Protesters and immigration officials clashed again in Los Angeles County on Saturday as agents conducted raids at a Home Depot, local officials said, just a day after dramatic standoffs at similar workplace raids elsewhere in the area.
In Paramount, Calif., about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, protesters squared off with federal immigration agents after at least two immigration raids took place on Saturday, including one at the Home Depot and another at a nearby meatpacking facility.
Video of the protests showed agents using what appeared to be flash-bang grenades to disperse the protesters. Immigrant rights advocates said that the agents, who were wearing riot gear, had also used some type of tear gas to break up the crowds. José Luis Solache Jr., a state assembly member, said on social media that he was among those who were hit with tear gas.
The standoff followed a series of immigration raids that swept through Los Angeles on Friday, which resulted in chaos outside a federal building downtown where people detained in the raids were being processed.
The streets swelled with protesters, and buildings and vehicles were vandalized with spray paint. Some people threw objects at federal agents, who then responded with flash-bang grenades. Just on Friday, agents arrested more than 120 people, federal officials said. But processing those arrests were delayed because of the protests.
On Saturday, Trump administration officials blasted the city’s response to the Friday operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, criticizing Los Angeles officials for not helping the federal agents, as well as blaming Democrats for the unrest.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, said on social media on Saturday that the protests on Friday were “an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States.”
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security took aim at those in the Los Angeles Police Department, saying they did not respond in a timely fashion as protesters surrounded the federal building in the city.
“What took place in Los Angeles yesterday was appalling,” said Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of ICE. He added that Los Angeles police officers took “over two hours” to respond to the unrest, “despite being called multiple times.” The Police Department has not responded publicly to Mr. Lyons’s remarks.
On Friday, Jim McDonnell, the chief of police, said that his agency was not involved in civil immigration enforcement. He noted that the Police Department has had a decades-old policy that bars its officers from stopping residents for the sole purpose of determining their immigration status.
It was unclear whether any protesters were arrested by the Los Angeles Police on Friday night.
Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles on Friday condemned the ICE operations, saying she was “deeply angered by what has taken place.” She added, “We will not stand for this.”
On Saturday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that it was not involved in any of the federal operations and that its response was limited to traffic and crowd control.
The operations came at a time when ICE officers have been ramping up enforcement across the country. Mr. Miller recently told Fox News that ICE was aiming to arrest 3,000 immigrants a day. In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, officers arrested on average more than 600 immigrants daily. But those numbers have risen sharply this past week.
Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California.
Orlando Mayorquín is a Times reporter covering California. He is based in Los Angeles.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
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