LA’s Protest History: From Zoot Suit Riots to ICE Out Confrontations

Thousands of protesters flooded downtown Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon, marching from Gloria Molina Grand Park toward the Metropolitan Detention Center where federal immigration agents process detainees. By nightfall, federal authorities had deployed tear gas into the crowd. Representative Maxine Waters stood among the demonstrators, chanting “ICE out of LA” as chemical weapons filled the air around her.

The January 30 confrontation wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s the latest chapter in Los Angeles’s century-long history of protest, resistance, and violent clashes between marginalized communities and federal authority—a trajectory that stretches from the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 through the Chicano Moratorium of 1970 to today’s immigration enforcement battles.

Understanding this history reveals both how protest tactics evolve and how certain patterns—particularly state violence against demonstrators—persist across generations.

What Happened on January 30

The demonstration began as part of a nationwide coordinated protest called the “National Shutdown,” organized by coalitions of immigrant rights groups, labor organizations, faith communities, and student activists. The immediate trigger: the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse shot multiple times by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on January 24 in Minneapolis.

Pretti’s death came seventeen days after ICE agents fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother. Both killings occurred during “Operation Metro Surge,” a large-scale federal immigration enforcement deployment that brought hundreds of additional agents into the Twin Cities.

National organizers called for a complete economic shutdown with the slogan “No work, no school, no shopping.” The coordination involved over 300 distinct actions across all 50 states. In Los Angeles, well over a thousand protesters gathered at Gloria Molina Grand Park—a 12-acre civic space between City Hall and the Music Center—before marching toward the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street.

As evening approached, the demonstration intensified. Some participants pushed a construction dumpster toward the facility’s entrance and attempted to block the loading dock. Around 9:15 p.m., federal authorities declared an unlawful assembly. The LAPD issued dispersal orders. Police reported that protesters threw bottles, rocks, and industrial-size fireworks at officers.

At 9:40 p.m., federal authorities deployed tear gas into the crowd.

Representative Waters had arrived during the afternoon, before the chemical weapons deployment. She joined protesters in front of federal officers wearing riot gear, chanting alongside them. “What I see here at the detention center are people exercising their constitutional rights,” Waters told reporters. “And of course, they’re now trying to tear gas everybody. It’s in the air, but people are not moving.”

Her presence represented something unusual: an elected member of Congress actively participating in direct confrontation with federal authorities, maintaining her position even as tear gas filled the air around her.

The federal response included pepper spray, pepper balls, tear gas, and batons. Police detained or cited 47 adults and 3 juveniles for failure to disperse. One person faced arrest for felony assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer—allegedly using a slingshot to fire metal objects at officers. The ACLU and other legal advocates later documented extensive use of chemical agents against protesters, including those engaged in nonviolent action, raising questions about proportionality.

Who Organized the Movement

The January 30 shutdown represented coordination among hundreds of organizations, making attribution to any single group impossible. The National Shutdown website listed over 1,000 organizations as participants or supporters, including national groups like the ACLU, MoveOn, United We Dream, Popular Democracy, and Voto Latino, alongside local organizations specific to particular regions.

In Los Angeles, organizing drew on local coalitions including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), one of California’s most established immigrant rights organizations with nearly four decades of history. CHIRLA documented that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge in Los Angeles began in June 2025, with federal agents conducting hundreds of raids at places where Latino people work, shop, eat, and live—including Home Depot parking lots, car washes, swap meets, restaurants, and food trucks.

Human Rights Watch analysis showed that from late May through late July 2025, ICE enforcement operations resulted in an average of 540 arrests per week in Los Angeles—a dramatic increase from the 139 weekly average before the surge began. This intensification provided the immediate context for January 30 organizing.

The protesters themselves represented a broad demographic coalition. Participants included directly impacted immigrants and undocumented people facing detention risk, family members of individuals in ICE custody, allies from primarily white college-educated activist communities, clergy and faith leaders, labor union members, students, and parents concerned about ICE enforcement affecting schools. News photographs documented people holding signs in English and Spanish, individuals wearing religious vestments, elderly activists, and young people.

The Maxine Waters Factor

Waters’s participation carried particular significance. She’d maintained a consistent record of immigration activism and had participated in previous protests. But her decision to join a confrontational action where federal agents would deploy chemical weapons represented a notable escalation.

After the tear gas deployment, Waters remained at the scene and continued addressing media. This represented a rare instance of a sitting member of Congress maintaining presence during federal use of chemical weapons against demonstrators.

That said, some organizers noted tension between the presence of elected officials and grassroots immigrant leadership. Multiple sources documented that the National Shutdown was organized substantially by grassroots immigrant justice groups, particularly undocumented immigrants and immigrant youth. The participation of elected officials and large institutional organizations raised questions within activist circles about representation, decision-making power, and the movement’s theory of change.

Some activist statements explicitly called for prioritizing the voices and leadership of directly impacted immigrants rather than relying on political figures or institutional allies. This dynamic reflected broader tensions within immigrant rights movements between insider political strategy and outsider direct action approaches.

Did It Work?

Evaluating the January 30 demonstration’s effectiveness requires examining multiple dimensions: immediate disruption achieved, media attention generated, political responses, organizational outcomes, and longer-term policy impacts. These measures produce a complex picture.

Immediate Tactical Disruption

The evidence suggests protesters achieved temporary disruption of the federal detention center’s operations, though the duration and extent remain difficult to quantify. News reports documented that protesters blocked some entrances and attempted to block the loading dock where detainees are processed.

But the deployment of federal agents and police prevented sustained blockade of facility operations. There’s no evidence that any detained immigrants were released as a result of the demonstration or that deportation proceedings were canceled or delayed. The rapid police response—beginning approximately nine hours after the initial assembly—successfully prevented the kind of sustained multi-day occupation that characterized some earlier actions, like the 2018 Occupy ICE encampments in Portland.

Media Coverage and Public Opinion

The demonstrations achieved substantial media attention. Major national news organizations including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, and the Associated Press provided coverage. Spanish-language outlets including Univision and Telemundo covered events with particular focus on immigrant communities.

However, the dominant narrative frame in police and federal accounts emphasized “violent agitators” and property damage rather than police use of tear gas and chemical agents against predominantly peaceful protesters.

Here’s where it gets interesting: broader national polling on immigration enforcement revealed significant shifts in public sentiment coinciding with the January 30 demonstrations and the Minneapolis shootings that preceded them. An Ipsos poll conducted January 23-25 found that 58% of Americans said ICE enforcement efforts “go too far,” compared with only 12% saying efforts “do not go far enough.”

This represented the highest proportion expressing concern about overreach since the start of Trump’s second term. Disapproval of Trump’s handling of immigration rose to 53%, compared with approval of only 39%—a significant shift from May 2025 when Trump had 47% approval and 45% disapproval on the same issue.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted January 20-26 found that 74% of Americans said it’s acceptable for ordinary people to record immigration officers making arrests, and 61% said it’s unacceptable for officers to wear face coverings that hide their identities.

Political Responses

The demonstrations generated varied political responses, mostly from Democratic elected officials opposing the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement approach. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who’d criticized federal operations even before January 30, intensified her criticism following the chemical weapon deployment.

But Bass’s statement revealed tensions within the pro-immigrant political coalition: “I think the protests are extremely important, but it’s equally important for these protests to be peaceful, for vandalism not to take place. That does not impact the administration in any kind of way that’s going to bring about any type of change.”

Democratic Representatives Delia Ramirez and Yvette Clarke introduced the “Melt ICE Act” on January 21, which would remove DHS authority to incarcerate immigrants and dismantle ICE’s network of approximately 200 detention facilities. While this legislative effort predated January 30 by about ten days, momentum from the demonstrations may have influenced subsequent co-sponsorships.

However, with Republicans controlling Congress, the likelihood of passage remained minimal. This reflected a broader pattern: sustained movement pressure could shift Democratic positioning but couldn’t overcome Republican control to produce immediate policy change.

At the federal level, responses focused on law enforcement rather than policy concessions. Federal prosecutors stated that officers would face potential charges if they engaged in violence against federal property. The Department of Justice began a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

But neither investigation nor prosecutor statements indicated that the Trump administration intended to curtail Operation Metro Surge or reduce immigration enforcement intensity in response to the protests.

Los Angeles’s Protest History: The Long View

To fully understand the January 30 demonstrations, you need to situate them within Los Angeles’s distinctive and complex history of protest, resistance, and conflict between federal authority and marginalized communities. The city’s protest history reveals evolving tactical approaches, shifts in the composition of protest coalitions, and troubling continuities in federal and police willingness to deploy violence against demonstrators.

The Zoot Suit Riots (1943)

The foundational episode in LA’s protest history occurred in June 1943, when massive riots erupted in downtown Los Angeles targeting Mexican American youth wearing zoot suits. The riots were triggered by an incident on June 3 when a group of sailors confronted Mexican American youth, resulting in the injury of a sailor.

In response, hundreds of servicemen organized vigilante raids through downtown Los Angeles and into the neighborhoods of East Los Angeles and Watts, targeting anyone wearing zoot suits—typically Mexican American or Filipino American youth—and subjecting them to brutal beatings and removal of their clothing.

The riots lasted five days before military officials, responding to concerns that the violence was undermining the war effort, ordered servicemen confined to barracks and declared Los Angeles off-limits to military personnel.

The role of law enforcement revealed patterns that would recur in subsequent decades: police arrested substantially more Mexican American victims (approximately 600) than servicemembers or other civilians. Journalist Carey McWilliams documented that “a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians” moved through downtown Los Angeles, “beating” Mexican Americans “with sadistic frenzy,” while media coverage often blamed the victims rather than perpetrators.

The Zoot Suit Riots represented a moment of federal violence against racialized communities engaged in youth culture and identity expression rather than formal protest. Yet the underlying themes—federal/state toleration of vigilante violence against minority communities, media vilification of victims, police targeting of the targeted community for arrest rather than the perpetrators—would recur in subsequent LA protest episodes.

The Chicano Moratorium (1970)

A qualitatively different form of organized protest emerged in Los Angeles in 1970 with the National Chicano Moratorium, which brought together Chicano activists, students, and community members to protest the Vietnam War and simultaneous domestic racism and economic marginalization affecting Mexican Americans and Chicano communities.

On August 29, 1970, between 20,000 and 30,000 Chicano protesters marched through East Los Angeles in what historians describe as one of the largest Mexican-American anti-war demonstrations in American history. The march proceeded peacefully for the majority of the event, reflecting organizers’ commitment to nonviolence.

But as the demonstration drew toward a close, with participants entering a park to attend a concert and speeches, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arrived at the scene. What followed represented one of the starkest examples of police violence against protesters in LA history.

Police deployed tear gas canisters into the crowd, beat demonstrators with batons, and in the chaos of their assault, killed at least three people, including Los Angeles Times journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar, a prominent Mexican American journalist who’d been covering police violence in Chicano communities, was struck in the head with a tear gas canister while sheltering in a liquor store during the police assault.

His death transformed the Chicano Moratorium from a singular anti-war demonstration into a moment that galvanized Chicano political consciousness around themes of police violence and state repression. The City of Los Angeles later renamed the park where Salazar died “Ruben Salazar Park” in his honor—a form of official recognition that the police violence had been unjustified and that Salazar’s journalism had been legitimate civil rights work.

The 2006 Immigration Reform Mega-Marches

The next major protest episode occurred in 2006 in response to proposed immigration enforcement legislation. After Representative James Sensenbrenner introduced H.R. 4437, which would’ve dramatically expanded criminal penalties for unauthorized immigration and classified immigrants and anyone assisting them as felons, a coalition of immigrant rights organizations, faith leaders, labor unions, and community groups organized unprecedented mass demonstrations.

Spanish-language radio stations, particularly DJs, played a crucial role in mobilizing participation by discussing and promoting the marches in Spanish-language programming. The culmination occurred on May 1, 2006, designated as “A Day Without Immigrants,” a coordinated national boycott and demonstration day.

In Los Angeles, the March 25, 2006 demonstration represented what organizers claimed as the largest single protest in LA history. Official police estimates placed attendance at 500,000, though organizers using photographic analysis argued the actual number reached between 1.25 and 1.5 million people.

The demonstration proceeded largely peacefully, with overwhelmingly nonviolent participants. May 1, 2006 saw similar scale, with an estimated 400,000 participants in Los Angeles alone, plus hundreds of thousands more in Chicago, the Bay Area, and other cities.

The 2006 marches achieved their immediate goal of blocking passage of H.R. 4437, which failed in Congress. However, the movement failed to achieve more ambitious goals of comprehensive immigration reform and legalization pathways.

Academic analysis of the 2006 marches identifies several factors limiting their long-term impact. First, the sustained mass mobilization required enormous organizational resources and couldn’t be maintained indefinitely. After the May 1 peak, participation rapidly declined.

Second, the marches’ very success in drawing massive numbers came at a cost: the focus shifted from disruption and pressure to demonstration of immigrant political presence and economic contributions—a more culturally resonant but tactically less coercive strategy.

Third, organized opposition to immigration reform proved more durable and numerically effective in legislative contexts than immigrant advocates anticipated—anti-immigrant phone calls to Congress reportedly exceeded immigrant advocate communications by a 10-to-1 ratio.

Fourth, the movement’s failure to achieve legislative victory after such massive mobilization demoralized many participants and contributed to the dissipation of sustained organizing activity.

These dynamics would inform the January 2026 movement’s choice to employ smaller numbers with more confrontational tactics, representing a tacit rejection of the 2006 model of mass peaceful marching as the primary strategy.

Post-Trump Resistance and the George Floyd Uprising

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 generated a new era of mass protest in Los Angeles. In 2017, demonstrators gathered at LAX to protest Trump’s executive orders restricting immigration from several Muslim-majority countries. In 2018, immigrant rights organizations organized “Families Belong Together” marches nationwide protesting family separation policies at the border.

These movements typically relied on mass peaceful marching tactics, large gathering spaces like MacArthur Park or federal buildings, and coalition-building across immigrant rights, labor, and progressive political organizations.

But beginning in 2020 and accelerating after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, protest tactics in Los Angeles and nationally shifted toward more confrontational approaches. The George Floyd uprising generated demonstrations that explicitly addressed police violence against communities of color and often involved direct confrontation with police.

Tactical innovations like “walls of moms” and “walls of vets”—middle-aged women and military veterans creating protective barriers around younger protesters—emerged during this period. These tactical innovations and the political consciousness around state violence generated by the 2020 uprising would directly inform the 2026 immigrant rights movement, particularly around framing ICE and federal agents as state violence perpetrators against communities of color.

Federal Violence in Portland (2018-2026)

Critically important context comes from analysis of federal response to protesters in Portland, Oregon, beginning in June 2018. Portland-based activists established an occupation outside an ICE facility in June 2018, blocking access and preventing normal operations for several days.

Federal Protective Service and DHS agents responded with tear gas, pepper spray, and physical force against protesters engaged in peaceful occupation. Rather than deterring sustained protest, the federal violence generated increased participation and national attention to federal deportation operations.

The occupation in Portland sparked a nationwide wave of similar occupations in multiple cities, creating what activists termed the “Occupy ICE” movement in dozens of locations.

When the Trump administration intensified immigration enforcement in 2025, some of these same Portland activists and others, now experienced with federal confrontation, participated in January 2026 demonstrations with deeper understanding of federal tactics and legal consequences.

The ACLU and other civil rights organizations filed lawsuits against federal agencies for excessive force in Portland, leading to pending litigation in which a federal judge was considering accountability measures including potential requirements for body cameras on federal agents and restrictions on use of chemical weapons against nonviolent protesters.

Strategies for Amplifying Impact

The following are creative brainstorming ideas rooted in historical precedent and movement strategy research. These are suggestions for consideration, not endorsements of any particular approach.

Strategic Decentralization and Rapid Response Networks

Rather than concentrating mobilization in downtown demonstrations that can be surrounded and dispersed by police, organizing infrastructure could shift toward distributed neighborhood-level networks that can rapidly respond to ICE enforcement incidents in real-time.

Historical precedent: During the 1970s Chicano Moratorium period, neighborhood-based rapid response teams mobilized quickly when police violence occurred in specific communities, generating sustained pressure across multiple locations simultaneously rather than concentrated at single events.

This approach requires building communication networks—phone chains, WhatsApp groups, Signal-based coordination—that connect residents to immediate information about federal immigration enforcement activity. Residents who witness ICE operations could mobilize neighbors within minutes rather than hours, creating spontaneous blockades, documentation, and community protection.

Why it might work: Federal agents depend on rapid processing of detainees through specific facilities. Rapid-response disruption at street level—physically blocking vehicles, massive crowds at arrest scenes—could delay federal operations without requiring sustained downtown occupations vulnerable to police encirclement.

Potential challenges: Requires sustained neighborhood organizing during periods between major events; raises individual risk for participants in communities with high enforcement presence; requires legal support infrastructure to defend rapidly arrested participants.

Legal Liability Strategy and Civil Damages Litigation

Build sustained legal strategy targeting financial liability of individual federal agents and agencies for violations of protesters’ constitutional rights and for deployment of chemical weapons.

Historical precedent: The ACLU and allied organizations successfully pursued litigation against Portland federal agencies regarding excessive force against protesters, leading to ongoing judicial proceedings and potential imposition of accountability measures. Additionally, during the 1990s, settlements from police excessive force litigation—though generally inadequate—created financial consequences that influenced policy discussions.

Modern litigation can target individual federal agents under 42 USC § 1983 (civil rights violations), which allows recovery of compensatory and punitive damages, plus attorney fees.

Why it might work: Financial liability creates institutional pressure on federal agencies to modify use-of-force policies and training, potentially reducing willingness of individual agents to deploy chemical weapons given personal legal exposure. Additionally, legal proceedings generate sustained media attention and create public record documentation of excessive force.

Potential challenges: Litigation proceeds slowly, often requiring years. Judges may find federal agents immune from liability under qualified immunity doctrine. Financial settlements don’t stop ongoing enforcement operations. Requires sustained funding for legal representation.

Coalition with Public Sector Workers

Expand strategic alliance with labor unions representing public sector workers—city workers, transit workers, teachers—who can apply workplace pressure through selective work slowdowns, refusal to process certain administrative tasks, or formal strike action related to federal enforcement activities in their workplaces.

Historical precedent: The 1946 coal miners’ strike, various public sector strikes in the 1960s-70s, and more recently the 2018-2019 teacher strikes demonstrated the coercive power of public sector workers withdrawing labor.

If ICE detention center staff, federal building workers, and transit workers connected to enforcement coordination refused to facilitate operations, federal capacity would be substantially limited.

Why it might work: Federal operations depend on administrative infrastructure. Withdrawal of that infrastructure by unionized workers creates meaningful disruption that police can’t immediately overcome. Public sector unions have political protection and established grievance procedures that offer more protection than undocumented protesters.

Potential challenges: Union leadership may resist such political positioning. Federal government could deploy replacement workers or private contractors. Political costs to unions could discourage participation.

Targeted Economic Disruption and Boycott Campaigns

Organize strategic boycotts of specific corporations and contractors that directly profit from immigration enforcement—companies providing detention facility services, technology companies providing surveillance systems, private transportation contractors, companies manufacturing chemical weapons.

Historical precedent: The movement for divestment from South African apartheid successfully pressured institutional investors to withdraw billions of dollars. Farmworker boycotts of specific agricultural companies achieved meaningful concessions.

Detailed research could identify which contractors operate detention facilities in Los Angeles and which corporations profit from immigration enforcement infrastructure. Targeted boycotts by immigrant communities, workers, and allied consumers could create meaningful financial pressure on specific corporations.

Why it might work: Corporate pressure operates through mechanisms—board pressure, investor pressure, consumer reputation—that can generate concrete policy changes within timeframes shorter than political or legal processes.

Potential challenges: Requires identifying and sustaining focus on specific corporate targets. Corporations can substitute suppliers or operations. Boycotts require sustained consumer discipline.

What Comes Next

As of early February 2026, the movement faces critical junctures regarding tactical decisions, organizational sustainability, and potential policy outcomes. Multiple planned actions were scheduled for subsequent weekends following January 30, including demonstrations in Portland on February 1 and coordinated “Ice Out of Everywhere” actions continuing nationally.

But the sustainability of these actions beyond the initial momentum remained uncertain.

At the political level, the immediate trajectory pointed toward several developments. First, the Trump administration demonstrated no indication of curtailing Operation Metro Surge or reconsidering immigration enforcement escalation in response to January 30 protests. Department of Justice statements continued emphasizing that federal officers would face prosecution if they damaged federal property, framing protesters rather than federal agents as potential criminals.

Second, Democratic-controlled jurisdictions including Los Angeles and Minnesota were engaging in legal and political pushback through sanctuary city policies, lawsuits challenging federal operations’ constitutionality, and public statements opposing the enforcement surge. These Democratic responses operated within institutional channels—courts, legislatures, city councils—rather than through mass mobilization.

Third, legal challenges to federal use of chemical weapons and accountability mechanisms were proceeding through litigation, particularly in Portland, but these processes moved slowly on timescales of years rather than weeks.

Beyond immediate tactical and political responses, deeper questions confronted the movement regarding long-term strategy and sustainability. Research on protest movements indicates that maintaining activist engagement and organizational capacity beyond initial high-profile actions presents substantial challenges, particularly when governments demonstrate willingness to use force against demonstrators.

The movement faced tensions between broader coalition-building—involving unions, faith communities, Democratic politicians—and more confrontational direct action strategy that some grassroots organizers preferred. Questions about who held decision-making power within coalition structures would significantly influence movement direction.

Additionally, the movement’s relationship to electoral politics remained ambiguous. Democratic elected officials participated in or publicly supported January 30 actions, yet Democratic-controlled Congress had simultaneously voted to continue funding ICE and border enforcement, with many Democrats supporting appropriations for body cameras and “reform” measures rather than defunding or abolishing ICE.

This disconnect between Democratic campaign rhetoric opposing ICE and Democratic legislative action funding ICE created tensions within movement coalitions about whether to prioritize pressure on the Trump administration specifically or to more fundamentally challenge immigration enforcement infrastructure irrespective of which administration controlled federal power.

The immediate winter 2026 timeframe appeared likely to involve intensification of protest and organizing around specific incidents—particular ICE raids, detainee deaths or harm, congressional hearings, or court rulings—rather than continuous large-scale demonstrations. Historical patterns suggest that movements sustain energy through multiple mobilizations around specific grievances rather than sustained indefinite protest.

The January 30 National Shutdown achieved its immediate goal of generating national attention to federal immigration enforcement violence and shifting public opinion toward greater skepticism of ICE operations. However, converting this public opinion shift into concrete policy change—whether through legislative action, judicial intervention, or federal policy modification—remained contingent on subsequent developments and movement strategy.

What remains clear is that Los Angeles’s ongoing history of protest reflects both the aspirations of marginalized communities to resist policies they perceive as unjust and the state’s demonstrated commitment to maintaining immigration enforcement authority through tactical use of force. The January 30 demonstrations added another chapter to this contested history—one in which the outcome remains to be written by subsequent actions, decisions, and developments.

This article analyzes protest and activism tactics for educational purposes. We aim to contribute to effective and ethical efforts across the political spectrum, and we present diverse viewpoints and ideas without endorsement.