Crowds of people gathered at demonstrations Friday in Los Angeles, including at Gloria Molina Grand Park in the city’s downtown area, over immigration policies and enforcement operations in Minneapolis and other cities.
Rallies started there and at locations around Southern California in a nationwide day of action seeking to stop funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Crowds also began gathering ahead of what was expected to be the region’s largest rally, outside Los Angeles City Hall and the adjacent Grand Park. The event was scheduled to start at 1 p.m.
Some of the people in the sign-waving crowd told NBCLA they left work or school to be part of the event.
“They ask me, ‘What can we do? What can we do for our community?” said Luz Maria Cruz. “And, that’s why we are here today. That’s why I brought my little girls, so they can stand up for the community, so they know where we came from.”
Video from the scene showed deputies standing guard behind razor wire surrounding the Hall of Justice, home to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department offices.
Additional protests were planned Friday afternoon outside Burbank City Hall, at Abbott Kinney and Venice boulevards in Venice and at the intersection of Valencia Boulevard and McBean Parkway in Santa Clarita. In Orange County, an afternoon rally was scheduled at the intersection of Camino Capistrano and Del Obispo Street in San Juan Capistrano.
The protests come as immigration enforcement operations continue in Los Angeles and Minnesota, where Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino was swapped out this week for Trump administration border czar Tom Homan to lead the now months-long operation. Federal agents in Minneapolis have shot and killed two people — Renee Good and Alex Pretti, 37-year-old U.S. citizens — during enforcement actions in the city.
Pretti, an intensive care nurse who worked with injured veterans, was shot multiple times after using his phone Jan. 24 to record Border Patrol officers. Good was fatally shot behind the wheel of her vehicle Jan. 7 by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
About 3,000 federal immigration agents were sent to the Twin Cities over the past two months as part of Operation Metro Surge.
In Washington, D.C, Democrats struck a rare deal with President Trump to separate funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a broad government spending bill and provide money for that agency for two weeks while Congress debates limits on enforcement operation tactics.
Some schools in Arizona, Colorado and other states preemptively canceled classes in anticipation of mass absences connected to Friday’s day of action.
In Minneapolis, where temperatures were in the single-digits, hundreds gathered in the cold early Friday at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. The location has been the site of daily protests over the past few weeks.
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