ICE wanted a war. A year in, it’s flailing
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A year ago, I wrote in this very newsletter about how Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers tried to execute two raids in San Diego, but came face-to-face with San Diegans who fought back.
That was merely the beginning of the summer of ICE across the country, but specifically Southern California.
The day that newsletter came out, ICE conducted two raids in Los Angeles — one in the Garment District and another at a Home Depot in Westlake. As the enforcement actions took place, onlookers clashed with federal officials. Protesters were assaulted and injured as agents rained down gas and less-than-lethal rounds on crowds.
This marked the first day of massive protests against the many raids that popped up in and around L.A. that continued for over a month. Thousands of people were detained by ICE in the L.A. area last summer, most of whom had no criminal record.
And which section of the population — as data have shown — was and continues to be the hardest-hit in the region? The Latino community.
As we all know by now, the events in L.A. merely set the stage for what was to happen throughout the country.
In September, the Department of Homeland Security launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in the greater Chicago area. Much of the immigration enforcement activity was concentrated in the predominantly Latino neighborhoods of Little Village, Pilsen and Humboldt Park, deeply impacting those communities. Homeland Security carried out “Operation Charlotte’s Web” in November after claiming that North Carolina was overrun by criminal undocumented immigrants because of “sanctuary politicians.” Latinos also received the brunt of the enforcement in Charlotte.
Then there was the mess and tragedy of the January 2026 Minneapolis raids, in which ICE agents killed U.S citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. It also resulted in the stirring image of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos — wearing a bunny beanie and carrying a Spider-Man backpack — being detained by an ICE agent.
The onslaught hasn’t stopped.
Latino journalists have been detained by ICE in Atlanta and Nashville. In Virginia 11,000 people have been arrested by ICE since the start of 2025. Thousands of others were apprehended in Washington’s three largest counties, which have the largest Latino populations in the state. In the L.A. area alone, ICE arrests tripled in 2025 to over 14,000.
ICE detention centers across the country have become points of contention among immigrant activists, with a myriad of reports exposing the inhumane conditions that detainees have been forced to live in.
Over the weekend, protesters clashed with law enforcement outside of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, N.J. The demonstrations began after detainees launched a hunger strike over poor living conditions at the 1,000-bed facility. At California’s Adelanto detention center — where four detainees have died in recent months — 40 detainees have also engaged in a hunger strike to bring attention to conditions at the facility, including mold, unsafe drinking water and a lack of medical care.
Homeland Security has repeatedly denied that conditions at any of its facilities are substandard or hazardous.
The effects of the raids in L.A. are still palpable. Anecdotally, I know individuals who refuse to venture out to certain parts of the city due to fear of apprehension by ICE. The Times recently documented how fear still looms large over Latino shopping centers throughout the city since the ICE raids ramped up last year, including at the famed Santee Alley.
All of this may have you believe that ICE and Homeland Security are winning in their crusade against the terrifying specter of the villainous immigrant. But a closer look reveals that’s not so much the case.
Last month the New York Times reported that President Trump’s proudly touted Florida detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” will close by the end of June. The facility’s opening was plagued by human rights and environmental lawsuits. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) spoke with The Times last year about the conditions at the center after he took a tour of it. He saw dozens of detainees crammed into cages and forced to share only three toilets.
“From a human point of view, it really hurt my heart to be there and see all these Latino men — Black and brown men in these cages chanting, ‘Libertad!’” he recalled. “People [were] asking me to contact their families to tell them they’re OK.”
This closure means that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration and DHS wasted nearly $1 billion on the project, millions of which was put forth by taxpayers.
ICE raids have also been a thorn in the side of Trump’s popularity. The president focused a large portion of his 2024 reelection campaign promising to rule with an iron fist on the subject. An overwhelming majority of his voter base named it as their top political priority during election season.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, the disapproval rate of Trump’s handling of immigration went from 36% in January 2025 to 55% by February 2026. This drop included a 10 percentage point dip in support from men, who have historically backed Trump’s policies at a higher rate. Overall, Trump’s disapproval rating hit an all-time high this week after an Economist/YouGov poll found that 61% of adults from all political backgrounds disapproved of how he’s handled his job.
Most notably, Trump has lost support among Latinos who voted for him in 2024. A Pew Research Center survey found that 66% of Latino Trump voters approve of the president’s job performance 16 months into his second term. That is a drop of 27 percentage points from where the group stood in February 2025. The trend also mirrors the downward trajectory of the president’s support from the wider Latino community, slipping from 36% to 22%.
A lack of faith in the president’s ability to make good decisions about immigration played a key role for those who are retreating from their approval of Trump’s performance. These findings come less than two years after Trump overperformed with Latino voters nationwide during the 2024 election.
The raids also exposed Trump on the economic front. New research from Trump’s alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, found that the ICE raids have had long-lasting and far-reaching negative effect on the nation’s economy. This is likely due to the fact Latinos have proven spending power in this country. A UCLA study showed that the U.S. Latino gross domestic product reached $4.4 trillion in 2024, the raids are likely to affect that number for 2025. The surge in enforcement also cost the economy upward of 660,000 jobs nationwide. Those who have soured on Trump in recent jobs have also pointed to the economy and employment numbers as key factors.
One other avenue in which anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiment has faced a series of roadblocks is in the courts
In April, Trump’s Department of Justice went to the Supreme Court to fight for a retconning of the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause that would severely limit who would be considered a citizen. Trump made a big show of being the first sitting president to attend a Supreme Court hearing, but left with egg on his face after the justices openly scoffed at the Justice Department’s ridiculous arguments. The court has yet to rule on the case, but all signs point to the judges siding against Trump’s wishes.
Across the country federal judges have ruled in over 10,000 cases that people had been illegally detained by ICE agents. Earlier this year, my colleagues James Queally and Brittny Mejia wrote about how Homeland Security and Border Patrol had lost several court cases in which agents claimed they were assaulted in cities such as L.A., Chicago and Minneapolis.
These huge losses don’t project the vibes of a winner.
Obviously, people are still hurting and families have been irreparably fractured — I don’t want to minimize that in any way.
But don’t let all the chaos and hubbub of the Trump administration fool you, the narrative has slipped from its grasp and it’s flailing now. Hell, they can barely even secure funding for these raids nowadays.
ICE is not winning the war it waged to prove that immigrants are the bogeymen of this country. I have a feeling that this fall’s midterm elections will highlight the nation’s rebuke of policies of hate and division.
All we can hope is if power shifts from red to blue, that Democrats finally move away from their performative allyship, develop a backbone and stand up to the tyranny we are facing.
Movie recommendation of the week
As one of our New Year’s resolutions this year, my fiancée and I decided to embark on the Herculean task of watching a movie a day. It may not necessarily sound that difficult, but many are the days where it hits 9 p.m. and we’ve got to flip on a flick even though the only thing I want to do is sleep. Woe is me indeed.
Thanks to this journey I’ve watched a lot of features that I would have never otherwise sought out — both positively and negatively.
Some nights we watch a lazily thrown together film from the ‘50s on a streaming service. Other nights we watch amazing movies like Akira Kurosawa’s epic “Ran” or the Cuban masterpiece “I Am Cuba.”
In this section, I’ll try to highlight Latino movies as much as possible.
This week, I’ll recommend a film that features a Latina star — the recently released Boots Riley flick “I Love Boosters.” It stars Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Poppy Liu, Eiza González and Taylour Paige. The film is both ideologically and visually radical, as well as sharply funny. There is a psychedelic tint to the entire project that might not work for everyone, but gives it a frenetic energy that ties in nicely to the themes of the film.
Palmer plays the leader of a group of shoplifters who nab clothes from high-end retailers. The crew of thieves ultimately get involved in a scheme to get back at a villainous fashion designer played by Demi Moore.
The “True Jackson, VP” star shines in the role as she gets to show off her comedic chops as well as her ability to portray sincerity. Ackie excels in the role of a somewhat dopey but strong-willed friend to Palmer’s character. In my estimation, González gives one of the more bizarre yet compelling performances as a perpetually stoned and politically aggravated retail worker with otherworldly knowledge of emerging technologies.
For those who enjoyed Riley’s debut film, “Sorry to Bother You,” his latest effort is sure to delight. The director’s dedication to resisting norms and pushing forth a progressive agenda through his art is impressive.
The revolution might not be televised, but it is currently screening at a theater near you.
Stories we read this week that we think you should read
Unless otherwise noted, stories below were published by the Los Angeles Times.
Politics and immigration
- Hilton and Becerra lead California’s unsettled governor’s race; Steyer faces elimination
- The U.S. is investigating two more Mexican governors for connections to cartels
- Here are the big cases the Supreme Court will decide in June
- Supreme Court rules Alabama may redraw congressional maps to oust a Black Democrat
- Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin refuses to commit to following court orders
- Cuba says U.S. risks ‘bloodshed’ if it abandons dialogue for war
- Federal court hears arguments over efforts to halt Trump’s mail-in executive order (AP)
- ICE officer wanted for shooting a man during the Minneapolis crackdown is arrested in Texas (AP)
Arts & Entertainment
- Palestinian Mexican doc ‘Traces of Home’ was so moving Melissa Barrera had to get involved
- ‘Book of Life’ creator Jorge Gutierrez scraps AI series ‘Punky Duck’ after online backlash
- Leslie Grace talks her new album — plus ‘In the Heights’ and the lost ‘Batgirl’ movie on ‘The De Los Podcast’
- In Sundance breakout film ‘TheyDream,’ a Puerto Rican family heals old wounds
- L.A. Latino International Film Festival 2026: Here are five standout movies
- Fired ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Cecilia Vega said she faced censorship and is ‘fearful’ for the news program
- As Hollywood directors snap up cinemas, Westwood’s Village Theatre gets a second act
Southern California
- The latest on tight L.A. mayoral race
- Spencer Pratt claims L.A.’s homeless will move to Seattle if he’s elected. That city’s mayor responds
- L.A. Rep. Jimmy Gomez reportedly faces House investigation over sexual misconduct allegations
- In deep-blue California, frustration with Democratic status quo roils governor, L.A. mayor race
- Monterey Park takes landmark vote on banning data centers
- Two of music’s most powerful executives maxed out donations to Spencer Pratt
- Riverside congressman’s family was swept up in WWII Japanese detention. He sees a repeat in today’s raids (AP)
Insights
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Perspectives
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The article argues that a year of intensified immigration raids has functioned as a de facto “war” on immigrant and specifically Latino communities, with large-scale operations in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and Minneapolis resulting in thousands of arrests, many involving people with no criminal record and including U.S. citizens and children.
It contends that ICE’s tactics have been brutal and dehumanizing — from clashes with protesters and the use of gas and “less-than-lethal” rounds in Los Angeles to hunger strikes and alleged inhumane conditions in detention centers such as Delaney Hall in New Jersey and Adelanto in California, where detainees report mold, unsafe water and a lack of medical care, even as Homeland Security officially denies that conditions are substandard.[1][3][4]
The piece emphasizes that Latino communities have borne the brunt of these policies, pointing to Latino-majority neighborhoods targeted in Chicago and Charlotte, the detention of Latino journalists, and heightened fear in Los Angeles Latino shopping districts, with some residents now avoiding certain parts of the city out of fear of ICE.
It frames the closure of the Florida detention complex nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” — after extensive human-rights and environmental litigation and at a cost of nearly $1 billion in public funds — as emblematic of an enforcement strategy that is not only cruel but also incompetent and wasteful.
The column argues that the political payoff Trump promised from hard-line immigration enforcement has evaporated: it highlights polling that shows sharply rising disapproval of Trump’s handling of immigration, overall job performance ratings at record lows, and particularly steep declines in support among Latino voters who had backed Trump in 2024.
Economically, the article maintains that the raids have backfired by undermining a key driver of U.S. growth: Latino economic activity. It cites research showing a multitrillion-dollar Latino GDP and new studies that attribute long-lasting, nationwide job losses — on the order of hundreds of thousands of positions — to the enforcement surge, arguing that this undercuts Trump’s economic claims.
Legally, the piece presents the administration as on the defensive: it notes that federal courts across the country have found in thousands of cases that people were unlawfully detained by ICE agents and that judges have rejected or been openly skeptical of government arguments in high-profile disputes, including a Supreme Court fight over limiting birthright citizenship.[2][3][6][7]
The article asserts that enforcement agencies have also suffered setbacks in criminal cases, pointing to court losses in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis where Homeland Security and Border Patrol agents claimed they were assaulted, only to see those claims falter in court, further eroding the image of a winning, competent operation.[2][6]
Overall, the piece concludes that, despite the immense harm inflicted on families and communities, the broader “war” ICE and Trump sought — to cement immigrants as national bogeymen and build enduring support for hard-line enforcement — is faltering politically, economically and legally; it predicts that upcoming midterm elections will showcase a public rebuke of these policies.
Finally, the article calls on Democrats not merely to benefit from this backlash but to move beyond “performative allyship,” develop political courage and directly confront what the column characterizes as the tyranny of current immigration enforcement.
Different views on the topic
In contrast to the article’s suggestion that ICE is “flailing,” civil liberties groups and policy researchers warn that the agency remains structurally powerful and has been expanding its reach: analyses from organizations such as the ACLU and Brookings detail a rapidly growing detention system, with ICE pursuing a hub-and-spoke model of large-scale facilities and processing sites capable of holding tens of thousands of people at once, even as deaths in custody reach record levels.[3][4]
Policy briefs emphasize that ICE expansion has outpaced accountability mechanisms, noting patterns of alleged abuses such as warrantless or pretextual stops, broken car windows used to justify arrests, and dozens of deaths in detention in a single year, and argue that the scale and persistence of these practices suggest an entrenched system rather than an operation in retreat.[3][7]
Litigation brought by cities and advocacy groups frames the raids not as a failing campaign but as an ongoing civil-rights emergency: for example, a class-action challenge to Southern California raids alleges that, since mid-2025, federal agents have engaged in indiscriminate operations targeting people based on race and ethnicity, conducting warrantless arrests and denying access to counsel and due process, and seeks sweeping court intervention to halt those practices.[1][2]
Some immigrant-rights advocates and legal organizations therefore resist optimistic narratives about the courts “turning the tide,” stressing that, even as judges rule against unlawful detentions in individual cases, ICE continues to arrest and hold large numbers of people, and that systemic change has been slow and incomplete despite thousands of favorable rulings for plaintiffs.[2][3][7]
Analysts at research institutes such as the Vera Institute argue that the real story is not simply one administration’s failure but a bipartisan, multi-decade buildout of immigration detention that relies heavily on local jails and private contractors; they describe how ICE pays local governments to hold people on civil immigration charges, creating what they call perverse financial incentives for sheriffs and municipalities to maintain or expand jail capacity and align with punitive enforcement policies.[5]
From this vantage point, some experts criticize framing the issue mainly as a Trump-era “war” that might be reversed by a partisan shift, contending instead that long-standing statutory authorities, federal contracts and local economic incentives will continue driving aggressive enforcement unless Congress and multiple administrations enact deeper structural reforms.[3][5]
Civil-liberties organizations underscore that, regardless of whether the raids are politically unpopular, the human toll is escalating: ACLU reporting notes that deaths in immigration detention have risen to roughly one every six days under the current enforcement push, and that more than 40 people have died in a relatively short period — trends these groups cite as evidence that the system is becoming more lethal even as public disapproval grows.[4]
At the same time, federal officials routinely reject allegations of illegality or systemic abuse; in litigation over raids and detention conditions, government defendants generally argue that operations are authorized by statute, comply with Fourth and Fifth Amendment standards and provide adequate access to counsel, directly disputing plaintiffs’ claims of racial profiling, unlawful seizures and inhumane treatment.[1][2]
Some law-enforcement voices and DHS leaders also maintain that workplace and neighborhood raids are necessary tools to enforce immigration laws, deter future unauthorized migration and protect public safety, asserting that their focus is on individuals who pose security or criminal risks and that internal inspections and standards ensure acceptable conditions in facilities — a stance that stands in clear tension with accounts of hunger strikes, death data and inspection critiques publicized by advocacy groups.[3][4][7]
Finally, technocratic reformers emphasize granular oversight and data transparency rather than the electoral framing used in the column: they argue for stronger inspection regimes, public reporting on detention conditions, tighter contract monitoring and clearer limits on local jail participation, contending that such policy changes — not just shifts in public opinion or party control — are essential to curb abuses and reshape ICE’s footprint.[5][7]
