Immigration authorities conduct raids across LA amid crowds of protesters

Federal immigration authorities carried out enforcement activities at businesses across Los Angeles on Friday, prompting clashes outside at least one location as authorities threw flash bangs to try to disperse a crowd that had gathered in protest.

Immigration advocates confirmed at least 45 people were arrested without warrants across seven locations, including two Home Depots, a store in the fashion district and a doughnut shop, said Angelica Salas, executive director for the Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, at an afternoon press conference denouncing the activity.

Federal immigration authorities have been ramping up arrests across the country to fulfil President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations. Todd Lyons, the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defended his tactics earlier this week against criticism that authorities are being too heavy-handed. He has said ICE is averaging about 1,600 arrests per day and that the agency has arrested dangerous criminals.

Protests recently broke out after an immigration action at a restaurant in San Diego and in Minneapolis when federal officials in tactical gear showed up in a Latino neighbourhood for an operation they said was about a criminal case, not immigration.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass said the activity was meant to sow terror.

As Mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place. These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city, Bass said.

Salas, of CHIRLA, echoed that language.

Our community is under attack and is being terrorized. These are workers, these are fathers, these are mothers, and this has to stop. Immigration enforcement that is terrorizing our families throughout this country and picking up our people that we love must stop now, Salas said, surrounded by a crowd holding signs protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE declined to discuss the details of its operations. The agency said it routinely makes arrests of noncitizens who commit crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation's immigration laws," said an emailed statement from an unnamed spokesperson. Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe, a spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE, told the Los Angeles Times that federal agents were executing search warrants related to the harbouring of people illegally in the country.

In Los Angeles, videos from bystanders and television news crews captured people being walked across a Home Depot parking lot by federal agents as well as clashes that broke out at other detention sites.

KTLA showed aerial footage of agents outside a clothing store in the fashion district leading detainees out of a building and toward two large white vans waiting just outside in a parking lot. The hands of the detained individuals were tied behind their backs. The agents patted them down before loading them into the vans. The agents wore vests with the agency acronyms FBI, ICE and HSI for Homeland Security Investigations. Armed agents used yellow police tape to keep crowds on the street and sidewalk away from the operations.

Aerial footage of the same location broadcast by KABC-TV showed officers throwing smoke bombs or flash bangs on the street to disperse the people so they could drive away in SUVs, vans and military-style vehicles.

The station showed one person running backward with their hands on the hood of a moving white SUV in an apparent attempt to block the vehicle. The person fell backward, landing flat on the ground. The SUV backed up, drove around the individual and sped off as others on the street threw objects at it.

Immigrant-rights advocates used megaphones to speak to the workers, reminding them of their constitutional rights and instructing them not to sign anything or say anything to federal agents, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Katia Garcia, 18, left school when she learned her father, 37-year-old Marco Garcia, may have been targeted.

Katia Garcia, a U.S. citizen, said her father is undocumented and has been in the U.S. for 20 years. We never thought this would happen to us, she told the Los Angeles Times.

Eleven of the LA City Council's 15 members issued a statement accusing federal immigration agencies of an egregious escalation.

This indiscriminate targeting of children and families not only harms the individuals who are directly impacted, but destroys our communities' sense of trust and safety in their own homes, the statement said.