‘It’s a war’: Meet the volunteers leading the fight against Trump’s ICE raids

Published

4 months ago

July 14, 2025

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It’s 5.30am, but the car park outside a laundrette in south central Los Angeles is already bustling.

A woman is setting up a stand selling tacos on the pavement and the sun is beginning to rise behind the palm trees.

A group of seven women and two men are gathered in a circle, most wearing khaki green t-shirts.

The leader, a man named Francisco “Chavo” Romero, begins by asking how everyone is feeling. “Angry,” a few of them respond. “Proud of the community for pushing back,” says another.

Ron, a high school history teacher, issues a rallying cry. “This is like Vietnam,” he says. “We’re taking losses, but in the end we’re going to win. It’s a war.”

This is what the resistance against Donald Trump’s immigration policy looks like here. In the past month, immigration and customs enforcement agents – known as ICE – have intensified their raids on homes and workplaces across Los Angeles.

Since the beginning of June, nearly 2,800 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the city, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The previous monthly high was just over 850 arrests in May this year.

Videos have circulated online of people being tackled to the ground in the car park of DIY shops, in car washes and outside homes. The videos have prompted outrage, protests and a fightback.

“Chavo” and Ron belong to a group of organised volunteers called Union del Barrio. Every morning, a group of them meet, mostly in areas which have high immigrant populations.

The day I meet them, they’re in an area of LA which is heavily Latino. Armed with walkie talkies to communicate with each other, megaphones to warn the community and leaflets to raise awareness they set out in cars in different directions.

They’re looking for cars used by ICE agents to monitor “targets”.

“That vehicle looks a little suspicious,” says Ron, pointing out a white SUV with blacked-out windows, “but there’s nobody in it”.

An elderly Latino man is standing on a street corner, cutting fruit to sell at his stall. “He’s the exact target that they’re looking for,” Ron says. “That’s what they’re doing now. The low-hanging fruit, the easy victim. And so that is proving to be more successful for their quotas.”

In the end, it turns out to be a quiet morning in this part of LA, no brewing immigration operations. But elsewhere in the city, dawn raids are happening.

ICE agents are under pressure from the White House to boost their deportation numbers in line with Donald Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration.

Maria’s husband Javier was one of those arrested in LA. He came to the United States from Mexico when he was 19 and is now 58.

The couple have three grown-up children and two grandchildren. But Javier’s work permit expired two years ago, according to Maria and so he was living here illegally.

She shows me a video taken last month when Javier was at work at a car wash in Pomona, an area of LA. He is being handcuffed and arrested by armed and masked ICE agents, forced into a car. He is now being held at a detention centre two hours away.

“I know they’re doing their job,” she says, “but it’s like, ‘you don’t have to do it like that.’ Getting them and, you know, forcing people and pushing them down on the ground. They’re not animals.”

Maria wipes away tears as she explains the impact of his absence for the past four weeks. “It’s been so hard without him,” she says. “You feel alone when you get used to somebody and he’s not there any more. We’ve never been apart for as long as this.”

The family have a lawyer and is appealing for him to remain in the US, but Maria fears he will be sent back to Mexico or even a third country.

“I don’t know what to say to my grandkids because the oldest one, who is five was very attached to his papas, as he calls him. And he’s asking me, ‘When is papa coming home?’ and I don’t know what to say. He’s not a criminal.”

The fear in immigrant communities can be measured by the empty restaurant booths and streets that are far quieter than usual.

I meet Soledad at the Mexican restaurant she owns in Hollywood. When I arrive, she’s watching the local news on the TV as yet another raid unfolds at a nearby farm.

She’s shaking her head as ICE agents face off with protesters and military helicopters hover overhead. “I am scared. I am very scared,” she says.

All of her eight employees are undocumented, and four of them are too scared to come into work, she says, in case they get arrested. The process to get papers, she says, is too long and too expensive.

“They call me and tell me they are too afraid to come in because immigration is around,” she says.

“I have to work double shifts to be able to make up for their hours, and yes, I am very desperate, and sometimes I cry… We have no sales, and no money to pay their wages.”

There is just one woman eating fajitas at a booth, where there would usually be a lunchtime rush. People are chilled by the raids.

Soledad says she plans to hide her illegal workers if immigration officials arrive.

“I’ve told them, get inside the fridge, hide behind the stove, climb up where we have a space to store boxes, do not run because they will hunt you down.”

The White House says they’re protecting the country from criminals. ICE agents have been shot at while carrying out operations, their work becoming more dangerous by the day.

The tension here is ratcheting up. Deportation numbers are rising too. But the order from Donald Trump is to arrest even more people living here illegally.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene: Former Trump ally turned critic announces sudden resignation

Published

23 hours ago

November 22, 2025

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Marjorie Taylor Greene: Former Trump ally turned critic announces sudden resignation

Marjorie Taylor Greene – a one-time MAGA ally who has turned into a fierce critic of Donald Trump – has unexpectedly announced she is resigning from Congress.

Her relationship with the president has deteriorated in recent months, and she had vocally campaigned for the justice department to release all of its files concerning the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Trump has been fiercely critical about Ms Greene on Truth Social – describing her as a “lunatic”.

In a statement posted on X, she wrote: “Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for.”

Ms Greene went on to confirm her last day in office will be on January 5.

The hard-right Republican was one of the most aggressive spokespeople for the Make America Great Again movement – and had become infamous for her combative encounters with journalists, including Sky’s Martha Kelner.

She was known for her susceptibility to conspiracy theories, and was widely denounced for comparing COVID-19 masks and vaccinations to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.

On social media, she had made posts advocating violence against Democrat opponents – and casting doubt on the 9/11 terror attacks and the school mass shootings at Parkland and Sandy Hook.

The bond between Ms Greene and Mr Trump started to break down after she lambasted his foreign policy – describing it as “America Last”.

Last week, the president had announced that he was withdrawing his support and endorsement for the 51-year-old, who had been expected to run for re-election in Georgia’s 14th congressional district next November.

Her statement added: “I have too much self-respect and dignity, love my family way too much, and do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms.”

A few days ago, Ms Greene had warned the breakdown in relations with the White House had led to her construction company receiving a pipe bomb threat.

She had written on X: “President Trump’s unwarranted and vicious attacks against me were a dog whistle to dangerous radicals that could lead to serious attacks on me and my family.”

Ms Greene went on to warn his inflammatory rhetoric “puts blood in the water and creates a feeding frenzy that could ultimately lead to a harmful or even deadly outcome”.

US

Pras Michel: Fugees rapper ‘who betrayed US for money’ is jailed for 14 years

Published

24 hours ago

November 22, 2025

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Pras Michel: Fugees rapper 'who betrayed US for money' is jailed for 14 years

A Grammy-winning rapper who “betrayed his country for money” has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, who was part of 1990s hip-hop group The Fugees, was convicted of illegally funnelling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.

The Justice Department had accused the 53-year-old of accepting $120m (£92m) from Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, who wanted to gain political influence in the US.

Prosecutors said Michel “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his actions” – and sought to deceive the White House, senior politicians and the FBI for almost a decade.

In 2018, it is claimed he urged the Trump administration and the justice department to drop embezzlement investigations against Low.

Michel was convicted of 10 counts by a federal jury in 2023 – and last month, he was ordered to forfeit about $65m (£50m) for his role in the scheme.

Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio testified at the trial, and Low was a primary financier in his 2013 film The Wolf Of Wall Street.

The Oscar-winning actor said the businessman’s funding and legitimacy had been carefully vetted before they entered a partnership.

Prosecutors had been seeking a life sentence to “reflect the breadth and depth of Michel’s crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed”.

However, the rapper’s lawyer Peter Zeidenberg has argued that the 14-year term is “completely disproportionate to the offence” – and is vowing to appeal.

Last year, a judge rejected Michel’s request for a new trial after claiming that one of his lawyers had used AI during closing arguments.

Low Taek Jho has been accused of having a central role in the 1MDB scandal, amid claims billions of dollars were stolen from a Malaysian state fund.

The 44-year-old is a fugitive but has maintained his innocence, with his lawyers writing: “Low’s motivation for giving Michel money to donate was not so that he could achieve some policy objective.

“Instead, Low simply wanted to obtain a photograph with himself and then President Obama.”

Michel, who was born in Brooklyn, was a founding member of The Fugees with childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean – selling tens of millions of records.

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Trump peace plan: We could all pay if Europe doesn’t step up and guarantee Ukraine’s security

Published

1 day ago

November 21, 2025

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Trump peace plan: We could all pay if Europe doesn't step up and guarantee Ukraine's security

The Donald Trump peace plan is nothing of the sort. It takes Russian demands and presents them as peace proposals, in what is effectively for Ukraine a surrender ultimatum.

If accepted, it would reward armed aggression. The principle, sacrosanct since the Second World War, for obvious and very good reasons, that even de facto borders cannot be changed by force, will have been trampled on at the behest of the leader of the free world.

The Kremlin will have imposed terms via negotiators on a country it has violated, and whose people its troops have butchered, massacred and raped. It is without doubt the biggest crisis in Trans-Atlantic relations since the war began, if not since the inception of NATO.

The question now is: are Europe’s leaders up to meeting the daunting challenges that will follow. On past form, we cannot be sure.

The plan proposes the following:

• Land seized by Vladimir Putin’s unwarranted and unprovoked invasion would be ceded by Kyiv.

• Territory his forces have fought but failed to take with colossal loss of life will be thrown into the bargain for good measure.

• Ukraine will be barred from NATO, from having long-range weapons, from hosting foreign troops, from allowing foreign diplomatic planes to land, and its military neutered, reduced in size by more than half.

And most worryingly for Western leaders, the plan proposes NATO and Russia negotiate with America acting as mediator.

Lest we forget, America is meant to be the strongest partner in NATO, not an outside arbitrator. In one clause, Mr Trump’s lack of commitment to the Western alliance is laid bare in chilling clarity.

And even for all that, the plan will not bring peace. Mr Putin has made it abundantly clear he wants all of Ukraine.

He has a proven track record of retiring, rallying his forces, then returning for more. Reward a bully as they say, and he will only come back for more. Why wouldn’t he, if he is handed the fortress cities of Donetsk and a clear run over open tank country to Kyiv in a few years?

Since the beginning of Trump’s presidency, Europe has tried to keep the maverick president onside when his true sympathies have repeatedly reverted to Moscow.

It has been a demeaning and sycophantic spectacle, NATO’s secretary general stooping even to calling the US president ‘Daddy’. And it hasn’t worked. It may have made matters worse.

The parade of world leaders trooping through Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, lavishing praise on his Gaza ceasefire plan, only encouraged him to believe he is capable of solving the world’s most complex conflicts with the minimum of effort.

The Gaza plan is mired in deepening difficulty, and it never came near addressing the underlying causes of the war.

Most importantly, principles the West has held inviolable for eight decades cannot be torn up for the sake of a quick and uncertain peace.

With a partner as unreliable, the challenge to Europe cannot be clearer.

In the words of one former Baltic foreign minister: “There is a glaringly obvious message for Europe in the 28-point plan: This is the end of the end.

“We have been told repeatedly and unambiguously that Ukraine’s security, and therefore Europe’s security, will be Europe’s responsibility. And now it is. Entirely.”

If Europe does not step up to the plate and guarantee Ukraine’s security in the face of this American betrayal, we could all pay the consequences.