On June 6, masked federal agents wearing tactical gear and armed with rifles mounted sweeping raids across multiple neighborhoods and workplaces in Los Angeles, California. Since then, the Los Angeles labor movement and its allies have met the moment with resistance to the Trump administration, the result of years of deep organizing on multiple fronts — and a blueprint for how a militant labor movement can develop the social movement infrastructure to fight back against rising authoritarianism.

Since early this year, a coalition of groups — including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), along with immigrant rights groups like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) and the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — have built a Los Angeles Rapid Response Network (LARRN), with “first responders” to respond to immigration raids in real time. That network was activated as soon as news of the raids broke, with hundreds mobilizing to confront the agents and provide community support.

Among the first responders on the scene was David Huerta, vice president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, president of SEIU California and SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW), one of the largest unions in the state with nearly a million members. SEIU-USWW started the iconic the Justice for Janitors campaign in 1990 in LA to organize predominantly immigrant Latina women who cleaned commercial office space for wages as low as $7 an hour.

Huerta was reportedly assaulted by federal officers and hospitalized before being taken into custody. The arrest was stunning: even one of the most important labor leaders in the country’s largest state was not immune from the Trump administration’s draconian crackdown.

By 4:30 p.m. on Friday, unions, elected officials, and community leaders conducted a press conference outside the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles to condemn the operation and demand Huerta’s release. What unfolded that day, speakers emphasized, was not a routine immigration enforcement action — it was a show of intimidatory force by the federal government. Armored vehicles, tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades were deployed on civilians in broad daylight.

“What’s happening in LA is a horror and a clear escalation — LA will not stand down and labor will not stand down,” said Frances Gill, Southern California regional vice president for SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR). “We will not let our brothers and sisters be kidnapped from the streets like this.”

President of the California Federation of Labor Unions, Lorena Gonzalez, called for Huerta’s immediate release and an end to the cruel, destructive, and indiscriminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Other SEIU locals, from coast to coast, including SEIU Local 32BJ, 1199 SEIU, SEIU Local 509, SEIU Local 1, held rallies on Monday in Chicago, New York, and Boston. The United Auto Workers, Chicago Teachers Union, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, and others demanded Huerta’s release.

Later that evening, heavily armed federal agents descended on LA’s Chinatown, where they were again met with protests. We observed the scene firsthand: FBI agents and demonstrators yelling inches from each other’s faces, helicopters circling overhead, vans unloading new waves of agents onto both ends of the street. Protesters chanted, “ICE out of LA!” and some threw their bodies in front of vehicles to halt their movement.

By the end of the day, at least forty-four people were arrested on alleged immigration violations — marking a new focus on targeting workers on the job. The immigration enforcement crackdown quickly escalated into a scene of chaos and militarized aggression, as federal agents threw flash-bang grenades, and unions, community organizations, and thousands of residents rallied to defend immigrant workers.

On Saturday evening, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum saying he would be “deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address the lawlessness” in California — the first time since 1965 that a president has deployed the National Guard without a governor’s request. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened to send in the Marines. Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the decision to deploy the National Guard, calling it “purposefully inflammatory.” Newsom and other California officials then launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration for taking over the state’s National Guard. Trump has now threatened to arrest Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass if they interfere with federal immigration enforcement.

The deployment of the National Guard and the arrest of Huerta, who was released on Monday on a $50,000 bond, marks a significant turning point in targeting labor movement organizers and members. In February, ICE arrested SEIU 925 member Lewelyn Dixon and held her in ICE detention for three months before she was released in May. SEIU organizer Jeanette Vizguerra and farmworker leader Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino were also apprehended in March by ICE. Sheet metal worker Kilmar Abrego García, a SMART Local 100 apprentice, was deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison without due process, and has since been returned to the United States and arraigned in a Nashville federal court. Machinist Maximo Londonio was also arrested on a return flight from the Philippines in May. The administration is recognizing that one of the largest impediments to executing its racist, anti-worker, and antidemocratic agenda is and will continue to be the labor movement and its allies.

This federal show of force reflects a broader trend of hypermilitarization by a Trump administration testing how far it can go in using tactics against its own people once reserved for war abroad. Federal border authorities have equipped National Guard soldiers with 20-ton Stryker combat vehicles, reports the Washington Post. The Department of Homeland Security has requested 20,000 National Guard troops to carry out immigration roundups nationwide. The president deployed the National Guard to LA against Governor Gavin Newsom’s wishes. The only other time this has happened was during the civil rights movement in Selma, Alabama, to protect marchers against violent attacks by racists. The weekend raids in Los Angeles featured hundreds of heavily armed FBI agents with military-grade combat gear.  Many in the city now feel as though we’re under siege by agencies operating with unchecked authority.

Yet this is not the only battle being waged currently by organized labor. Multiple SEIU locals are in the middle of contract negotiations. UNITE HERE, the hotel workers union, recently won an ambitious ten-month strike involving nearly sixty hotels and 15,000 workers. A local of the grocery workers’ union, UFCW 770, is gearing up for a potential strike vote.

SEIU-USWW and Unite-Here Local 11 are fighting a multimillion-dollar effort by the hotel and airline employers to repeal a landmark city ordinance, authored by Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, a former UNITE HERE organizer and DSA member, that raised wages during the Olympics for airport and hotel workers to $30 an hour. Groups like Organized Power in Numbers are canvassing restaurants, bars, and small businesses to educate workers and owners about their rights during ICE raids. A recent viral video sparked interest from hundreds looking to do the same in their communities.

And labor’s involvement could expand in the coming weeks. “They have woke us up,” executive director of SEIU California Tia Orr told the Los Angeles Times recently. “And I think they’ve woke people up across the nation,” she added.

As SEIU California tweeted, “ICE picked the wrong side. The wrong state. The wrong person. and the wrong union. David Huerta stood up. And 750,000 SEIU workers are standing with him.”

Los Angeles’s ability to quickly mobilize — filming, documenting, and directly confronting agents within minutes of a report — shows how much more prepared the city is today to respond to Trump’s provocations than it was during his first term. California elected officials are also much more willing to push back against the administration now than they were eight years ago.

The labor movement is key to that fightback. Instead of retreating into a defensive crouch and in spite of a Trump administration, unions continue to organize and strike, too. The labor movement, as well as social movements across the country, would do well to emulate the example of Los Angeles.