A recent video posted to YouTube, titled "Los Angeles has Fallen... Anti-ICE Protesters Takeover the City," gives us an inside look to the thoughts of protesters and rioters on the ground in Los Angeles. The video was created by Nick Shirley, an independent journalist and YouTuber, well-known for his raw, street-level reporting. Shirley went to one of the protests after the California National Guard arrived to protect federal buildings.
Many of the protesters Shirley spoke with had very warped perceptions of what the National Guard and other law enforcement were doing in the city. Some didn't even know what they were protesting, only that they came to show support.
Shirley interviewed one protester who had been shouting obscenities at the California National Guard. She told the YouTuber, "We still fight for the legalization of all in occupied territories. This was indigenous land. This was Mexico." The woman was not the only one who mentioned that California had once been owned by Mexico. Another protester was seen shouting, "It was taken from the indigenous. Stolen people on stolen land." Yet another was yelling, "This was our land. All this is stolen, and what? Now we're all f****ing illegal here?"
There seemed to be an overwhelming sentiment that law enforcement — from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the National Guard to the LAPD — have no legitimate authority because California did not originally belong to the United States. (The United States purchased Mexican territories in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, after the Mexican-American War, ceding territories including California for $15 million.)
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On a similar note, many protesters argued that since Los Angeles is "indigenous" land, the U.S. government lacks the authority to deport illegal immigrants. Their reasoning suggests that if the land itself is considered taken unjustly and not rightfully American, then the presence of "undocumented" people should be tolerated, or even justified. In other words, they see "not belonging" as a reason to oppose deportation, not enforce it. However that works.
Later in the video, Shirley came across some more interesting protestors. The group, wearing neon green hats, claimed to be lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild, which is a progressive public interest association. While they told Shirley they were "legal observers," they wouldn't disclose what exactly they were doing at the protest. Shirley later said, "They essentially watch to see if law enforcement does anything that they could then go and sue them for. So who knows who they get paid by. Their job is to make sure that if a protester does get detained, they get all the name, info, so that they can go and file a lawsuit." This raises questions about the true motivations behind their presence at these protests. Are they paid to actively seek out grounds for lawsuits against law enforcement? What are they trying to accomplish with these lawsuits?
The scenes on the ground seem more complicated than what Democratic figureheads have claimed. At least with these protesters, many of them are not simply protesting against ICE, they are protesting against the rule of law itself. Many people appear to reject not just specific policies but the very legitimacy of law enforcement and governmental authority in California.
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