Local Nurse Abducted by ICE

Amanda’s Free, But The Trump Regime is Still Targeting Harbor Area

On Aug. 7, two masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violently pinned Harbor Area Peace Patrol activist Amanda Trebach to the ground after her sign struck one of their Silverado pickup trucks as it came too close to activists outside the staging area on Terminal Island.

The Harbor Area Peace Patrol, while stationed outside the Terminal Island staging area for ICE, has for months been monitoring and documenting the comings and goings of agents for months, as the Trump administration has expanded ICE and Border Patrol powers.

At the Aug. 8 press conference near the Terminal Island staging area for federal agents involved in the LA immigration raids, Union del Barrio spokesperson Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona recounted the harrowing details of Amanda Trebach’s Aug. 4 attempted abduction by federal agents.

Trebach, a nurse who serves communities in Watts, Compton and South Central Los Angeles, had already experienced a premonition — a harbinger of violence to come — when she was targeted by Border Patrol on Aug. 4. She reported to Union del Barrio that she was documenting a caravan of federal agents entering Terminal Island after a raid at a Hollywood Home Depot. She escaped an attempt by agents to take her into custody.

Trebach’s ordeal, and the tactics deployed by the Harbor Area Peace Patrol and the broader Community Self-Defense Coalition, serve as a reminder that challenging police state power will require caution and ingenuity, drawn from resistance efforts in and outside the United States.

According to her union, National Nurses United, Trebach was released from federal custody on Aug. 9 without facing criminal charges.

She was participating in a grassroots observation effort at Terminal Island when she was violently detained in the early hours of Aug. 7 by masked individuals believed to be federal agents, sparking concern among community members.

Up to 250 ICE and other federal agents are staged at the Coast Guard Station just across the main channel from San Pedro. The Harbor Area Peace Patrol had been lawfully monitoring vehicles coming and going from the facility for months before Trebach was aggressively taken down and spirited away by agents.

When other Peace Patrollers sought information and kept a lawful, safe, but short distance from officers, agents drew their guns.

“I believe the federal agents are being intentionally intimidating and trying to drive this group off the island,” Councilman Tim McOsker said a day after Trebach’s detention.

Trebach is a member of Unión del Barrio, part of the Community Self-Defense Coalition. She had been monitoring the movements of federal vehicles alongside members of the Harbor Area Peace Patrol, a community-led collective observing ICE and Border Patrol operations around San Pedro, Wilmington, and the Port of Los Angeles for months.

Supporters say the arrest was targeted. At a press conference, Unión del Barrio member Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona said Trebach was singled out for her political activism and accused the U.S. government of kidnapping her and making her a political prisoner.

Carrasco Cardona said Trebach had reported an earlier encounter on Aug. 4, when Border Patrol agents allegedly tried to box her car near Terminal Island after she documented a caravan arriving from a workplace raid at the Hollywood Home Depot.

She noted that the Community Self-Defense Coalition, which includes the Harbor Area Peace Patrol, was formed in November 2024 “because we knew that this terror was going to be coming to our streets.” The coalition now includes 65 organizations and thousands of individuals mobilized to defend marginalized communities.

Another coalition member, who identified herself as Cynthia, highlighted the targeted attacks on local activists by federal agents. “We know that they have gone after other members of our coalitions,” she said.

Cynthia also pointed to mounting evidence that federal officers have repeatedly provided false or misleading information in official records. In a recent Guardian investigation, immigration enforcement agents were shown to have made demonstrably false statements in reports about several protesters arrested during mass demonstrations in Los Angeles in June. “Federal agents are consistently lying to justify their arrest,” she said.

But what do you do when the federal government is coming for you — and the state, while politically sympathetic, is ineffective in protecting you?

During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, activists knew they were up against a well-resourced, often violent state apparatus, yet at times were bolstered by the federal government.

Civil rights organizations partnered with sympathetic lawyers, often from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who could respond quickly to arrests. Activists carried contact information for legal aid or bail funds, trained in constitutional rights to anticipate police interrogation tactics, and engaged in nonviolent direct action workshops to prepare for arrest, harassment, and physical assault without retaliation — minimizing the state’s ability to claim “self-defense.” They assigned photographers and note-takers to document police misconduct for use in court and the media.

The Trump administration has already moved to sideline law firms willing to fight the government on issues ranging from birthright citizenship to collective bargaining rights, though it has not completely succeeded.

In the past, organizations sent only trained members into high-risk actions while keeping others in reserve to sustain campaigns. They chose protest sites and times strategically to maximize visibility while minimizing opportunities for mass violence or entrapment. Activists traveled in groups, created pooled funds to support those fired or evicted for their activism, assumed phones and mail were tapped, and limited sensitive discussions to in-person meetings. Written lists of members or donors were avoided to reduce exposure in police or FBI raids.

These methods were not foolproof — many activists still suffered arrest, injury, or worse — but they reflected a deliberate, organized effort to outmaneuver state repression while keeping movements sustainable.

The Trump administration made Los Angeles a testing ground. Now it is making Washington, D.C., the proof of design.