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

(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.

But protesters contend that is an inaccurate description of the raids, which they believe have broken up families and affected many people with no criminal history. "Oftentimes folks' liberties and their rights are violated during ICE raids," said Los Angeles protester Jessica Valenzuela, "where they're picked up without having adequate access to counsel, and that's one of the biggest concerns." See scenes from each city's protests below. Bonnie Kristian

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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.