The President’s New War: An American City Under Federal Assault

This is not just a story about Los Angeles. From the wealthy island enclaves of Massachusetts, where a Coast Guard patrol boat was used to haul away detainees, to a popular family-run Italian restaurant in San Diego, a new kind of warfare is being waged on American streets. It is a coordinated, nationwide “shock and awe” campaign, and the battle that erupted in Los Angeles on Friday was its most dramatic and violent front yet.

The day began with a multi-agency federal blitz. This was not a routine action. It involved not just ICE, but also the DEA and the FBI, whose presence signaled a far more serious operation. They employed a two-pronged attack designed to maximize fear. The first was a series of highly visible raids on workplaces—Home Depots, garment factories, doughnut shops—where masked agents in full tactical gear dragged workers out into the street. The second was more insidious: a bait-and-switch at the downtown federal building, where immigrants arriving for their mandatory, routine check-ins were simply taken into custody, their compliance turned into a trap.

But Los Angeles was not a city caught by surprise; it was a city that had been bracing for impact. For months, a coalition of activist groups, legal aid societies, and even the city’s own school district had been preparing for this day, running “Know Your Rights” workshops and distributing “red cards” detailing constitutional protections. The ferocious, immediate street protests were not just a spasm of anger; they were the activation of a city-wide defense network.

As the community pushed back, the state’s response escalated into what can only be described as urban warfare. The imagery is indelible: caravans of unmarked, military-style vehicles; the concussive boom of flash-bang grenades echoing between skyscrapers; the acrid sting of tear gas; and police in full riot gear firing bean bag and foam rounds into the crowds. The official justification for this overwhelming force? According to the LAPD, a few cans of spray paint on a federal building.

And here we must pause to dissect the great lie of the day. In public statements, the Los Angeles Police Department and the County Sheriff’s Department repeatedly insisted that they do not participate in civil immigration enforcement. This is a cowardly and insulting fiction. When a city’s police force deploys in riot gear with tear gas rifles to crush a protest against a federal action, they are no longer a neutral party; they are a vital component of that action. They provided the muscle and the menace that allowed Felonious Punk’s political purge to proceed. They were not keeping the peace; they were enforcing the silence.

The administration, for its part, has constructed a narrative of self-defense to justify its aggression. The acting head of ICE, Todd Lyons, claims his agents must wear masks and heavy armor because they are under assault, citing a supposed “413% increase” in attacks and online harassment from an “increasingly hostile” public. This is the logic of the aggressor blaming the victim for fighting back. As one ACLU expert noted, “The more police dress up in military gear… the more likely they are to see themselves as at war with people, and that is not what we want.” The militarization creates the very hostility it claims to be a response to.

But the most cynical part of the strategy is that these raids are not just enforcement; they are propaganda. An expert described them as “made-for-TV moments,” replete with “quick edits and throbbing techno beats” in social media videos designed to project an image of strength to Punk’s base. The terror is the point.

And why this sudden, dramatic escalation across the country? The true motive is not found in press releases, but in tense, closed-door meetings in Washington. We now know that Stephen Miller, the ghoulish architect of Punk’s most hardline policies, recently gathered senior ICE officials and gave them a new, non-negotiable directive: they are to average a minimum of 3,000 arrests per day. Senior agents left that meeting fearing for their jobs if they failed to meet the quota.

There it is. The chaos on the streets of Los Angeles, the terror in the communities, the militarized crackdown, the arrest of a major labor leader—it is all being driven by a top-down, politically motivated body count. The sweeps are indiscriminate because they have to be to make the numbers.

This is not immigration enforcement as America has ever known it. It is a deliberate campaign to punish political enemies, like the sanctuary city of Los Angeles. It is a strategy to terrorize immigrant communities into “self-deporting.” And it is a propaganda operation designed to produce content for a domestic political audience. It is, as the ACLU warned, a government that has declared war on people. The question for the country is not whether these raids will continue—the quotas demand it—but what happens when a government begins to treat its own cities as occupied territory.