Curfew in downtown Los Angeles on the fifth night of protests

SPECIAL ENVOY TO LOS ANGELESLos Angeles police imposed a curfew in the city's downtown area early this morning to quell unrest caused by aggressive immigration raids. The street ban began at 8:00 p.m. (local time), and hundreds of people remained gathered outside the Metropolitan Detention Center. one of the epicenters of the riots in the last five nights. The dozen National Guardsmen who were guarding the entrance to the building at noon on Tuesday had multiplied to fifty and were crowded together, occupying the entire entrance esplanade.

Before reaching the detention center, more than a hundred protesters marched through the city streets for more than two hours shouting "Fuck ICE!"A good portion of the participants were Latin American, like Joselyn Ramírez, who held a banner reading "My father works harder than your president." The 24-year-old was born in Los Angeles after her parents emigrated from Sinaloa, Mexico, to the United States. Although they live there, they have been confined to their homes for days since the raids began last week.

"They don't dare go out on the streets. They live in fear; it's an injustice. Many of them have stopped going to work for fear of not returning home," he complained. Hours earlier, on Tuesday morning at the Home Depot in Paramount, where the first raids that led to the current protests took place, ICE agents were back on the scene, arresting at least eight people in the parking lot. Throughout the afternoon, National Guard troops were also deployed to escort immigration agents as they made arrests.

At 8:10 p.m., hundreds of police officers on foot stormed through two of the intersections leading to the entrance to the street where the detention center is located. Coming down the third intersection, about twenty officers on horseback appeared. The cracks of rubber bullets sounded, and officers began to disperse the area. By 8:21 a.m., they had emptied the intersection of Temple Street and Los Angeles Street. A few protesters remained on the three sides of the security cordons. Above the horses' heads, a Mexican flag could be seen waving. The Trump administration has used the presence of Mexican flags to insist on the lie that the country is experiencing an "invasion."

By 9:00 p.m., the streets of Little Tokyo (as the area is known) were practically empty, and the prospect of further riots had vanished. Amid the US president's incendiary rhetoric, Los Angeles is seeking to avoid further scenes of chaos like those seen over the weekend, thus providing the Republican with more ammunition. Beyond continuing to flood the city with soldiers, there is still the possibility that he will apply the 1807 Insurrection Act, which allows for the mobilization of military assets within the city during times of rebellion or unrest.

Before midnight, the Los Angeles police claimed to have carried out "mass arrests," although in the Little Tokyo area, officers have simply cleared the remaining groups of protesters, street by street.

The fifth day of protests against the ICE raids (the acronym used by immigration agents) had just begun to sweep through the streets of Los Angeles at noon on Tuesday when Mayor Karen Bass imposed a curfew around the area of 2 de Mayo. From 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., movement within Downtown and Chinatown was restricted, except for residents, the homeless, and the press.

Newsom: "Democracy is under attack"

Bass justified the decision after days of clashes around federal buildings and the vandalism of 23 businesses on Monday during the fourth day of protests. "Police will arrest and file charges against those who violate the curfew. If you don't live or work in downtown Los Angeles, don't go," the mayor said at dusk. The fear of a repeat of similar incidents was evident on the wooden boards covering the windows of many downtown businesses and restaurants.

An hour before the curfew went into effect, California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a televised address that President Donald Trump had "ignited an already combustible situation" by sending in the California National Guard and mobilizing 4,000 troops and 700 marinasThe Democrat has warned the country that Trump is destroying American democracy with the militarization of the city. "Democracy is being attacked before our eyes. The moment we feared has arrived," he said gravely.

"California may be the first, but it clearly won't end here," Newsom said, adding his voice to criticism that Trump is turning Los Angeles into a laboratory for deploying military forces to sanctuary cities.