ICE Raids: A Domestic Failure That Hurts U.S. Hegemonic Influence

Since early June, my city, Los Angeles, has been experiencing an all-out aggressive immigration enforcement campaign from the Trump administration. From targeting street vendors to garment factory workers, viral videos have continued to flood social media pages of community members being forcibly detained by masked military-like officials, subsequent protests against these targetings, and reports highlighting detainees' lack of due process. With more troops in Los Angeles present than deployed in Syria or Iraq, Los Angeles has become militarised, as ICE infiltrates the city, terrorising neighbourhoods and disrupting the local economy.

Between these protests against ICE enforcement and the No Kings Day rally turnout, Los Angeles has been the topic of reports globally, as resistance continues to grow against the authoritarianism that Trump is continuing to exert. This, coupled with the forceful attack on California US Senator Alex Padilla at a US Homeland Security Press conference and racist remarks from Vice President JD Vance, Los Angeles, a city known for its international appeal of US popular culture, is slowly becoming the theatre for a show of America’s weakening soft power, as the harsh shadows of aggressive, authoritarian immigration enforcement and divisive rhetoric dim the glow of America’s diplomatic influence and public diplomacy efforts worldwide.

In June alone, more than 1,600 immigrants were detained in Southern California. Nationally, this number paints a larger picture, with 56,937 immigrants in custody, 46% of whom have had no criminal history.  Of those detained, several reports highlighted situations in which Latino U.S. citizens were captured, a blatant unconstitutional act, igniting not only fear in the community but calling attention to a continual American characteristic and domestic policy failure: racial profiling. 

L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis posted a statement on social media echoing this, informing constituents that federal agents were targeting residents “based on their skin color.” Stating later in an interview with the LA Times, “It is an attack, not just on our immigrant community, but [on] people of color.”

Throughout American history, whether it was post 9/11 targeting of Muslim Americans or systemic discrimination against Black Americans across policing practices, racial profiling has been a consistent factor in American politics, culture, and law enforcement activities for communities of colour. In nearly all cases, identity becomes probable cause, and concerning immigration, citizenship offers no shield against suspicion. The acts of profiling ICE enforcement and Trump’s immigration agenda reflect a more profound sentiment than 21st-century politics, as these situations are rooted in the U.S.’s imperialist past, in which interventions in Latin America were often justified through hard power and racialised narratives.

These narratives, such as “Manifest Destiny” or the “Monroe Doctrine,” which often frame US actions as efforts to promote democracy or stability in the region, were more often fuelled by stereotypes about Latin American people, which continue to shape how Latinos are viewed and treated in today’s America. Trump’s comments during a White House meeting referring to immigration from “shithole countries” is not fundamentally different from Woodrow Wilson saying “I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men,” after US interventions in Mexico in 1914 and 1916. With Trump reversing course on deportations of farm, hotel, and restaurant workers, his actions are no different than those of President Franklin Roosevelt, who devised the exploitative 1942 Bracero program, which exploited Mexican citizens’ labor during and after World War II.

This logic of seeing people from the Global South as inferior and only worth their work has continued over time and grown stronger with MAGA rhetoric, dehumanising the populations of these vast countries in the process. Rooted in a mindset of imperialism and hierarchy that informs both foreign and domestic policies, these sentiments betray what we know to be successful soft power and public diplomacy. With images of racialised enforcement agencies and people self-deporting, sharing these nightmares of treatment of its citizens, and building America’s image and influence abroad, the U.S. will no longer be seen as a safeguard for democracy or a pillar for justice, but be viewed for its raw colours of evolving authoritarianism and deeply rooted racism.

“Mexicans living in the United States are good, honest men and women who left to seek a better life for themselves and to support their families,” shared President Claudia Sheinbaum in a press conference. “They are not criminals, they’re heroes.”

As I continue to watch my city become a battleground for Latinos to exist and Trump’s agenda to play out, I often ponder the question of what this will all mean for all Americans. As news cycles change and silence continues to empower the autocrat in charge, I am left thinking about the future of lives that are consistently politicised, lives that are forever changed every time the systemic failures and cyclical impulses of the US win.

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion