Gone in 30 seconds: Frantic scenes in Lower Manhattan as ICE agents apprehend immigrants attending court hearings

By Dean MosesPosted on June 10, 2025

ICE agents were back in immigration court in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, apprehending stunned people there for procedural hearings and rushing them away into elevators to parts unknown in a matter of seconds.
Photo by Dean Moses

They came. They saw. They arrested. They repeated.

ICE agents were back in immigration court in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, apprehending stunned people there for procedural hearings and rushing them away into elevators to parts unknown in a matter of seconds.

Dozens of ICE agents could be seen on multiple floors and spent the day arresting immigrants as they left their court appearances. Looking ready for combat while donning bulletproof vests and armed with handguns at a facility where every entrant must go through a metal detector, the agents — part of several different federal agencies, including Border Patrol — split up and staked out several courtrooms looking for people marked for apprehension.

While some agents have been seen concealing their faces over the past week, many remained unmasked on Tuesday. Several ICE agents spoke to amNewYork without giving their names, stating that they wear the face coverings out of fear of being doxxed. Yet those working inside the building say the masked agents are only adding to the tension and fear.

ICE agents lie in wait
Photo by Dean MosesPhoto by Dean Moses

Some agents remained in plainclothes and sat and listened to court proceedings before texting the status of court appearances. Authorities lay in wait for those whose cases have been dismissed.

The agents pounced on their targets as soon as they left a courtroom. On numerous occasions, they ran up to several individuals, grabbed them by the arms and whisked them into elevators before they could even comprehend what was taking place — the doors closing on their stunned faces.

On multiple occasions, the process — which critics have compared to kidnapping — took place in about 30 seconds. The terror family members of the apprehended experienced, however, lasted much longer.Photo by Dean Moses

Lawyers witnessing the cold and calculated execution thanked members of the press for capturing and reporting on the detainments.

“We need that evidence,” one lawyer said as a man was bundled into an elevator by an army of agents. “Keep documenting.”In a shocking incident, one man left a courtroom and was making his way to the bathroom when he was snatched by several agents. He attempted to flee back in to court but was dragged kicking and yelling from what he believed to be a safe space.Photo by Dean Moses

Struggling to communicate, he attempted to pull away only to be wrestled into an elevator. About 10 minutes later, he appeared back from one of the elevators, released after authorities realized that he had yet to see a judge.

“He hasn’t seen a judge yet,” one of the officers said.

He was ultimately permitted to leave without being detained.Later, a man and his wife found themselves surrounded by a group of federal agents. Agents pressed the man with questions, but he either refused to answer or did not understand the questions. Both were then rushed into an elevator.Photo by Dean Moses

ICE also repeatedly questions individuals on their immigration status and even rifles through their paperwork to ensure they have a return court date. Several arrests were also reported at 290 Broadway, leaving the wife of one detainee distraught and weeping.

A woman and mother searches for answers after her husband was taken into custody at 290 Broadway by FBI agents.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

Trump’s deploys Marines to LA to respond to protests

Today President Donald J. Trump made it clear that the provocations he and his administration are escalating in Los Angeles and now elsewhere are using the issue of immigration to suppress dissent entirely.

In the Oval Office today, Trump said of the military parade scheduled for this Saturday: “If there’s any protester wants to come out, they will be met with very big force…. For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force.”

His statement comes after the administration instituted aggressive immigration sweeps in Los Angeles during which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) met the few hundred protesters with violence.

Then, over the protests of both Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and California governor Gavin Newsom, Trump federalized 4,000 members of California’s National Guard and ordered 700 Marines to Los Angeles. He and his advisors have repeatedly threatened to arrest anyone who does not cooperate with ICE, including Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom.

Trump has said he based his decision to federalize the National Guard on his insistence that Los Angeles is staggering under violent riots, but in fact the protests are largely peaceful and local officials maintain they can handle the situation.

Still, Trump described Los Angeles as “invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals,” and said “violent insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations.” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem called Los Angeles a “city of criminals,” and other MAGA lawmakers have gotten into the act. Will Sommer of The Bulwark pointed out today that MAGA influencers are also pushing for more crackdowns and more cruelty in a feedback loop as they and White House officials push each other toward more and more cruelty toward immigrants.

But the narrative that L.A. is under siege is hard to make stick. Protesters have been filming the bands playing and people dancing at the protests, which remain small. They have also filmed the ICE agents shooting less-lethal bullets at individuals, including an Australian journalist who was speaking to a camera when she was shot from behind. The complaint against SEIU leader David Huerta, who has been charged with conspiring to impede an officer, says that he walked and sat on a public sidewalk in such a way that he blocked an ICE van before an officer pushed him to the ground and arrested him.

Economist Paul Krugman notes that “Los Angeles right now is probably as safe as it has ever been,” and Newsom has been meeting the claims of MAGA politicians that the city is a hellscape with actual statistics showing that California is safer than their own states. He reminded Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin that Oklahoma’s murder rate is 40% higher than California’s and, after Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville called for Newsom to be arrested, retorted: “Alabama has 3X the homicide rate of California. Its murder rate is ranked third in the entire country. Stick to football, bro.”

As Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post noted today, California recently became the fourth largest economy in the world. It has the highest number of immigrants in the country—although many have moved in the past few years to more affordable states—and unemployment numbers are close to the national average.

But Trump has always managed his public affairs by projecting dominance in a fake world; his political instincts for keeping attention on himself have been compared to the kayfabe of professional wrestling.

This afternoon he upped the ante again. In a speech at the Army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Trump delivered a fiercely partisan speech that sounded like it was written by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. In front of a crowd of enlisted personnel who journalist Jane Coaston reported had been carefully selected to be Trump supporters and “to be fit and not look fat,” Trump claimed the U.S. was under a “foreign invasion” because of “stupid people or radical Left people or sick people.” He goaded the personnel into booing Newsom and Bass.

Since the days of George Washington, the American armed forces have been strictly nonpartisan, declaring their allegiance to the U.S. Constitution itself rather than to any leader.

Simon Rosenberg of Hopium Chronicles noted that Trump is “turning the world’s powerful military away from its focus on Russia and China toward a new enemy—the American people themselves.” He mused: “I’ve been saying that I felt Trump’s dramatic escalation in recent days was driven in part by Musk’s emasculation of him last week. I also wonder whether it’s being driven by Zelensky’s profound humiliation of Putin, and Putin lashing out at Trump for not delivering Ukraine to him.”

Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times reported today that right-wing bots, trolls, conspiracy theorists, and MAGA influencers are flooding social media with messages designed to attack immigrants and Democrats and defend Trump. Many of those accounts are linked to Russia and Russian disinformation.

It certainly feels as if administration officials are going for broke in ways that benefit Russia. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard today released a video warning that the world is close to a nuclear war caused by a political elite that expects it can survive one in special bunkers. Gabbard has a history of parroting Russian propaganda, and famously, Russian president Vladimir Putin has used the threat of nuclear war to press his demands against Ukraine.

A YouGov poll out today shows that only 34% of American adults approve of Trump’s deployment of Marines to the Los Angeles area to respond to protests over the enforcement of immigration laws while 47% do not approve. Only 38% of American adults approve of Trump’s deployment of National Guard soldiers to L.A., while 45% disapprove. A strong majority—56%—of Americans think state and local officials should take the lead in responding to the L.A. protests, while only 25% think the federal government should.

Strikingly, 50% of adults disapprove of the administration's handling of deportations, while only 39% approve.

Those numbers were gathered before Pentagon comptroller Bryn MacDonnell told the House Defense Appropriations Committee today that the Pentagon estimates the cost of federalizing the National Guard and deploying the Marines to Los Angeles at $134 million.

Today the Department of Justice announced it was indicting Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) on three counts of “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal law enforcement officers” after a May 19 event in front of a Newark, New Jersey, ICE detention center. McIver was at the detention center with others as part of her oversight responsibilities, and a video shows her being jostled with a crowd that includes an ICE officer, but no one breaks stride. McIver called the charges “a brazen attempt at political intimidation.”

Tonight Governor Newsom delivered a prime-time address about the events of the past few days. He outlined the story of the ICE raids and Trump’s escalation of conflict. He urged protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights peacefully and warned that anyone participating in violence would be held accountable.

Then the governor launched into a wholesale condemnation of the Trump regime. He warned that “[i]f some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.”

Newsom called Trump out for firing the government watchdogs that could hold him accountable for fraud, and for declaring war “on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases quite literally are vanishing. He’s delegitimizing news organizations and he’s assaulting the First Amendment…. [H]e’s dictating what universities themselves can teach. He’s targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundations of an orderly and civil society. He’s calling for a sitting governor to be arrested for no other reason than…, in his own words, ‘for getting elected.’”

“[T]his isn’t just about protests here in Los Angeles,” Newsom said. “When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation. This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next.”

“Democracy is under assault right before our eyes,” Newsom said. “This moment we have feared has arrived. He’s taking a wrecking ball…to our founding fathers’ historic project: three coequal branches of independent government.”

Newsom urged Americans to stand up for the country. “I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear,” he said. “But I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and that anxiety. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment,” Newsom said.

“Do not give in to him.”

Musk’s Destruction of USAID is Killing About 103 People an Hour, Most of Them Children.

Internationally, Musk’s destruction of the United States Agency for International Development, slashing about 80% of its grants, is killing about 103 people an hour, most of them children. The total so far is about 300,000 people, according to Boston University infectious disease mathematical modeller Dr. Brooke Nichols. Ryan Cooper of The American Prospect reported today that about 1,500 babies a day are born HIV-positive because Musk’s cuts stopped their mothers’ medication.

In the New York Times today, Michelle Goldberg recalls how Musk appeared uninterested in learning what USAID actually did—prevent starvation and provide basic healthcare—and instead called it a “radical-left political psy-op,” and reposted a smear from right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos calling USAID “the most gigantic global terror organization in history.” Goldberg also recalls Musk’s tendency to call people he disdains “NPCs,” or non-player characters, which are characters in role-playing games whose only role is to advance the storyline for the real players.

Michelle Goldberg, NY TIMES

Musk Hints At a Truce, Trump Not So Willing

Last night, billionaire Elon Musk indicated he would be willing to paper over his fight with President Donald J. Trump, perhaps remembering, as Paresh Dave of Wired noted, that his companies stand to lose $48 billion over the next ten years if they lose their government contracts.

Trump spent this morning calling news anchors and telling them he’s not bothered by the fight. According to Nikki McCann Ramirez of Rolling Stone, Trump today called CNN’s Dana Bash, the Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, and CBS News’ Robert Costa to claim he’s “not even thinking about Elon,” before bashing him as “the man who has lost his mind.”

Yesterday, Lauren Goode of Wired reported that big tech investors and executives were trying to walk a fine line between the two men, trying not to take a stand for or against either. J.V. Last of The Bulwark noted that no one was more hesitant to take a side than Vice President J.D. Vance, who wants to keep the favor of his Silicon Valley patrons but also needs Trump’s backing. At 10:28 last night, after Musk was already retreating, Vance posted on social media: “President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I’m proud to stand beside him.” As Last notes, this was a pretty weak statement, and “Trump is smart enough to understand that this is a confession.”

“Do not doubt, don’t second guess, and do not challenge the President of the United States Donald Trump,” House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) warned Republican lawmakers. “He is the leader of the party. He’s the most consequential political figure of our time.”

After Russian officials said they were prepared to offer Musk political asylum, Musk spent the day posting or reposting material that boosted his businesses and complaints about Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” This evening, he announced: “A new political party is needed in America to represent the 80% in the middle!”

How the fallout from this fight will affect the country remains unclear.

Russia Strikes Ukraine in Retaliation for Covert Drone Operation & Other News

 

Russia Strikes Ukraine in Retaliation for Covert Drone Operation - At least three were killed and 49 injured in a missile-and-drone attack that focused on Kyiv, days after a daring assault on Moscow’s bomber fleet.

• Trump administration is seeking to weaken Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Russia-sanctions bill. The White House wants flexibility in applying sanctions to aid Russia ties. Graham’s bill has bipartisan support, though he has said he plans to make at least some changes to the bill.

• The Supreme Court made it easier for workers to sue for reverse discrimination.  The court’s unanimous decision Thursday revives a lawsuit brought by Marlean Ames, who alleged the Ohio state agency where she works denied her a promotion, and then demoted her, because she is heterosexual.

  Trump's new travel ban is expected to be harder to fight in court than the previous version. In its Wednesday proclamation, the Trump administration provided specific rationales, saying several of the countries have unacceptably high temporary-visa overstay rates, necessitating a ban on more of their nationals entering the U.S.

  A judge blocked Trump’s ban on foreign students at Harvard. The federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Homeland Security Department that prevents it from “implementing, instituting, maintaining, enforcing, or giving force or effect” to a proclamation Trump issued late Wednesday that prevented foreign nationals from entering the U.S. to study at Harvard University. Israel has been collaborating with a Palestinian militia in Gaza as part of a broader effort to fight Hamas in the enclave. Trump and Xi Jinping spoke on the phone. Trump called it a “very positive” conversation, and the U.S. and China agreed to hold more trade talks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, said he wanted to expand access to “experimental,” unproven medical treatments like stem-cell and chelation therapies. But he conceded that the industry was rife with fraud.

Immigration Clash in L.A. as Trump Orders 2000 Nat'l Guardsmen to Quell Protests.

In Compton, Calif. Philip Cheung for The New York Times

President Trump ordered at least 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles County. For two days, hundreds of demonstrators have faced off with immigration agents in riot gear. More protests are expected today, and a Trump official said that troops would arrive in L.A. within 24 hours. Here’s what we know:

Protests: Some of the most active demonstrations took place in Compton and in Paramount, a majority Hispanic area about 25 miles southeast of the Hollywood sign. Agents used flash-bang grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets on crowds of protesters. Some demonstrators threw fireworks and rocks at police officers. The L.A.P.D. detained a number of protesters but also said that demonstrations in the city of L.A. were peaceful.

Deployment: Trump’s order is the first time that a president has activated a state’s National Guard without a request from that state’s governor since 1965, an expert said. Then, Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators. Trump said he considered efforts to block ICE agents a “form of rebellion.”

Context: Protests broke out on Friday as federal agents rolled through L.A.’s garment district in search of undocumented migrant workers. The raids signaled a new phase of Trump’s immigration crackdown focused on workplaces, Lydia DePillis and Ernesto Londoño wrote.

Response: California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, described Trump’s order as “purposefully inflammatory,” saying that federal officials “want a spectacle.” Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, said the presence of the troops would “not be helpful.”

Coco Gauff: An American Champion Who’s Just Getting Started

The U.S. tennis sensation, still just 21, notches her second major title by winning the French Open. Wimbledon awaits.Coco Gauff celebrates with the trophy after defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the French Open final. PHOTO: MATTHIEU MIRVILLE/ZUMA PRESS

By Jason Gay

We live in a golden era of unsolicited opinions—and wowie, everybody’s had an opinion on Coco Gauff.

Here are an assorted few. Gauff’s ultra-talented, but has holes in her game. She needs work on her forehand. She needs work on her serve. She needs work on her consistency. She’s got to hurry up, and start winning more.

Those are opinions. Here are facts: Gauff is a two-time major tournament champion, halfway to the career Grand Slam.

She’s also just 21.

On Saturday, Gauff notched a rollicking three-set victory over World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the French Open women’s final. It’s Gauff’s second major after her triumph at the 2023 U.S. Open, and another leap in one of tennis’s most promising young careers. It confirms Gauff as the starriest American tennis player since her childhood idol, Serena Williams.

It’s also a lesson, about patience, and time, and how even the obvious phenom needs space to grow and improve. Gauff’s been marked for excellence for years, ever since breaking through in her midteens, and it added an extra burden to her development and transition into adulthood.

Not a lot of fun, that microscope. All of Gauff’s learning, mistakes, shortcomings—all the stuff young people and young athletes get to do in relative obscurity, she’s had to do it under public view. Which means scrutiny. Which means second-guessing. Which means all those unsolicited opinions.

Here’s an opinion: Coco’s right where she needs to be.
Coco Gauff collapsed to the floor at Roland Garros after clinching her first French Open title. PHOTO: MARCIN CHOLEWINSKI/ZUMA PRESS

She really earned this most recent title. Roland-Garros is a doozy, because clay court tennis is grueling tennis. The fickle surface challenges bodies, neutralizes power, frustrates footwork, and oh right, alters its response depending on the weather, the wind, the roof and the even time of day.

It’s tennis that behaves like a crazy uncle. You never know exactly what you’re getting.

Gauff loves it in Paris. She’d been tormented at Roland-Garros, but she had plenty of success there, too. She won the tournament as a junior, reached the finals in 2022 and the semis in 2024, losing both times to Iga Świątek, the three-time reigning champion who Sabalenka dismissed Thursday in the semifinals.

With Swiatek drifting lately, Gauff vs. Sabalenka felt both inevitable and fresh. Here was No. 2 vs. No. 1. Here was a chance for Sabalenka to avenge Gauff’s win in the 2023 U.S. Open final. Here were two elite players craving a trophy they’d never held.

In the end, Gauff delivered a masterpiece in patience, preparation and execution.

Sabalenka favors a certain style of tennis: everything, all at once. The 27-year-old Belarusian’s added texture to her game in recent years, including a clever drop shot, but most of the time, she’s a baseline thunderbolt, rearing back and letting it rip.
Coco Gauff serves during her French Open final victory, in which she recovered from losing the opening set to defeat world No. 1 Aryna Sabelanka. PHOTO: JULIEN MATTIA/ZUMA PRESS

Gauff turned to a necessary strategy. She would do what she did in New York: She would wait Sabalenka out. She would ride the torrent, chase every ball, not let a one-set deficit (after a nifty comeback) undo her. She would make Sabalenka rip a forehand and then another one, increasing the odds that Sabalenka’s habitual erraticism would tilt the match in Gauff’s favor.

Which is precisely what happened in Gauff’s 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 victory.

Surely there are those—including Sabalenka—who will argue that Gauff benefited from an opponent’s self-destruction, that Sabalenka’s penchant for missile attacks backfired over a windy afternoon in which she fired a messy 70 unforced errors.

But that’s too neat—and gives Gauff’s talent short shrift. All day long, she made Sabalenka work, chasing shots into the corners, displaying a fitness and endurance that’s hard to match on the women’s tour. It’s one thing to say you’re going to make your opponent hit multiple shots—you have to have the mettle to do it. Few players cover the court like Gauff. That’s a trained skill.

And she didn’t just play defense. Gauff’s first serve was much better than Sabalenka’s. Her improving forehand found spaces. Her backhand—well, that’s never been a problem. I would give anything for one quarter of Gauff’s ruthless backhand.

Please. Coco didn’t get gifted anything. Just like in New York, she took it.
Aryna Sabalenka cries during the trophy ceremony after her French Open final defeat. PHOTO: LOIC BARATOUX/ZUMA PRESS

I like Sabalenka, a compelling star who’s shown a charming sense of humor, but she needs to learn to lose gracefully. In Saturday’s aftermath she repeatedly lamented the wind, her own “terrible” performance, argued Gauff won the match “not because she played incredible but just because I made all those mistakes,” and even argued Swiatek would have beat Gauff had she reached the final instead of Sabalenka.

Sheesh. This after Sabalenka’s racket smash following her Australian Open defeat to Madison Keys.

Navigating the hard stuff matters in sports, and even more in tennis, an individual sport where agony shares a bunk bed with joy. Sabalenka will figure it out, or she won’t.

Gauff, six years younger, appears to have figured it out. She’s bounced back from her own Roland-Garros battles—contretemps with officials at last year’s French Open and the Summer Olympics—to relocate the focus that made her a sensation. The holes in her game are smaller. She’s put in the work.

There’s always been a maturity to Gauff. Now there’s more results and a richer game, which should boost her confidence heading into Wimbledon, where 15-year-old Gauff first made noise as a professional—and another trophy she craves.

Here’s another opinion: Coco Gauff will keep getting better.

Actually, that’s just a fact.

Violence Amid Use of Non-Lethal Weapons Incl Tear Gas by Nat'l Guard Against Protesters in L.A.

Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

Federal agents clashed with protesters near a detention center in downtown Los Angeles, as confrontations stretched into a third day. About 300 National Guard troops were deployed across the city.

Here’s the latest.

Federal law-enforcement officials fired canisters of tear gas at a group protesting immigration raids in Los Angeles on Sunday, a day after President Trump ordered the National Guard to help quell demonstrations over the objections of California officials.

Video from the scene showed Department of Homeland Security officers and at least three from Immigration and Customs Enforcement also firing other crowd-control munitions outside a detention center in downtown Los Angeles where members of the California National Guard had also been deployed. The smoking canisters forced some of the hundreds of protesters to flee, while others helped fellow demonstrators wash their eyes. It was not immediately clear what prompted the escalation.

The confrontation was the latest between government agents and protesters, whose demonstrations have been largely peaceful but nonetheless prompted Mr. Trump to announce the deployment of at least 2,000 members of the National Guard. The president said that any protest or act of violence that impeded officials would be considered a “form of rebellion.”

Mr. Trump made rare use of federal powers to bypass the authority of Gov. Gavin Newsom in announcing the deployment on Saturday. Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, called the president’s decision “purposefully inflammatory.”

Roughly 300 members of the National Guard had been deployed to the city as of Sunday morning, according to Mr. Newsom’s office. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles called the deployments a “chaotic escalation” on Sunday, adding that the only other time she had seen the National Guard patrolling city streets, besides to help with disaster recovery, was during the 1992 riots, when they were requested by state and local officials. “There’s no reason for them to be on our streets now,” she said.

Here’s what else to know:

A rare decision: One expert said Mr. Trump’s order for the troops was the first time since 1965 that a president had activated a state’s National Guard force for a domestic operation without a state governor’s request for the purposes of quelling unrest or enforcing the law. That year, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators. Read more ›


Workplace raids: The recent raids appeared to be part of a new phase of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, in which officials say they will increasingly focus on workplaces. Read more ›


Enforcement pushback: The protests around the country against the Trump administration’s efforts to detain and deport large numbers of immigrants have grown more confrontational. People have begun to clash with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and police officers at detention centers, or when agents target people in workplaces and at court hearings. Read more ›


Hegseth’s threat: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested that active-duty Marines could also be deployed in response to the protests, drawing sharp criticism from Mr. Newsom. Such a move can only come from the president, and Mr. Trump would need to invoke the Insurrection Act. Read more ›


Latino communities: Some of the most active protests against immigration raids in California took place in Paramount, a small city some 25 miles southeast of the Hollywood sign that has for decades attracted Latino immigrants. Officials arrested eight people there on Saturday on federal obstruction charges, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. Read more ›Show less

Mimi DwyerReporting from Los Angeles County

A large group of Los Angeles police officers just ran in formation through a crowd of protesters. Some fired projectiles into the crowd. Many protesters are filming the faces and badges of police who are lined up with weapons and batons drawn.


Image

Foam projectiles fired into the crowd of protesters littered the ground outside a downtown detention center where a crowd has been growing since the morning.

Los Angeles police officers fired crowd-control munitions at one group of protesters near downtown after the gathering was declared an unlawful assembly.

Protesters are facing off with law enforcement officers outside the detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where it appears two separate protests are about converge.

The president said he had directed three of his top cabinet officials — Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, and Pam Bondi, the attorney general — “to take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.”

Trump often talks about an “invasion” of migrants, particularly when discussing migrants who illegally cross at the border. He also justified the use of the Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport Venezuelan migrants by saying there was an “invasion” by the gang Tren de Aragua. Still, Los Angeles is place that has embraced rich and various immigrant cultures.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said Los Angeles had been “invaded and occupied.” He wrote that “violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations.” So far on Sunday, hundreds of protesters had converged on a detention center in downtown Los Angeles, but the demonstrations appeared to be peaceful.

President Trump fielded questions from reporters about the protests in California before leaving for Camp David on Sunday. “We’re going to have troops everywhere,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re not going to let this happen to our country.”

Department of Homeland Security officers were among those who fired less-than-lethal rounds at dozens of protesters outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, according to footage from the scene. The officers included at least one member of ICE’s Special Response Team, who wear military fatigues.

ICE agents and officers have arrested hundreds of immigrants in the Los Angeles region since Friday, according to an agency official, who said that many had criminal backgrounds. The agency had previously said more than 100 had been arrested on Friday alone.

What appeared to be tear gas was just fired at the crowd outside the detention center in downtown Los Angeles, scattering protesters who coughed from the smoke. Others helped them wash out their eyes. It was not immediately clear where the gas originated — there are National Guard troops here along with federal agents — or what prompted the escalation.

Several dozen protesters, many holding signs and Mexican flags, are still gathered in downtown Los Angeles outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, where dozens of troops with the National Guard as well as federal police are staged. One of the protesters is imploring the crowd to remain peaceful.

“They want to see us fail,” said the protester, Julie Solis, who described herself as a first-generation citizen born and raised in California. “They’re trying to look for an excuse to implement martial law, and we can’t give them that satisfaction,” she said.

Los Angeles protests begin when ICE agents show up to arrest people at their jobs. Protesters tried to stop them.

ICE agents outside a federal building downtown on Sunday. Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times


Why are the protests against Trump’s immigration raids happening now? Hamed Aleaziz, who covers immigration, explains:

The eruption in Los Angeles began when immigration agents showed up to arrest people at their jobs. They hadn’t told the city they were coming, and protesters tried to stop them.

This probably won’t be the last such conflict. The Trump administration is escalating its immigration crackdown, and worksite raids are the next major step. Future arrests are likely to be disruptive.

Finding more migrants: For most of this year, officials from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement have snagged the easiest-to-find migrants: People with criminal records, court petitions, asylum requests. Agents often knew where these people would be.

The result: The government was deporting about 700 per day, not much more than the Biden administration.

Last month, Stephen Miller, Trump’s immigration czar, delivered a message: ICE needed to hit a “minimum” of 3,000 arrests a day — about 10 times the figure under Biden.

Creative answers: To get there, the agency is seeking new tactics. The government has dismissed criminal cases against migrants and then arrested them as they left court. It is showing up at workplaces. And it has asked the National Guard and the Marines to help with enforcement.

Can Trump do that?

The White House says it deployed federal troops to Los Angeles because the local police need help to counter “insurrectionists.” But the Posse Comitatus Act says the armed forces aren’t law enforcement. We asked Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School and a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, what’s allowed.

Is this all legal?

The founders wanted to prevent the president from using federal troops against “we the people” because of the way the Red Coats used warrants to do whatever they wanted in people’s homes. But National Guard troops are local citizens; they live in their communities. So they’re allowed to help with police work — until they’re federalized. Which is what Trump did last weekend. Then they became indistinguishable from active-duty military. All they can do is defend federal workers like ICE agents, and federal buildings like an ICE detention center.

So the California National Guard and the Marines can’t contain the protests?

Not unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act! That law lets troops police our streets to suppress insurrections and help execute federal law in the face of rebellion.

Trump said yesterday that the protesters were “insurrectionists.” What counts as a rebellion?

It’s very vague — the law doesn’t say. It could be people trying to stop ICE agents from doing their job. I don’t think courts are going to want to argue about what constitutes a rebellion. The founders gave the president discretion here, so if Trump does invoke the Insurrection Act he’s on firm legal footing.
More on the protests

An officer struck an Australian television journalist with a rubber bullet while she was on the air. At least two other journalists, including a Times reporter, have also been struck during the protests.
In Santa Ana, Calif., city officials said that federal agents used tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets against protesters who threw bottles and rocks.

Protests spread to cities including San Francisco, Dallas and New York. They remained largely contained with brief clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.

The union leader David Huerta was released from detention. Union members across the country had marched in support of him after federal agents arrested him at a protest on Friday.

More on the responses

Immigrants are being cautious about going to work and school because they fear ICE sweeps, The Los Angeles Times reports.

On social media, people are posting misleading photographs and conspiracy theories to stoke outrage toward immigrants and political leaders, principally Democrats.

Waymo, the driverless taxi company, is limiting services in San Francisco after protesters set fire to five of its cars.

On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart addressed residents of L.A.: “Is your city ever not on fire?”

Trump Adm Retrieves Abrego Garcia the Man it Wrongly Deported to El Salvador

The Trump administration retrieved the man it had wrongly deported to El Salvador, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. His return to the U.S. could end the administration’s most prominent court battle over its deportations. 

A grand jury in Tennessee has charged Abrego Garcia with participating in a ten-year conspiracy to carry undocumented migrants from Texas to other parts of the country. The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia participated in more than 100 trips that moved children as well as members of the MS-13 Salvadoran gang.
The indictment is based on a 2022 incident in which Abrego Garcia was stopped in Tennessee for speeding with eight passengers in his vehicle. He told police they were construction workers and was neither ticketed nor charged. While the indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia lied to the officer by not revealing he was coming from Texas, the referral report says he told the officer he was coming from Houston, Texas.

On Trump, Musk and Putin

 

Trump and Musk

Trump’s decision to pull an Elon Musk associate out of the running to lead NASA helped doom the Trump-Musk alliance. Read the inside story of the rupture. MAGA-friendly podcasters, including Joe Rogan, just want Trump and Musk to get along — but they have ultimately sided with the president. The Trump-Musk breakup is more than an interpersonal conflict: It’s a sign that Trump is struggling to hold his populist conservative coalition together, Nate Cohn writes.

On Trump and Putin

Thomas Crooks, the man who tried to kill Trump in Pennsylvania last year, was a nerdy engineering student on the dean’s list. As his mental health eroded, he stockpiled explosive materials. Read a Times examination of his path to the deadly shooting. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would reveal deep-state secrets linked to conspiracy theories. Justice Department and F.B.I. leaders are struggling to fulfill the promise. A university founded by George Soros had to leave Hungary after Viktor Orban targeted it. Academics at the school say Trump is using a similar playbook against Harvard. In public, Vladimir Putin says Russia’s friendship with China is unshakable. But a secret Russian intelligence document shows deep suspicion of Chinese espionage.

Adm Considers Blaming Musk for DOGE Chaos.

It does seem likely that the administration will try to pin blame on Musk for the chaos that the “Department of Government Efficiency” launched against the United States government.

Brandon Roberts and Vernal Coleman of ProPublica reported today on the AI prompts the Department of Government Efficiency used to “munch”—the word DOGE employee Sahil Lavingia used for “cancel”—contracts related to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Lavingia, who worked for two months for DOGE, said the idea was to go after anything that wasn’t “directly supporting patient care.” But the code was deeply flawed, resulting in wildly off-base contract values and a deep misunderstanding of what contracts actually did. “[M]istakes were made,” Lavingia said. “Mistakes are always made.”

Hannah Natanson, Adam Taylor, Meryl Kornfield, Rachel Siegel, and Scott Dance of the Washington Post took a broader view. They reported that “[a]cross the government, the Trump administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees dismissed under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives after wiping out entire offices, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process.” They outlined how the administration is trying to patch the holes DOGE ripped in agencies: trying to rehire employees who were fired or left voluntarily and, if that doesn’t work, offering overtime, asking for volunteers, and asking employees to serve in new roles. Some new job offerings look a lot like the positions of people agencies just fired.

A White House official told the reporters: “If by chance mistakes were made and critical employees were dismissed, each individual agency is working diligently to bring these people back to work to continue the adequate functions of the federal government.” But morale is terrible, one worker at the Food and Drug Administration told the reporters. “Everyone is stressed and feels the absence of our colleagues.… I’m looking for another job.”

Still, DOGE is not the only group in the administration that has made poor decisions. Hannah Allam of ProPublica reported on Wednesday that the White House has put a 22-year-old recent college graduate with no experience in national security in charge of overseeing the government’s main center for preventing terrorism. Thomas Fugate’s main credentials for his position in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes overseeing $18 million in grants to local authorities to combat violent extremism, appear to be his time spent as an intern at the right-wing Heritage Foundation and his loyalty to Trump.

Fugate’s appointment appears to reflect that the administration is downplaying domestic terrorism to shift resources to immigration. In its budget proposal, DHS has called for eliminating the threat prevention grant program Fugate oversees, saying it “does not align with DHS priorities.” One former Homeland Security official told Allam the shift “means that the department founded to prevent terrorism in the United States no longer prioritizes preventing terrorism in the United States.”

The Break-Up: Trump vs. Musk

Elon Musk and President Trump in the Oval Office last week. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Today the U.S. political world was consumed today by a public fight between President Donald J. Trump and his former sidekick, billionaire Elon Musk. Musk invested about $290 million into the 2024 election, vowing to elect Trump in order to get rid of government investigations into his businesses he worried would “take [him] down.”

When Trump took office, Musk became a fixture in the White House, attending Cabinet meetings and heading the “Department of Government Efficiency.” That group set out to kill government programs by withholding congressionally approved funds at the same time that its staff sucked up information on Americans that could feed the training of artificial intelligence and killed the investigations into his businesses Musk had worried about.

In February, Musk posted on social media: “I love [Donald Trump] as much as a straight man can love another man.”

But Musk overstepped boundaries and overstayed his welcome even as his antics hurt sales of his signature car, the Tesla, inspiring Trump to do a car commercial for him on the White House grounds. Just a week ago, Musk officially left the White House on the same day that an article in the New York Times documented his heavy drug use on the campaign.

Then, on Tuesday, June 3, he took a public stand against the omnibus bill Trump desperately wants Congress to pass, posting on X: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

And with that, the falling out began.

This morning, Trump told reporters he was “disappointed” in Musk. Ron Filipkowski of Meidas followed the saga from there.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51–49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote. “Such ingratitude.”

Trump then suggested that “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

Musk promptly said he would begin decommissioning SpaceX’s spacecraft, which supply the International Space Station.

The two men continued to go back and forth, with Musk saying that “Donald Trump is in the Epstein files,” a reference to the records compiled by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with whom Trump was friendly. Musk also said Trump's tariffs will cause a recession, and agreed with another poster who suggested that Trump should be impeached and replaced with Vice President J.D. Vance.

Trump responded to that attack far more weakly than one would have expected, simply turning back to the omnibus bill and insisting it “is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress.”

Musk’s behavior is erratic in its own right, but if there is anything but pique behind it, it appears he is threatening Trump by making a play to control the Republican Party. In response to a post by conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer suggesting that Republican lawmakers are unsure if they should side with Trump or Musk, Musk wrote: “Oh and some food for thought as they ponder that question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years.”

It’s quite a gamble, since Trump controls the government contracts on which Musk’s fortune was built and on which he still relies. Some MAGA loyalists appear to see the fight as a victory for Trump and are thrilled to see Musk’s star fall. MAGA influencer Steve Bannon told Tyler Pager of the New York Times that he has advised Trump to cancel all of Musk’s federal contracts and launch a formal investigation of his drug use and his immigration status.

Kylie Robison and Aarian Marshall of Wired noted that TrumpCoin lost more than $100 million in value during the fight. Tesla stock lost $152 billion of value from its market capitalization,

Families in Tears and Panic Outside Immigration Office as ICE Accelerates Round-Ups

Over the course of Wednesday, THE CITY witnessed at least 15 people arrested at routine, mandatory check-ins with the agency as the Trump administration escalates its crackdown.

by Gwynne Hogan and Ben Fractenberg June 4, 2025, 9:29 p.m.

Outside a nondescript office building on Elk Street in Lower Manhattan, scenes of pain and anguish unfolded on the pavement throughout Wednesday as immigrants and their family members waited to see if their loved ones would return from what had been billed as routine procedures.

The basement office hosts ICE check-ins, run by private subcontractor the Geo Group. Immigrants in various stages of deportation proceedings are required to show up there as their cases wind through the immigration process.

But with the Trump administration demanding agents dramatically ramp up arrests, immigrants in New York City received urgent messages and phone calls from ICE telling them to come into the office either Tuesday or Wednesday.


That included mothers who showed up Tuesday to the same location, after receiving similar messages and that told them to return Wednesday with their children. ICE agents walk a mother and daughter to garage under the Federal Building Lower Manhattan after detaining them, June 4, 2025. Credit: Gwynne Hogan/THE CITY

THE CITY witnessed 16 people taken out of the office in handcuffs Tuesday afternoon.

The arrests continued Wednesday with at least 15 more people taken into custody. Two mothers and their young children were escorted on foot by agents across the street to 26 Federal Plaza, though it’s unclear if they were detained.

Here’s what THE CITY observed over the course of the day.

9:32 a.m.: Two SUVs are again parked out front of the Elk Street office, a day after the same type of vehicles were used to bring prisoners across the street to the basement garage of 26 Federal Plaza. Meanwhile, several people wait outside for loved ones who’d headed into the basement office earlier in the morning.

9:45 a.m.: A woman and a girl who appears to be a young teen are escorted by two agents across the street on foot from Elk Street to Federal Plaza. It’s not clear if they’re being detained.

Another woman comes out of the ICE check in office and hugs a friend who’s been waiting for her outside. The two start crying.

As they walk away, they hold hands with a third man who says he’s waiting for his friend still inside.

The three hold hands in prayer. “Praying to God that your friend comes out,” the woman says before the other two walk off.

The man, Colin Campbell, 55, says he’s a U.S. citizen who is accompanying his friend, a home health aid from Guyana, to her check in. “I’m feeling so sad. She’s in there. I don’t know what will happen. I’m just praying I’m asking God to deliver her,” he says.

10:27 a.m.: The first three clear arrests of the morning.

A woman and two men in handcuffs are escorted into the parked SUVs by masked agents in plainclothes. “Those are the bad people, right?” Campbell asks, turning to me.

10:38 a.m.: Leaning against a wall across the street is 35-year-old Veronica, who’s waiting for her friend inside with her young son.

“She never asked me to accompany her because nothing had ever happened before,” she says in Spanish.

But Veronica’s friend got an urgent phone call to show up in the office and got nervous, didn’t want to come in at all today. Veronica had tried to console her, “let’s do the things correctly. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

It’s still not clear if the two are being detained.

Two women waiting outside exchange words in English. “My husband is in there,” an Uzbeki woman says. “My friend is in there,” an Ecuadorean woman replies.

10:50 a.m.: A second mother and young child, this one around four or five, are walked by agents across the street to 26 Federal Plaza.

11:00 a.m.: A Turkish woman and her two kids emerge from the office, scampering across the street to hug their husband who’s been waiting outside.

The four embrace in a group hug. “I’m feeling good,” the father says before they walk off together.

11:15 a.m.: Fifty-year-old Hubert Mendonca, a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated from Guayana more than two decades ago, is waiting for his wife and baby who are inside the basement office.

“It’s not resting good in my stomach,” he says after watching several people hauled off in handcuffs.

“Our governmental president should have helped us by getting rid of the bad people, and the good ones… give them a second chance,” he told THE CITY.

11:30 a.m.: A couple embrace at the office entrance.A family that was applying for asylum embraces while the father went to meet with ICE officials in Lower Manhattan, June 4, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

Jaen, from Colombia, has an appointment and heads inside, while his wife Ambar and their 12-year-old, daughter, Aranza, wait outside.

11: 45 a.m.: Attorney Dave Wilkins is pacing around outside the building. Earlier in the day he accompanied a client into the basement office but was soon kicked out by a site supervisor.

“I haven’t been able to figure out physically where my client is or what they plan to do with my client,” he says, adding that he hadn’t heard from her in about two hours.

11:48 a.m.: Two more men are taken out in handcuffs and put into SUVs that drive off.

11:59 a.m.: Mendonca’s wife comes out and the two hug. He grabs their 3-month-old, cooing at her and calling her a princess.

“I brought the father of the child so if something happens to me she gets to stay, she was born here,” his 28-year-old wife Katy says in Spanish, who declines to give her last name because of her ongoing immigration case.

“My heart has returned to its place for now, it’s hard but we’ll see what happens,” he said. “But this is horrible.”

12:11 p.m.: A Venezuelan woman named Rosmely says she’s been waiting outside all morning for her daughter-in-law.

“This makes me so nervous,” she says in Spanish. “This is so strange to me,” she said, she hadn’t heard from her daughter in law in around 40 minutes. “She hasn’t called me again, and here I am outside.”

12:57: p.m.: Ambar, 30, and her daughter have been waiting for more than two hours now. She’s getting nervous. 12-year-old Aranza waits for her father while he checks in with ICE officials in Lower Manhattan, June 4, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

“You feel so powerless,” she says in Spanish. “If you ask me, this is a fair country, but we have really suffered,” Ambar says.

She’s from Venezuela. The two crossed the border exactly two years ago on June 4, of 2023.

They were separated at the border and he spent several weeks before ICE released him. Their tearful reunion in the Los Angeles airport after ICE custody was documented by ABC at the time. The two both applied for asylum cases are still pending.

1:25 p.m.: One masked agent appears to be leaving for lunch. An activist stalks after him down the block, yelling and calling him a Nazi.

1:47 p.m.: Four women in handcuffs are marched out of the office by masked agents. Rosmely breaks down in tears.

Her daughter-in-law is being taken away.

Colin also starts sobbing. His friend, the home health aid, is also handcuffed. He bends over and then staggers off gasping for breath. ICE agents bring people out of one of their offices in Lower Manhattan after they were detained during a check in, June 4, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

Around the corner Rosmely collapses onto a curb, “This is horrible here,” she says in Spanish, “How can I tell my son?” “That girl is such so tranquil. She has no criminal record, she barely goes out,” she says in shock.

Rosmely says she has a court date in the coming weeks but she’s planning to skip it after what happened. “No one should come here,” she says. A woman is overcome with emotion while a loved one was detained by ICE agents following a check in at one of their offices in Lower Manhattan, June 4, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

2:30 p.m.: Veronica’s friend and her young child come out.Loved ones are reunited after a mother and her child left an ICE check in at their Lower Manhattan office, June 4, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

The three embrace in the roadway and walk off together.

2:41 p.m.: Four men are walked out in handcuffs by masked agents. One is Jaen, Ambar’s husband. Her 12-year-old daughter screams and runs after him.

Ambar wails in agony and collapses onto the sidewalk.

As the SUVs pull away Ambar leans over a nearby fence sobbing, “My love, my love,” she murmurs over and over again.A woman falls to the ground after her husband was detained by ICE agents in Lower Manhattan, June 4, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

Her lawyer attempts to console her, while 12-year-old Aranza is stone-faced, staring straight ahead.

2:55 p.m.: The family’s lawyer Margaret Cargioli speaks to reporters gathered after having spent several hours inside the basement office earlier in the day.

“Possibly, they were looking for people with final orders of removal, or people who were approaching the two-year mark to put them in expedited removal,” she says, reiterating what Ambar had told THE CITY earlier, that the family crossed exactly two years ago today.

“Jaen, he came to every single ICE appointment, he was very cooperative with all the demands that were made of him. It’s a real shame they are separating families,” she says.

4:04 p.m.: Two more men are brought out in handcuffs and put into an SUV and driven off.

4:35 p.m.: Several masked agents leave the building, load into SUVs and drive off, seemingly finished for the day.

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Andy Craig, who studies election law and policy, noted today that “[m]ass deportation and immigration enforcement in the interior requires a police state, and the more of that you want, the more obviously it will look and act like a police state.” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council agreed. He wrote: “In order to build a mass deportation machine to round up and deport 4% of the entire goddamn population, you must first build the police state.”