Approximately 400 people marched through downtown Long Beach Sunday afternoon to protest the federal government’s wave of aggressive immigration enforcement and agents’ recent killing of a man they’d wrestled to the ground in Minnesota.
Protesters rallied at Pine Avenue and Third Street before taking to the streets, weaving along major roadways including Ocean Boulevard and Long Beach Boulevard, sometimes redirected by police lines.
One resident of Alamitos Beach came with a sign she had repurposed from when she attended protests in Los Angeles over the summer, a time when President Donald Trump ordered the National Guard into the area. “I have about five signs since this president took office and started stomping all over the constitution, the rule of law, due process, kidnapping people — killing people now,” she said.
The protest, organized by the Party of Socialism and Liberation, comes after federal agents fatally shot two people this month in Minneapolis, where approximately 3,000 federal immigration agents are deployed in the “largest DHS operation ever,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Tensions in Minneapolis were already high after agents killed 37-year-old Renee Good, who appeared to be steering away from agents trying to remove her from her car on Jan. 7. On Saturday, agents pinned down, disarmed and then shot Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, who’d approached them holding a camera. Trump administration officials quickly labeled Good and Pretti “domestic terrorists” who were intent on killing or injuring immigration agents despite video evidence that appears to contradict this.
On Friday, thousands weathered subzero temperatures in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, demanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement end their operation; hundreds of businesses shuttered in solidarity as part of a general strike.
Other cities — including Los Angeles and Long Beach — have held vigils and protests in solidarity, and to demand Immigration and Customs Enforcement leave their own communities.
“We are heartbroken. But we are also angry,” said Priscilla, a Cal State Long Beach student who spoke to the crowd in Long Beach through a megaphone. “This is how we must honor our martyrs. We must use our anger to organize.”
While not currently on the scale of what’s happening in Minnesota, federal agents have continued ramped-up enforcement in Long Beach. They conducted a raid on Tuesday, seizing two men who were working as gardeners in the University Park Estates neighborhood — including one who said he was a U.S. citizen. DHS has not responded to the Long Beach Post’s request for information about Tuesday’s events.
Elected leaders of Long Beach denounced Pretti’s killing. “DHS agents have murdered a man on the street in Minnesota,” said Congresswoman Nanette Barragán, who represents parts of Long Beach and San Pedro. “Donald Trump and DHS are making our country more dangerous,” she wrote on X.
Congressman Robert Garcia, who represents Long Beach, took his strongest stance yet. “Kristi Noem must be impeached. ICE must be abolished. Democrats in the Senate cannot fund DHS,” he wrote on X. “These agents need to leave our cities NOW,” he wrote. Garcia has previously called for an independent investigation into ICE’s killing of Good.
Mayor Rex Richardson called federal agents’ shooting of Pretti on Saturday “inexcusable” and said it reflected the “dangerous consequences of unchecked federal overreach in our communities.”
At about 4 p.m., protesters began leaving downtown. Some said they planned to continue the rally outside a local hotel where they believed ICE agents were staying.