Federal Officers Continue Arresting Anti-ICE Protesters During 24/7 Demonstrations

Federal officials have arrested more than a dozen protesters outside an immigration detention center in downtown L.A., including several who have staged a nearly monthlong wave of round-the-clock demonstrations since early July.

The demonstration is part of Occupy ICE, a nationwide series of protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Protesters have gathered and camped in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, where people detained in federal immigration raids are held.

The Federal Protective Service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, has arrested 18 people as of Aug. 6 outside the Metropolitan Detention Center and the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building on suspicion of a range of charges, including assaulting a federal officer and vandalism, a senior DHS official said in an email to Capital & Main in response to a request for comment. The official refused to identify themselves.

“[DHS] Secretary [Kristi] Noem has been clear: anyone who assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” the senior DHS official said.

Protesters said they are being targeted for arrest because they are exercising their free speech rights in that location. They said the arrests are unwarranted because they have done nothing illegal.

“We’re here to make sure that this is being seen. We don’t want this happening in the cover of darkness,” said Sully, a protest organizer who asked to be identified only by her first name because she feared retaliation from law enforcement.

Protesters who have been present at the demonstration since it began told Capital & Main that more than a dozen people have been arrested and later released since people started camping out in front of the detention center.

The ACLU Foundation of Southern California filed a lawsuit on June 18 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California accusing DHS officers of using excessive force and violating people’s First Amendment rights during previous months’ protests, seeking to stop what it alleged are federal officers’ aggressive crowd control tactics. The lawsuit is pending.

“They’re not restoring order. They’re creating chaos and inflicting violence,” said Peter Eliasberg, an attorney and chief counsel for the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.

Los Angeles police officers, meanwhile, have shot pepper balls at protesters and cited a city ordinance that bans unhoused people from many parts of the city in order to sweep ICE protester camps outside the detention center, L.A. TACO reported. The Los Angeles Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

ICE operations continued despite a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a temporary restraining order against ICE patrols. Protesters said they don’t plan on stopping, either.

Copyright 2025 Capital & Main.

Maison Tran is a California Local News Fellow.