The chaos that engulfed Los Angeles on Saturday began a day earlier when camouflage-clad federal agents rolled through the garment district in search of workers who they suspected of being undocumented immigrants. They were met with protesters, who chanted and threw eggs before being dispersed with pepper spray and nonlethal bullets.
The enforcement operation turned into one of the most volatile scenes of President Trump’s immigration crackdown so far, but it was not an isolated incident.
The high-profile raids appeared to mark a new phase of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, in which officials say they will increasingly focus on workplaces — taking aim at the reason millions of people have illegally crossed the border for decades. That is an expansion from plans early in the administration to prioritize detaining hardened criminals and later to focus on hundreds of international students.
“You’re going to see more work site enforcement than you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation,” Thomas D. Homan, the White House border czar told reporters recently. “We’re going to flood the zone.”
It remains to be seen how aggressively Mr. Trump will pursue sectors like construction, food production and hospitality. Raids are sometimes directed based on tips, but otherwise appear to be distributed without a clear pattern, hitting large and small establishments.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to an email seeking details about the government’s plans, including an explanation about why the administration is ramping up work-site arrests now.
