If domicide in Gaza is marked by bombardment, in Los Angeles it’s militarized raids by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that target communities already bearing the brunt of climate change.
In January 2025, wildfires scorched hillsides across Los Angeles County. The Palisades and Eaton Canyon fires destroyed more than 18,000 structures and displaced nearly 200,000 people. But the danger didn’t end with the flames. In affected neighborhoods, residents began reporting respiratory issues and headaches. Independent soil tests found elevated levels of lead and arsenic, especially in areas already burdened by decades of environmental racism. Even so, months later, the city has yet to implement a coordinated remediation plan.
Then, this past week, came the ICE raids.
In the same week that the Madleen was seized on its way to Gaza, armored federal agents stormed homes across Los Angeles’ working-class immigrant neighborhoods, including Paramount where over 82% of the population is Hispanic. Reports quickly emerged of unmarked vans, barricaded buildings, and families separated without warning. According to ICE, 44 people were arrested on a single job site last Friday, and another 77 people were arrested on the same day in the greater LA area.
The escalation of immigration arrests by targeting workplaces is a direct result of President Trump’s racist anti-immigration policies, which also include banning citizens from 12 mostly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. People took to the streets to call for an end to the raids in largely peaceful protests—and in response, Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard and 700 Marines, risking further confrontation between protesters and military personnel, in a move Democrats have decried as “crazy, unreliable leadership.” Protests have since spread to cities across the U.S., including New York, Boston, Houston, and Philadelphia.
Just as the flotilla sought to breach a physical blockade to deliver care, LA’s communities are rising up to meet a different kind of siege. Volunteer patrols tracked ICE movements in real time. Immigration hotlines lit up. Mutual aid networks spread alerts across WhatsApp and Signal. What links these two moments is not just timing, but a shared anatomy: both are attempts to meet violence with care; both are being treated as threats; and in both cases, the same question arises—who gets to remain, and on whose terms?
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