Trans athletes, immigration protests and ICE provocations
A mother of a San Pedro High School track star sat in the bleachers at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Track & Field Championships, which took place on May 30 and 31, at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Clovis, California. In 104-degree weather, sweat was dripping down her forehead and back while she watched her son and his friend, Jack, race that day.
Outside the field was a small, loud group of anti-trans protesters inspired by the Orange Felon, who had been creating chaos and confusion over a single trans-athlete competing in the state championships. It was more of a distraction from the competition because this track meet got national news attention that it normally would never have had.
Back in the stands, a San Pedro father of three girls booed every time AB Hernandez’s name was announced. One of his daughters was competing in the same events.
In response, another student sitting nearby called out, “shut the fuck up.” And of course, this created a whole other war of words, instigated by the commander and thief, who couldn’t care less who won the race. Eventually, things escalated and the CIF officials were called in, and only when it was explained that if the trans athlete won ahead of his girl, they would both win the same medals that he calmed down. It was a brilliant shifting of the rules by the CIF. It diffused the made-up controversy until the ICE raids hit Los Angeles the next week.
The State of California has sued the federal government over the threat to withhold funding to schools that don’t adhere to the policy of discriminating against trans athletes.
Starting early on Friday, June 6, ICE started its raids with masked SWAT-type officers in unmarked SUVs and no badges, descending on known workplaces for immigrant workers.
Contrary to what was promised, “to go after known immigrant criminals,” these raids were focused on those without papers. No one in the media, nor officials seemed to ask if there were actual judicial arrest warrants, as it appears that the ICE raids were just casting a wide net to pull in as many “illegal” fish that didn’t slip through. The media took the bait and covered the raids and protests in days of long coverage. It focused on the growing response to the chaos and brutality of the raids and then only upon the overreaction that inevitably spirals into equally violent responses. The vast majority of the thousands of protesters were peacefully assembled until the police started to use violent tactics.
And so, none of the TV talking heads could do more than prognosticate on what they were viewing from the sky or behind police lines. It wasn’t until the following Monday that the reports started coming out by actual reporters on the ground that it was the ICE agents who fired first at the protesters, spraying identifiable reporters with pepper spray and peaceful citizens with flashbang bombs and tear gas. It would have been just as easy to report that a riot situation was caused by ICE before the California National Guard could be nationalized without request from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who criticized the action as unnecessary.
Newsom rightly called the president’s actions provocative and intentionally spreading fear and chaos. And when the border czar threatened to arrest him, he replied, “Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out. Come and get me, tough guy. I don’t give a damn. It won’t stop me from standing up for California.”
This might just be the leadership that the resistance needs, for if half of the people who showed up to protest these raids just sat down and practiced civil disobedience, the authorities wouldn’t have enough jails to put them in.
Still, what is presumed is that it was “bad actors” among the demonstrators who were throwing bricks at the CHP or burning the Waymo cars, and assaulting ICE officers. Yet these allegations are made with no actual evidence, and when the FBI finally catches up with these suspects, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them listed in the DOJ advisory would turn out to be provocateurs.
It would be a curious form of justice if some of these were the Proud Boys that the Orange Felon pardoned. In a notice for the $50,000 reward for information on “unknown suspects” wanted in the Paramount raid on an assault on a federal officer and damage to government property, it read.
Suspects “should be considered armed and dangerous.” From my perspective, it seems obvious that the most well-armed and dangerous players are the ICE SWAT officers. The unprecedented unilateral action of deploying 2,000 National Guard without state or local requests raises serious concerns about authoritarian overreach and politicizing the military. The question still remains, were the federal warrants specifically targeted to individual people and issued by a federal judge, or were these broad administrative warrants?
The end result is that once again, the Orange Felon has dominated the news cycle, commandeered the public’s perception, and left the battle over the lone transgender athlete in the dust. The only reasonable response was the previously mentioned interview with Jacob Soboroff of MSNBC amid President Trump’s attempts to militarize Los Angeles following peaceful protests against federal immigration raids.
The military deployed 700 U.S. Marines to the mix to only add more uncoordinated chaotic response to National Guard troops already mobilized in Los Angeles to intimidate the response of the protesters.
Gov. Newsom and Attorney Gen. Rob Bonta have now filed yet another lawsuit in federal court challenging both actions as being illegal and unconstitutional. LA County has voted to support these actions.