--- title: What the National Guard Crackdown in LA Made Us See description: Protestors in Los Angeles are calling attention to what President Donald Trump doesn't want voters to see, writes Paola Ramos. canonical: https://time.com/7292305/la-protests-national-guard-crackdown-essay/ author: Paola Ramos article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-06-09T17:44:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:00.615Z article:section: Ideas og:title: What the National Guard Crackdown in LA Made Us See og:description: Protestors in Los Angeles are calling attention to what President Donald Trump doesn't want voters to see.. og:url: https://time.com/7292305/la-protests-national-guard-crackdown-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce017fd39dadcb7b/6998c75225f3eeb715644b74/june8-ice-protest-la.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: june8-ice-protest-la og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What the National Guard Crackdown in LA Made Us See twitter:description: Protestors in Los Angeles are calling attention to what President Donald Trump doesn't want voters to see.. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce017fd39dadcb7b/6998c75225f3eeb715644b74/june8-ice-protest-la.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What the National Guard Crackdown in LA Made Us See > Sponsored content. 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Protestors in Los Angeles are calling attention to what President Donald Trump doesn't want voters to see, writes Paola Ramos._ by [Paola Ramos](https://time.com/author/paola-ramos/) ## Paola Ramos Paola Ramos is the author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America. Jun 9, 2025 5:44 PM UTC  ICE officers and national guards confront with civilians outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, Calif. on June 8, 2025 amid protests over immigration raids. ICE officers and national guards confront with civilians outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, Calif. on June 8, 2025 amid protests over immigration raids. Tayfun Coskun—Anadolu/ Getty Images by [Paola Ramos](https://time.com/author/paola-ramos/) ## Paola Ramos Paola Ramos is the author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America. Jun 9, 2025 5:44 PM UTC I was wondering at what point the nation that elected President Donald Trump _twice_ would reach a collective breaking point. Could a country that overwhelmingly voted for mass deportations ever feel a moral calling to defend immigrants again? What would it take? It turns out that a growing number of Americans, exemplified by the mass protests in Los Angeles, are slowly starting to see everything the Trump administration doesn’t want them to see, as federal agents conduct mass ICE raids across the country: humans, not criminals, being taken away. Faced with ICE raids over the June 7 weekend, hundreds of community members descended upon [Los Angeles’ downtown](https://time.com/7292232/la-protests-trump-best-photos/), building on a long legacy of civil unrest. This moment of empathy is not only the antidote to dehumanization, but also has the potential to upend the very story that got Trump elected to begin with. After his victory and endless fearmongering, Trump counted on America to welcome his anti-immigrant agenda, underestimating Americans’ own capacity to feel compassion for immigrants. Perhaps, Americans also underestimated themselves. Until now. The Trump administration will continue to do everything in its power to feed voters images that are meant to sustain the fear and xenophobia that mobilized millions to support Trump at the ballot box. Over the weekend, the administration deployed the National Guard to respond to L.A. protestors, a show of force intended to reinforce a narrative that subtly casts Trump as the patriotic savior protecting Americans from the unruly masses defending immigrant criminals. It’s the classic “us vs. them” playbook manifested in yet another sinister way, leading Trump to say this Sunday, “We are not going to let this country be torn apart.” The only problem is that voters are increasingly seeing Trump as the perpetrator of that division. And once you see it, it’s hard to look away. Over the last couple of weeks, our social media has been flooded with images of masked ICE agents wearing bulletproof vests snatching undocumented immigrants by traffic stops, inside courthouses, in their workplace, or in parking lots. It’s part of the White House’s mission to ramp up ICE operations, detain 3,000 migrants a day, and follow through on their campaign promise to protect Americans from the so-called “migrant invasion.” Yet, as federal immigration agents roam through communities, ordinary bystanders rely on their own eyes—not the administration’s manufactured photo-ops portraying migrants as “gang members”—to judge the scenes. From Nashville to New York City to Phoenix, rolling cameras are capturing fathers kissing their daughters goodbye as they are escorted by agents; 12-year-old boys being left alone on sidewalks after ICE raids; busboys being handcuffed outside local restaurants; neighbors being slammed to the ground, shoved into cars and vanishing. The breaking point happens when ordinary Americans can suddenly see themselves and their loved ones—their kids, parents, coworkers or neighbors—reflected in those images. **Read More:** [_Gavin Newsom Says Trump ‘Manufactured’ Crisis in California, Announces Legal Challenge Over National Guard Order_](https://time.com/7292191/trump-newsom-national-guard-california-los-angeles-protests-legal-challenge/) It's happened before. In 2012, hundreds and thousands of Dreamers put a human face to the children of immigrants as they held mass rallies across the nation, pressuring President Barack Obama to offer many of them relief from deportation. In them, millions of [voters](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/06/17/americans-broadly-support-legal-status-for-immigrants-brought-to-the-u-s-illegally-as-children/) started to simply see “American Dreamers.” In 2018, during the Trump administration’s Zero Tolerance policy, the sight and sound of mothers being separated from their children at the southern border [haunted](https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/30/us/june-30-immigration-protests) American families. In migrant children, even midwestern mothers recognized the sound of their own kids. Today, those viral videos circulating online seem to have hit a new nerve in an America that is constantly searching for its moral compass. In rural Missouri, [crowds gathered ](https://www.facebook.com/JohnsWaffleandPancakeHouse/posts/pfbid027d7hEnGVX5eXpgnoQqgT8n4zK3SHkJpSAWbnYfZ1gARRPCLRKbR47GZi73h6akSAl)for Ming Li Hui, a beloved immigrant waitress from Hong Kong. In Worcester, a city in central Massachusetts, hundreds [protested](https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/worcester-protest-ice-immigrants/) to demand “ICE stop taking mothers.” In a small San Diego street corner, a group of neighbors clashed with ICE agents who had just raided a restaurant. From coast to coast, these small rallies culminated in the mass protests held in Los Angeles over this weekend, marking what feels like the beginning of a new national breaking point. Los Angeles, a majority-minority city with a significant undocumented population, has a unique history of protest. From the 1968 East Los Angeles [student walkouts](https://time.com/5185819/student-walkouts-history/) to the 1992 [Rodney King Riots ](https://time.com/6169564/rodney-king-riots-beating-anniversary/)to the [2006 “Day Without Immigrants” protests](https://time.com/archive/6919590/on-scene-separate-protests-in-los-angeles-highlight-a-division-over-tactics/), the city’s streets have traditionally been used as a tool to push politicians, shape public discourse, and echo deep-seated anger towards social injustices. Several pundits believe the Trump administration is counting on the L.A. protests to escalate into the type of violence that lays the groundwork for further military force, once again propping Trump as the national strongman hero. At this point, it’s unclear how the events will continue to unfold and whether or not Los Angeles will inspire other American cities to mass mobilize. But if history is any indication, then we should also wonder how long Americans will hold onto this moral outrage. Is the breaking point here to stay—or is it fleeting? My guess is that it may be here to stay. But for other reasons than we might think. ICE raids breaking apart immigrant families isn’t just awakening a basic sense of humanity among ordinary citizens. It’s also allowing many to see something even more profound within those images: the emergence of a militarized America that is starting to feel unrecognizable to the bystander. Because if you zoom into the deluge of rolling videos, it’s not the immigrants who do not belong in the frame; it’s those masked, armed agents glaring back at us. Maybe, all along, this was the real breaking point America needed. That subtle realization that American democracy is slipping away. It took immigrants to open our eyes. 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