From Minneapolis to Los Angeles, immigration enforcement intensifies as deportations surge under Trump
Minneapolis has become a flashpoint for protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its tactics. The raids and protests continue across the country, including in Southern California.
Social media posts on Tuesday alerted residents to ICE activity around Los Angeles, including near the Eagle Rock Plaza.
In Highland Park, community members say immigration agents arrested a food vendor Monday morning.
“There was an empty taco stand, his van and many people from the neighborhood were helping put all the stuff away into the van so it could be taken and brought back to his family,” said Darren Golt, who witnessed the aftermath of the arrest.
City officials published ICE activity in different parts of the county on social media and some councilmembers asked the community to assist in the rapid assistance network, designed to anticipate the arrival of ICE agents and legal assistance to detainees.
Residents in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood said an immigration arrest occurred on Friday. Video of the incident shows a person on the ground being placed in handcuffs.
In NELA, several operations were warned and some videos reached Parriva.
Over the weekend in Downey, immigration agents detained nearly a dozen people. In a written statement to Eyewitness News, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said, “On January 10, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) conducted a targeted immigration operation in Downey, California, resulting in the arrest of 11 illegal aliens from Mexico and El Salvador that have all broken the immigration laws of the nation.”
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported at least 8,250 people from California during the first nine months of 2025, with removals emerging as the year went on. The data, compiled by ICE and processed by a UC Berkeley Law School initiative, shows how deportations have unfolded in President Donald Trump’s second term. He promised the largest mass deportation campaign in American history in the lead-up to his presidency. ICE removals in the state largely mirrored the previous year’s total in the first few months of Trump’s term. Beginning in the summer, similar to other parts of the country, removals ramped up and soon reached levels not seen in years. From July through September, the agency averaged about 1,520 deportations per month — a more than 200% increase compared with the first three months of the year. At that pace, the agency was on track to deport nearly 13,000 people from California by the end of 2025. ICE reported approximately 4,000 deportations from California in 2024. ICE did not respond to a request for comment, nor would the agency verify the totals, which are based on a dataset obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Deportation Data Project.
These totals are lower than the current number of deportations from California because the dataset is limited to ICE removals and some case information is not detailed or missing entirely. Other federal agencies also conducted deportations, including the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which spearheaded many large-scale operations at Home Depot parking lots, car washes and other businesses.
The Sacramento Bee calculated its ICE deportation total by filtering for California cases with a U.S. departure date in 2025. The most recent released data includes deportations through mid-October. The sum excludes roughly 1,750 people who “self-deported” or returned voluntarily under ICE’s definition. There were 70 such departures in all of 2024.
Nationally, the New York Times reported in August that at least 180,000 people had been deported by ICE under Trump. The Department of Homeland Security has argued the number is higher and, last month, stated that 2025 federal enforcement operations resulted in more than 605,000 deportations and 1.9 million voluntarily removals.
Latinos in Both Parties are More Worried than other Groups About Personal Impacts of Deportations
