikes from 1936 to 1939, but by the 1950s they’d nearly disappeared.
Freedom Riders and Segregated Spaces
The civil rights movement adapted these building protest tactics to fight racial segregation. The Freedom Riders who rode interstate buses into the segregated South beginning in May 1961 deliberately occupied bus seats and terminals designated as segregated space, forcing a confrontation between segregation laws and Supreme Court rulings outlawing such segregation.
The Freedom Riders faced intense violence from white mobs and arrest by Southern law enforcement. Yet their tactic of occupying segregated space proved disruptive enough and attracted so much media attention that it helped push the federal government to enforce desegregation. Over 300 Freedom Riders participated in multiple rides during 1961, with about 75 percent male and the same percentage under age 30.
2018 Occupy ICE Wave
The 2018-2019 “Abolish ICE” wave saw multiple facility occupation attempts. The most notable was the Portland Occupy ICE action that began June 17, 2018 and lasted approximately 38 days.
Protesters in Portland occupied space outside an ICE facility in Southwest Portland, escalating from a vigil to an occupation that shut down the facility by June 20. The Portland occupation built up impressive organization—a well-stocked kitchen with donated food and supplies, onsite child care, medical care, even a massage and meditation tent.
Federal police eventually cleared it on June 28 by moving in on more than 100 protesters, though federal officials described it as a “peaceful” protest camp. The facility announced closure for an indefinite period, though it reopened on June 29 when federal officers and employees returned with increased security measures.
That pattern—temporary disruption followed by reopening—repeated in other cities. San Francisco saw a July 2018 occupation where approximately 35 protesters claimed they wouldn’t leave until ICE was abolished, followed by police raids that arrested 39 protesters. Chicago saw occupations lasting 87 days before protesters left on September 16, with 24 arrests and the facility kept operating. Detroit saw 60 protesters blocking all entrances on September 11, with activists leaving after five days.
Measuring Success
The stated goals explicitly connected to Minneapolis solidarity—demanding that federal agents withdraw from immigrant communities, that facilities be closed, that agents involved in killings be prosecuted, and that ICE be fundamentally reformed or abolished.
By these measures, the two-day occupation achieved no immediate wins. No federal agents were withdrawn from Los Angeles following the protests. No facility was closed. No prosecutions were announced. ICE kept operating as before.
The occupation achieved results in other ways. The use of chemical weapons from a rooftop against American citizens protesting peacefully created powerful visual documentation that circulated through multiple media channels. Major Los Angeles news outlets—ABC7, NBC4, and the Los Angeles Times—covered the events, with particular emphasis on the chemical weapons and the dramatic confrontation between federal forces and protesters.
The image of federal agents on a rooftop firing chemical irritants at unarmed demonstrators created a story showing the federal government using military-style force against civilians using their right to protest.
This media coverage became part of the national debate about federal immigration enforcement violence. The Minneapolis killings that precipitated LA solidarity actions had already generated significant national attention and political controversy. The LA occupation became part of the national debate about federal use of force.
California Governor Gavin Newsom issued statements supporting protesters’ rights and criticizing federal tactics, but didn’t demand immediate changes. Democratic politicians, particularly those representing liberal voters, criticized ICE more strongly and some called for abolition or fundamental reform of the agency.
The occupation also helped the activist groups in other ways—bringing in new people, training new leaders, and building stronger connections among dedicated activists. The experience of facing chemical weapons while maintaining occupation showed the movement’s dedication and strength to both sympathetic observers and potential recruits.
For many participants, particularly students, the January 30-31 experience likely represented their most intense confrontation with federal law enforcement, potentially making them more dedicated to politics and immigrant rights activism.
The occupation also showed major problems with occupation tactics as currently practiced. The federal government’s willingness to deploy chemical weapons against protesters revealed that law enforcement had far more resources and legal authority than protesters’ ability to physically maintain occupation indefinitely.
Without massive increase in protester numbers or willingness to engage in long-term civil disobedience and accepting arrest, the occupation couldn’t physically stop the facility from working. The quick use of federal chemical weapons on January 30, followed by police dispersal, meant that by January 31 the occupation had shifted from a continuous overnight presence to occasional daytime gathering and evening confrontation.
Chemical Weapons and Modern Policing
While police used tear gas against labor strikers as early as the 1935 timber workers strike in Tacoma, Washington, modern police forces equipped with military gear are more advanced than earlier fire hoses and nightsticks.
The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, while banning tear gas as a method of warfare, specifically allowed “law enforcement” use of riot control agents. This created a legal system where police can use chemical weapons against protesters—weapons that would be illegal to use against enemy soldiers in war.
This legal system, combined with police training in chemical agent deployment and access to advanced tear gas weapons, creates an obstacle for building occupations that historical movements didn’t face.
Research on whether protests work shows complicated evidence about building occupations’ impact. Research by social movement scholars studying peaceful protests found that about 51 percent of nonviolent campaigns have fully succeeded, while only about 26 percent of violent ones have—indicating that nonviolent campaigns have roughly twice the success rate of violent campaigns.
More recent research suggested that success rates for peaceful protests have declined in recent decades. Research by Erica Chenoweth and other scholars documented that the last decade has seen a sharp decline in the success rate for civil resistance.
Contemporary nonviolent movements increasingly face more advanced police responses, including use of chemical weapons, riot gear, and ways to break up crowds that didn’t exist during historical precedents like the 1930s sit-down strikes.
Alternative Strategies
One possibility involves sustained legal challenges combined with organizing. Rather than mainly relying on blocking buildings, movements could coordinate legal strategies combining occupation with immediate lawsuits challenging whether it’s legal to conduct operations and use chemical weapons. The Haitian Refugee Center’s 1982 challenge to mandatory detention resulted in a federal judge ordering the release of 1,900 Haitians from detention—demonstrating that lawsuits can sometimes achieve what street protests can’t.
Another approach involves union protection networks. Following the example of union negotiations that have won protections for immigrant workers through contract language banning ICE from entering without warrants, movements could get labor unions to create binding agreements with major employers near the facility and service vendors.
Working with international human rights organizations, foreign governments with critical stances toward U.S. immigration policy, and United Nations human rights bodies to file official complaints describing operations and chemical weapons as breaking international human rights law could put diplomatic pressure on the federal government.
Combining building occupation with economic pressure through organized boycotts of corporations profiting from detention operations, companies providing services, and banks lending money for construction could pressure them in multiple ways beyond physical occupation.
The number of people detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center and other LA-area facilities didn’t decrease after the protests. Federal officials said that border patrol agents were continuing to operate in Los Angeles and other targeted cities, with the Trump administration defending harsh enforcement despite the violent confrontations and community opposition.
Democratic politicians at state and local levels increasingly called for limiting ICE, sanctuary policies, and in some cases abolition of the agency, suggesting that ongoing protests caused political problems that sympathetic officials wanted to address.
The student walkout participation in January 30-31 protests suggested young people could be organized who’ve grown up under administrations using immigration enforcement. If high school and college students remain mobilized around immigration justice, school-based protests could keep putting pressure on institutions during times when other activism slows down.
The January 30-31 Los Angeles protests’ connection to Minneapolis killings and coordination across the country showed that immigration enforcement confrontations require coordination across cities and strategy for the whole movement rather than each city working alone.
Historical patterns suggest that occupying buildings, while generating immediate media attention and making participants more radical, need to be combined with ongoing pressure on institutions through legal action, electoral involvement, and economic pressure to achieve changes. The century-long pattern of surrounding buildings shows both the lasting power of the tactic and its problems when facing modern law enforcement equipped with tear gas and legal authority to declare the gathering illegal.
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