Protests erupt in New York City and Los Angeles over immigration raids

Immigration protesters in NYC
(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Hundreds of protesters turned out in New York City and Los Angeles Thursday and Friday nights to protest news of a surge in arrests of undocumented immigrants in at least six states.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says this week's arrests were merely an escalation of routine raids targeting illegal immigrants with criminal records. "Examples would include known street gang members, child sex offenders, and deportable foreign nationals with significant drug trafficking convictions," said an agency representative.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.