Los Angeles on Fire: The Hijacking of Immigration Protests by Marxist Agendas
When Riots Masquerade as Justice: How State-Funded Activists, Radical Ideologies, and Media Narratives Are Undermining Law and Order
No image could so accurately describe complexity of the situation of the rioting in Los Angeles better than the cover image: a masked man waving a Mexican flag beside a dirt bike, standing defiantly before a line of police cruisers and a city shrouded in smoke. No sound testifies to the insincere nature and the hypocrisy of these ‘demonstrations’ than the Spanish chant of “ching la migra” in front of Los Angeles City Hall. Nothing screams false alarm more than the climate justice activists burning Waymo battery electric vehicles. Behind the theatrics is a sobering truth: this isn’t a grassroots protest for immigrant rights—it’s a collision of radical agendas, foreign symbols, and taxpayer-funded NGOs attempting to fuel America’s unraveling civic fabric.
Pro-immigrant stances
Pro-immigrant activity has not been redefined. It is and has always been evidenced by attending an American citizenship ceremony. It is a foreigner seeking permission to enter this nation, participating in a process, and going through a challenging naturalization process.
Illegal immigration is not compatible with violent rioting as a compassionate cause. What we witness this week in Los Angeles, New York, San Antonio, San Diego and Washinton D.C. is a continuation of Occupy Wall Street. I don’t deny that the majority of protesters in the streets do oppose immigration enforcement, but many have overlapping causes. So, we must not be fooled into believing that this protest is about immigration policy. This is about our values as a nation. The few true believers don’t want to bring people out of the third world to become Americans, they want to bring and establish the third world in America.
We need to be crystal clear that this is not a United States and Mexico problem. This is the problem that the United States must face with every nationality that crossed our border covertly, every person who entered with a dodgy claim of asylum, and every guest who has overstayed their welcome. While there are many flags of Mexico, there are far too few flags of Venezuela and quite suspiciously too many of Palestine. There are also too many keffiyeh scarfs on the peaceful protestors attacking front-line officers! Don’t let the flags fool you as they were provided by event organizers. Remember the t-shirts “Mr. Biden, let us in” where for $200 in screen printing, they caused a panic?
The media and even AI don’t want the truth
You will never get a faster response from Chat GPT AI than suggesting that these protests are organized and funded. Requesting a picture of a white Maltese on a skateboard will take a couple of minutes, but suggesting that these riots are funded by left wing organizations will generate a high content response in milliseconds. Check it out by trying some ordinary requests, see how long it thinks about tips on cleaning a sponge or making a breakfast burrito, and then suggest a basis where these ‘demonstrations’ had anything less than an organic grassroots demonstration and you will think that you just got an upgrade to hyper fast internet.
However, two groups including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights did receive a $450,000 Biden era grant (and many more prior) and Party for Socialism and Liberation funded much of the collateral. Some reports suggest that the State of California funded many of the groups driving the protests to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
What does this mean to America’s peace officers? Many of the protesters injuring officers, committing arson, and blocking highways are the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are funded by departments within the federal and state government.
Nature of Police Work
There is a huge logic error in the narrative. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security, in my experience, when I worked with them as a local agency, they didn’t publicize their plans nor would I. The idea that this blowback is rooted in an operation at a Home Depot store, or other sites, where they targeted random individuals has serious issues that debunk the ‘spontaneous yet completely implausible organic root’ of this week’s ‘demonstrations.’ The United States Attorneys who the agents deliver their cases demand completely bulletproof cases. Wheels don’t roll unless the case is made before leaving the office.
Back when I’ve been on operations, few bystanders would understand exactly what happened or why we were there. We would show up quietly to the residence of someone, on probation or conditional release, where their law-abiding behavior was keeping them in society and out of prison. The complaint, even from those arrested would consistently be something like:
‘I was minding my own business, and then for no reason, the cop arrested me for failure to register as a sex offender.’
It does not harmonize with reason that ICE raids were the root of this violent and anti-American outpouring of support for the illegal alien community unless something else is going on.
The real agenda
First, we are going to see more of these violent riots in the short term. They are not driven by compassion and kindness. People who vandalize and set fire to battery electric vehicles in crowded urban settings are not good people. Those who plan to cover their faces while committing violent crimes are just common criminals. Following the World Trade Organizations protests in Seatle, there was a lull, almost a generational loss of momentum in anarchist activity until the Occupy movement following Arab Spring.
This was a boot camp for anti-authority folks leading a Marxist movement of the principles of Saul Alinsky. The Occupy movement was supposedly leaderless and a victim of social evolution, that when you open your tent to everyone, the first who come for the food are the homeless and then the anarchists. By policy you can’t turn them away and just like that, suddenly it is an anarchist movement, the free food from SEIU stops arriving, and it just starts to seem too much like work for the faithful.
The faithful, at least in my theater, became the Dream Defenders who eventually became the Marxist trained leaders of Black Lives Matter and shortly thereafter, the anarchists couch surfed their way into becoming in 2017 the leaderless organization Antifa, for anti-fascism soldiers who literally fight fascism with fascism.
Frontline officers
We have never needed our front-line officers to be more ready to take on the delicate job of preserving everyone’s rights and liberties than now. This is the time for law enforcement nationwide to take a moment to recenter and have the conversation of how can we complete our mission without creating a new disaster. This is going to be hard in red cities and will be extremely challenging in blue cities. There are forces with a seemingly limitless flow of money to incite our nations people against one another with straw men to divide us. There are police leaders that I have criticized, including LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, that are in between a rock and a hard place, that I think we should pray for them, and not pray what for we want for them, but for what God wants for them.
Let’s also pray for all peace officers and all the CalGuard troops deployed to Los Angeles.
Roland Clee served a major Florida police department as a Community Service Officer for more than 26 years. His career included uniformed patrol, training, media relations, intelligence, criminal investigations, and chief’s staff. He writes the American Peace Officer newsletter, speaks at public safety, recruiting and leadership conferences and helps local governments and public safety agencies through his business, CommandStaffConsulting.com. His work is frequently featured on LawOfficer.com, the only law enforcement owned major media presence in the public safety realm.
References
Photo credits:
https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1931570567502569840/photo/1
https://x.com/thegaywhostrayd/status/1931839426952671457/photo/1
Exceptional piece, Roland. So many incredible insights and takeaways. I've already shared this piece far and wide.
At the end of your piece, you mentioned that Chief Jim McDonnell is in between a rock and a hard place. Agreed! While I'm not ready to give him a full pass quite yet, he's bound by a California law that prohibits local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. Still, is there more that he could have done? Would love your take on this?
An extraordinary piece. Roland Clee has the experience and the big-picture insight to explain why these riots are happening, why they might spread to other cities in the short-term and why we have to win. A great addition to the conversation.