From L.A to New York, bumbling, aggressive ICE is its own worst enemy
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- After an ICE agent opened fire in South L.A., the Trump administration blamed “sanctuary” policies and activists — but critics say ICE’s tactics created the danger.
- ICE has detained at least 170 U.S. citizens in 2025 and cut training to 48 days while expanding its ranks nationwide.
- Body camera footage and court records show ICE agents lying about incidents and detaining U.S. citizens, contradicting claims the agency operates professionally.
Like with cigarettes, la migra should come with a warning label: Proximity to ICE could be hazardous for your health.
From Los Angeles to Chicago, Portlandand New York, the evidence is ample enough that wherever Trump sends in the immigration agency, people get hurt. And not just protesters and immigrants.
That includes 13 police officers tear-gassed in Chicago earlier this month. And, now, a U.S. marshal.
Which brings us to what happened in South L.A. on Tuesday.
Federal agents boxed in the Toyota Camry of local TikToker Carlitos Ricardo Parias — better known to his hundreds of thousands of followers as Richard LA. As Parias allegedly tried to rev his way out of the trap, an ICE agent opened fire. One bullet hit the 44-year-old Mexican immigrant — and another ricocheted into the hand of a deputy U.S. marshal.
Neither suffered life-threatening injuries, but it’s easy to imagine that things could have easily turned out worse. Such is the chaos that Trump has caused by unleashing shock troops into U.S. cities.
Authorities accused Carlitos Ricardo Parias of ramming his car into agents’ vehicles after they boxed him in. Video shows his car pinned as agents opened fire.
Rather than take responsibility and apologize for an incident that could’ve easily been lethal, Team Trump went into their default spin mode of blaming everyone but themselves.
Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the shooting was “the consequences of conduct and rhetoric by sanctuary politicians and activists who urge illegal aliens to resist arrest.”
Acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli chimed in on social media soon after: “I urge California public officials to moderate their rhetoric toward federal law enforcement. Encouraging resistance to federal agents can lead to deadly consequences.” Hours later, he called Times reporter James Queally “an absolute joke, not a journalist” because my colleague noted it’s standard practice by most American law enforcement agencies to not shoot at moving vehicles. One reason is that it increases the chance of so-called friendly fire.
Federal authorities accuse Parias of ramming his car into agents’ vehicles after they boxed him in. He is being charged with assault on a federal officer.
Time, and hopefully, evidence, will show what happened — and very important, what led to what happened.
The Trump administration keeps claiming that the public anger against its immigration actions is making the job more dangerous for la migra and their sister agencies. McLaughlin and her boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, keep saying there’s been a 1,000% increase in assaults on immigration agents this year like an incantation. Instead of offering concrete figures, they use the supposed stat as a shield against allegations ICE tactics are going too far and as a weapon to excuse the very brutality ICE claims it doesn’t practice.
Well, even if what they say is true, there’s only one side that’s making the job more dangerous for la migra and others during raids:
La migra.
It turns out that if you send in phalanxes of largely masked federal agents to bully and intimidate people in American cities, Americans tend not to take kindly to it.
Who knew?
We’re about to enter the sixth month of Trump’s plan to rid the country of undocumented immigrants. Sycophants are bragging that he’s doing the job, but they’re not caring to look at the mess left in its wake that’s becoming more and more perilous for everyone involved. They insist that those who are executing and planning raids are professionals, but professionals don’t make constant pendejos out of themselves.
Professionals don’t bring squadrons to chase after tamale ladies or day laborers, or stage flashy raids of apartments and parks that accomplish little else than footage for propaganda videos. They don’t go into neighborhoods with intimidation on their mind and ready to rough up anyone who gets in their way.
A ProPublica investigation showed that ICE has detained at least 170 U.S. citizens this year, many whom offered proof that they were in this country legally as la migra cuffed them and hauled them off to detention centers.
Professionals don’t lie like there’s a bonus attached to it — but that’s what Trump’s deportation Leviathan keeps doing. In September, McLaughlin put out a news release arguing that the shooting death of 38-year-old Silverio Villegas González in Chicago by an ICE agent was justified because he was dragged a “significant distance” and suffered serious injuries. Yet body cam footage of local police who showed up to the scene captured the two ICE agents involved in the incident describing their injuries as “nothing major.”
Closer to home, a federal jury in Los Angeles last month acquitted an activist of striking a Border Patrol agent after federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega screened footage that contradicted the government’s case and poked holes in the testimony of Border Patrol staff and supervisors. Last week, ICE agents detained Oxnard activist Leonardo Martinez after a collision between their Jeep and his truck. McLaughlin initially blamed the incident on an “agitator group ... engaged in recording and verbal harassment,” but footage first published by L.A. Taco showed that la migra trailed Martinez and then crashed into him twice — not the other way around.
Professionals don’t host social media accounts that regularly spew memes that paint the picture of an American homeland where white makes right and everyone else must be eliminated, like the Department of Homeland Security does. A recent post featured medieval knights wearing chain mail and helmets and wielding longswords as they encircle the slogan “The Enemies are at the Gates” above ICE’s job listing website.
The Trump administration has normalized racism and has turned cruelty into a virtue — then its mouthpieces gasp in mock horror when people resist its officially sanctioned jackbootery.
Arellano: There’s no nice way to deport someone. But Trump’s ICE is hosting a cruelty Olympics
When my father was crossing the U.S.
This evil buffoonery comes straight from a president who reacted to the millions of Americans who protested this weekend at No Kings rallies by posting on social media an AI-generated video of him wearing a crown and dropping feces on his critics from a jet fighter. And yet McLaughlin, Noem and other Trump bobbleheads have the gall to question why politicians decry la migra while regular people follow and film them during raids when not shouting obscenities and taunts at them?
As I’ve written before, there’s never a nice way to conduct an immigration raid but there’s always a better way. Or at least a way that’s not dripping with malevolence.
Meanwhile, ICE is currently on a hiring spree thanks to Trump’s Bloated Beastly Bill and and has cut its training program from six months to 48 days, according to The Atlantic. It’s a desperate and potentially reckless recruitment drive.
And if you think rapidly piling more people into a clown car is going to produce less clown-like behavior by ICE on the streets of American cities, boy do I have news for you.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement has created chaos and danger in American cities, causing harm not only to immigrants but also to law enforcement officers and civilians caught in the crossfire, such as the 13 police officers tear-gassed in Chicago and a deputy U.S. marshal injured during an incident in South L.A.
ICE operations demonstrate incompetence and lack of professional standards, as evidenced by agents conducting ineffective raids against low-threat targets like street food vendors and day laborers while simultaneously detaining at least 170 U.S. citizens in 2025, many of whom provided proof of legal residency.
Department of Homeland Security leadership, including Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin and Secretary Kristi Noem, routinely misrepresents facts and incidents to shield the agency from accountability, such as claiming a Chicago shooting victim was dragged a “significant distance” when body camera footage contradicted this characterization.
Rather than taking responsibility for problematic operations, the Trump administration deflects blame onto sanctuary politicians and activists, dismissing legitimate concerns about aggressive tactics as the cause of increased danger to federal agents when ICE’s own conduct creates these tensions.
The expedited training program, which was cut from six months to 48 days, represents a reckless recruitment drive that will likely produce more erratic and unprofessional behavior in American communities.
Different views on the topic
Democrats bear responsibility for the current immigration enforcement crisis because they systematically ignored border and immigration laws for years, which emboldened illegal immigration and ultimately made enforcement actions necessary and inevitable.[1]
Characterizing the enforcement of long-standing immigration laws as “cruel” is fundamentally misleading, as those entering the country illegally knowingly violate federal law and individuals who are deported can choose to bring their children with them rather than leaving them behind.[1]
The narrative portraying law enforcement as inherently cruel is an emotional manipulation tactic designed to condition Americans to oppose any immigration law enforcement, even though the laws themselves have not changed and merely reflect decades-old congressional legislation.[1]
Media coverage selectively highlights isolated incidents to provoke outrage while ignoring that laws requiring foreign nationals to carry proof of registration have existed for years and were rarely enforced until this administration, making current enforcement legally consistent rather than unprecedented or tyrannical.[1]
The Biden administration dismantled Trump-era border protections, allowing millions of inadmissible individuals to enter the country, making the current situation the direct consequence of prior Democratic policy failures rather than the result of unjust ICE actions.[1]
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