The Current - Calling the military into L.A. poses a threat to democracy: advocate

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

ICE raids in L.A. sparked protests, pushback and stopped traffic in that city — which have been met with military force, as U.S. President Donald Trump sent in the National Guard and Marines earlier this week.  Antonio Gutierrez, co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations, says these moves are a threat to American democracy — and a law professor says the deployment risks politicizing the military.

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They're treating us like we're animals out here, shooting at us. For almost a week now, protests have taken over downtown Los Angeles in response to immigration raids. On Saturday, US President Donald Trump announced 2,000 California National Guard troops would be sent to suppress the quote, danger of rebellion. And Trump did this without the consent of the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. I feel we had no choice. I don't want to see, I don't want to see happen what happened so many times in this country. I watched Minneapolis burn.

I watched, look at what happened in so many different parts of California. You take a look at what happened in San Diego. There's so many different places where we let it burn. We want to be politically correct. We want it to be nice. We want to be nice to the criminal. And what you're doing is destroying the fabric of our life in this country. Now we did the right thing.

President Trump has since doubled down on his decision, deploying an additional 2,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines. Marisa Nuncio was at Ambience Apparel, a garment factory in Los Angeles, after Immigrations and Custom Enforcement, or ICE, showed up on Friday. We are both sad and enraged at what's happening in the community. There is a militarized takeover of this city. There are people being kidnapped from their workplaces and from off the streets. Unmarked vehicles, masked individuals with arms, and no identification of which law enforcement agency

they are, are taking people. There are people being denied access to councils. There's a lot of emotion, but also, I would say, a lot of focus. Marissa Nuntio is executive director of the Garment Workers Center. It's an organization that helps documented and undocumented LA garment workers. The people

detained on Friday were integral parts of the local community, she says, and in their wake, immigrant communities are scared. It's very hard for our members to live with this sort of fear and chaos that's out in our community right now. Our members have questions. Do we, you know, should we go to work? Is public transportation safe? You know, do I have a choice not to go to work? Because, you know, how can I lose income? Our members are asking for support and talking to their children about this moment.

Can you help us with, you know, the message and age appropriate message and the fear that our kids have about what might happen to us? We're just really fielding a lot at the moment. Since last weekend, these protests have spread beyond Los Angeles. From Austin, Texas to Washington, D.C., protesters have marched against ICE raids. Antonio Gutierrez is in Chicago, where thousands of people have taken to the streets.

Antonio is co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations and an undocumented immigrant. Antonio, good morning. Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. This started with these raids throughout Los Angeles County last week. As you were watching them, what went through your mind?

I think overall, what we saw in LA was an escalation of what we have seen and experienced throughout the nation for the last four months. We have seen and confirmed similar rates in Chicago, not just last week, but overall, again, within the last four months. So unfortunately it was a familiar viewing situation while also acknowledging that it was escalating and that it was being used to fabricate more suppression of our first amendment right. In Chicago in those raids, as you understand it, who's being targeted? Yeah. My organization coordinates with other organizations here doing immigrant rights work.

27 neighborhood level response that are able to get to tips, whether it is through social media or through our headline that we have. People can call the headline and report eyesighting. We can be there sometimes five to ten minutes. We have encountered a variety of targeting. I think individuals with final orders of removal were kind of the first like wave that we saw. Then we started identifying also just targeting of people's homes because they had applied for asylum or had some kind of pending application with immigration. Therefore, ICE already had them on the radar. They have their information, their home address. And so we did see over the last four months a lot more of those home targetings. What we're seeing now is targeting an ICEP check-ins and ISAP is the intensive supervision appearance

program also kind of known for their name alternatives to detention programs of ICE or at the ICE core hearings. So that has been more of a recent development that we have confirmed and noticed and of course informed the media over the last like three, two weeks. One of your members, one of the members of your community group was detained by ICE, right? That is correct. Last Wednesday, June 4, one of our members had to go to one of these ICE check-ins. She had been to that office about a month and a half prior where she also received notification or requests to do a physical check-in,

at that check-in about a month ago, a month and a half ago. She was given an ankle bracelet. And so we thought that it was odd, to say the least, that they were calling her again for another physical check-in so early on from the last one. But she also had been doing weekly check-ins via the iSap app, which is on her phone weekly, and she hadn't missed any of them. And so we knew that it was a really high risk situation. phone weekly and she hadn't missed any of them.

And so we knew that it was a really high risk situation. But of course the options that are given to whether it's Gladys, Yolanda, our member, or to others in the program of ISAP, or just going through immigration core, the options, unfortunately available at this time. They are not keeping people safe or there's no real option for them to really keep, um, keep their set themselves, their physical bodies away from the threat of ICE detention. What is the mood like in your community?

Marissa Nuncio talked about in Los Angeles, people feeling afraid, um, and, and wondering whether, whether they would be next. What is the mood like in your community? I think there's a real sense of collective fear of the unknown. Having done this type of work for almost 13 years at SOCA, we have never felt like there's a lack of understanding of the immigration law and system.

Things that we have known to be able to use as tactics, a way of interrupting deportations through legal and organizing strategies, are no longer giving us the results that we had in the past. And I think that that's concerning for many community members. I think it's concerning for organizations like us. And there's also a really strong emotion of anger, right? People's mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters are getting detained.

Sometimes without due processing, they're being put in detention without them being able to contact them, without their attorneys being able to contact them in horrible conditions for what we've been able to confirm. And so these things are, that are angrying people, uh, and they're using what we believe is our first amendment right to protest and to resist and to not normalize what is happening in our communities at this time. The Trump administration says that these

undocumented immigrants are, in their words, criminals. They believe that they are in the country illegally. They aren't following the laws. How do you respond to what the Trump administration says is the justification for what we're seeing right now? Not just in LA, but in Chicago, and as you said, elsewhere in the country as well. I would say that they're making a general statement

that not all individuals that they're targeting or in fact detaining have a criminal record. And it's so angry and raging for them to use general terms that we're all criminals when immigration or being undocumented in this country under the law is a civil matter and not a criminal offense in many instances. So continuing to demonize and criminalize undocumented immigrants as a whole, it only fits their agenda, which is xenophobic and white supremacist is who we are seeing being targeted, right?

There are individuals being detained at their homes, at their workplaces that are Latino, that are immigrants of color, while immigrants from South Africa that are white are being invited with welcoming arms to the United States. What would you say to Donald Trump? I mean, you yourself you yourself are, are undocumented and we've spoken with a number of undocumented

people in the United States in the lead up to the election, after the election about the contributions they make to the country and the role that they play. What would you say to the president? There are plenty of things that I would like to say. I'm sure.

And I would like to tell him that we are not alone. That it's not just undocumented immigrants that he's targeting. He's targeting our US citizen, like family members. He's impacting them. He's impacting our LPRs. He's impacting our social fabrics of our communities. And for that, we will continue to resist every single attack until no longer we have the energy to do so. What do you think is at stake here for your country? I think democracy is a state, is a real threat at this time that again, it feels like fabricated

escalation to continue to abuse the power, Trump's power, right? The executive branch power in order to create a sense or a society that does not follow democracy, that does not put elected officials as society's workers. And on that contrary, he's creating a path for as he has Already claimed in the White House social media pages and and other interviews, right? He seems himself as a king. I Will say dictator. I will say we're at a moment of fascism in the United States Antonio I'm glad to talk to you. Thank you very much

the United States. Antonio, I'm glad to talk to you. Thank you very much. Of course. Antonio Gutierrez is co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations and an Undocumented Immigrant in Chicago. At Desjardins Insurance, we know that when you're a building contractor, your company's foundation needs to be strong. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Desjardins.com slash business coverage. Shakespeare when they think of Stratford, but it's so much more. Broadway musicals, family shows, classic comedy and drama. Whether it's Robert LaPage's Macbeth or Donna Fior's Annie, you will be blown away. It's the perfect Canadian getaway. To quote William Shatner, who got his start in Stratford, every Canadian should make the pilgrimage to Stratford.

Start your next adventure at StratfordFestival.ca. Laura Dickinson is the Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law at George Washington University, specializes in armed conflict and national security. Laura, good morning to you. Good morning. It's great to be here. It's good to have you here. Antonio says that democracy is at stake here from a legal perspective, and that's where

you're coming at this from. Do you agree? Well, I would first note that it is highly unusual, and I would argue unnecessary, for our military to be drawn into immigration enforcement in the interior of the country, potentially policing protests by their fellow US citizens when the protests are mostly peaceful, when the governor objects and says that state authorities

have things in hand and under control, and that the use of the military here is very much outside our constitutional tradition. Is that legal, what the president is doing? I mean, sending in the National Guard and the Marines into Los Angeles at his order? Well, it's contrary to past practice and our norms. So in very rare circumstances, presidents have deployed the military to quell unrest, but only as a last resort when there's severe violence, when law and order has completely broken down, or to enforce a court order when state officials have refused to do so.

And that's been the case for presidents of all political parties. So mostly it's been done, and again, very rarely, under a law called the Insurrection Act, which does give the president the authority to do this, but it's used very rarely and only in the circumstances that I described. For example, during the civil rights era when state authorities were refusing to desegregate the schools in violation of federal court orders or to protect civil rights marchers. Even the Insurrection Act, when presidents have invoked it, has been used mostly when governors are requesting it. So the last time it was invoked was in 1992 when the governor of California requested it to help with

riots after a very controversial judicial ruling. Here, the president is not invoking the Insurrection Act. He's using a very obscure statute. And arguably, the conditions for that statute are not met, because they speak about that statute says that it should be invoked when there's an invasion or rebellion, or to execute the laws of the US. And we don't have an invasion here. That's a foreign country invading the United States. A rebellion, there's a very high bar for rebellion. And you might think to execute the laws sounds very broad, but historically that term has been understood since the time of the founding to mean a very serious incident akin to treason against the United States.

So I would argue the conditions for that statute are not met either. For the people who have been arrested and detained, and we've seen, and we talked with Antonio what's happening in Chicago, but the images we've seen in Los Angeles and elsewhere of people being snatched at places of work and in these meetings with immigration officials and what have you, what rights do they have? They have constitutional rights. Our constitution applies to everyone, whether you're a US citizen or not. And that includes the right to be free from the excessive use of force. And that includes the right to due process of law, the right to have your legal arguments heard before a court, to have notice and opportunity to be heard,

and to have a fair process. And that applies as well to people who would be in the country illegally. Well, yes. Now the administration has argued that they have broad immigration authority to use expedited judicial process. Historically, that kind of expedited process with fewer opportunities in court has only been used at the border or has historically been used at the border before people have really entered the US. The administration is arguing that they have those expedited procedures available to them when they are doing immigration enforcement in the interior of the country.

That is one of the judicial challenges that's working its way through the courts. I did just want to say that, again, the use of the military here is really troubling, and it risks politicizing our armed forces, which historically have enjoyed broad bipartisan support and respect in this country. It's one of the few institutions that still has that. And this move by the president risks damaging the credibility of our military. It's not just this move by the president. The president has also arranged for a military

parade on Saturday, which happens to be his birthday. Tanks will roll through the streets of Washington, D.C. Are you alarmed by that? I am very concerned. I'm very concerned that it, again, politicizes the military, makes the military into something that it has not been in our history. It has been a nonpartisan institution for centuries, and that has given it great, great respect in American society. And I will also note that our armed forces are not trained to do domestic law enforcement, to detain people. They're trained

mostly for fighting in foreign wars, which have very different rules for the use of force, allows for much more significant use of force. So when you put the military on the streets, you risk embroiling them in situations where they might use excessive force on our citizens. We're just about out of time. We just have a minute or so left. People have said that this, what we're seeing right now,

is a test for your nation. Do you agree? Well, I do. I think that this is very disturbing. This is not normal. And I think, I hope that we can pull back from this use of the military. And if you don't, just very briefly, what is at stake?

This is the question that I asked Antonio. What is at stake? Well, I think this is potentially a threat to democracy and the rule of law, because in democracy, you know, you don't have the military just following the whims of a president. You know, there has to be a really high bar for using the military domestically in a country.

So I would be, I am very concerned. And you don't believe that bar has been met? I don't think that bar has been met here, right? These are mostly peaceful protests, and the governor says that they have things well in hand. Laura, we'll leave it there. Good to speak with you, thank you very much. Thank you.

Laura Dickinson is the Lyle T. Elverson Professor of Law well in hand. Laura, we'll leave it there. Good to speak with you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Laura Dickinson is the Lyle T. Elverson Professor of Law at George Washington University. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.