Could the LA protests happen here?

Watching Los Angeles burn is a reminder to us all that immigration is a tinderbox of an issue rooted in racism. Images of masked, armed men bundling Latino workers into vans. Volleys of tear gas thrown at children. Rubber bullets fired so carelessly one hit a reporter as she was live on air.

It started on Saturday morning outside a hardware store in the southern suburb of Paramount, where migrants tend to gather in search of cash-in-hand jobs as roofers and builders. At around 9am, heavy-handed immigration enforcement officers were spotted rounding up members of the community, including a father and his eight-year-old son. In the days preceding the raids, parents outside an elementary school had been targeted, separated from their children and effectively disappeared. Passersby raised the alarm, honking their horns and organising online, coming out to the streets in their thousands to block ICE vans.

As is so often the case, the violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement swiftly turned political. In response to Trump’s decision to federalise the national guard - forces last deployed in 1992 following the Rodney King riots - California’s governor has today said he will sue the President over the ‘unlawful’ order. The world's media has now turned its focus away from the streets and the detained migrant workers to a show of power, dominance and authoritarianism.

Here in Britain, campaigners have been quick to organise, fearing the rise of Reform and the emboldened far-right could lead to similar outcomes if the tentacles of Trumpism reached our shores. So, could it?

There are certainly hallmarks of the immigration raids seen at the Home Depot. Like ICE, British enforcement officers typically enter workplaces and residential properties using battering rams. They don't have search warrants. Use of force forms show they vastly outnumber those they are seeking to detain, intimidating and humiliating them in front of their families and communities. You only have to look to the Windrush scandal to see how damaging raids can be; what impact they can have on a life.

Labour are seeking to extend those powers, recruiting more immigration enforcement officers to carry out a programme of mass deportations. Earlier this year they uploaded a video of shackled men being escorted onto planes in what was later dubbed ‘Deportation TV’. Most days they issue press releases about crackdowns on workplaces and homes, usually with links to footage the Daily Mail can lift and place online.

This, of course, plays right into Nigel Farage’s hands. A fan of authoritarian leaders and a disciple of Trumpism, he recently said he would like to bring in a ‘minister for deportations’, so fixated is he on effecting removals. He has ridiculed Starmer’s claims that the government have removed 19,000 people since taking office and he has congratulated the prime minister on adopting Reform-style rhetoric. Though he later distanced himself from it, his suggestion that the truth about the Southport murderer was being ‘withheld’ from the public undoubtedly fanned the flames during last summer’s riots. Some of the thugs reportedly chanted his name as they set fire to asylum hotels.

But there is another side to the story. Like Angelinos, Britons, too, have a strong history of anti-raids activism. When I was researching my book, I tagged along with a group in Brixton, who were protesting in Windrush Square the day after a Brazilian woman had been hauled out of her restaurant by immigration enforcement officers. Over a loudspeaker, one of the organisers asked those gathered whether they knew what to do if they saw a raid in their community. A reminder here of what they said (taken from the book).

• If you see immigration enforcement or police officers, ask them why they are targeting that individual. Film the officers on your phone.

• Encourage the person being targeted to lock their doors and close their curtains. They don’t need to answer any questions and they don’t need to let them in. They are free to leave unless they’re under arrest.

• Tell people nearby ‘They’re here, they’re trying to take people away’. Gathering more people could outnumber the authorities and force them to give way.

It's worth remembering, too, that raids can make all the difference. In Glasgow’s Kenmure Street, an eight-hour stand-off with police led to two men being released, defiantly raising their fists from the back of the windowless van which had sat stationary as protesters formed a circle around it. Others had set up a kiosk, handing out bottles of water and sweet treats to celebrate Eid. Up and down the country, anti-raids activists monitor, rally, organise and effect change.

So could the LA protests happen here? It's easy to dismiss the fears of campaigners that the rise of the right could trigger something similar, but it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility. What's clear is that, if last summer's riots, the subsequent rise of Reform and the ramping up of enforcement under Labour are anything to go by, we ignore what's happening there at our peril.