<\/p>\n
Federal agents slammed<\/span> California labor leader David Huerta, 58, into the Los Angeles sidewalk. They had already sprayed him with tear gas. Huerta could barely open his eyes as federal law enforcement officers dragged his body away, the crowd screaming in protest. He spent three days in federal custody before being released on charges of obstructing an ICE raid on an apparel store.<\/p>\n That was June. In the months since, labor unions have been galvanized against President Donald Trump\u2019s deportation machine, challenging the president in the streets<\/a>, the courtroom<\/a>, and at the ballot box \u2014 and helping an American labor movement historically rife with divisions over immigration and race to coalesce.<\/p>\n \u201cIn their attempts to silence me, they gave me a louder platform,\u201d Huerta, the California president of the Service Employees International Union and also president of SEIU-United Service Workers West, said in an interview with The Intercept. \u201c[People] saw, if this could happen to a labor leader, a prominent leader, it could happen to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Huerta\u2019s arrest, labor unions \u2014 including SEIU, AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Union of Southern Service Workers \u2014 have helped lead thousands of demonstrations<\/a> against Trump\u2019s immigration policies, which they argue have largely targeted the working class, including many in their unions. The energy has spread far beyond the LA storefront where Huerta was arrested \u2014 spanning across cities like Seattle, Boston, and New York. Huerta\u2019s arrest and the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids<\/a> across the country have injected renewed fervor in an organized labor movement that has been in decline since the presidency of Ronald Reagan<\/a>, and now faces an existential threat from Trump\u2019s anti-labor agenda.<\/p>\n The labor movement in the United States used to be \u201cvery anti-immigration,\u201d said Jacob Remes, a labor historian and a professor at New York University. But that\u2019s changed, particularly as immigrants have come to represent a higher share of the U.S. working class and its union membership. <\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s a sign \u2026 of understanding that the American working class is not entirely immigrants, but has a lot of immigrants,\u201d Remes said. \u201cAnd a recognition that we\u2019re not going to solve problems by scapegoating immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration has largely failed to take this into account, and may have \u201coverreached,\u201d Huerta said. <\/p>\n \u201cIn their deportation of immigrants, by labeling them criminals, and then coming at them by any means,\u201d said Huerta, who is pleading not guilty to his charges which were reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, \u201cI think it has really created an \u2018us\u2019 vs. \u2018them\u2019 environment.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hundreds of workers<\/span> traveled<\/a> from North Carolina to Louisiana in late June to call for an end to ICE raids; for Congress not to pass the \u201cBig, Beautiful, Bill,\u201d which injected billions of dollars into ICE<\/a> and detention facilities<\/a>; and for Trump to release every immigrant unjustly held in detention. The demonstration culminated in two protests outside of detention centers, in \u201cDetention-alley,\u201d a term for the 14 massive immigration detention centers scattered along the Southeast.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were standing there in solidarity,\u201d said Nashon Blount, a housekeeper at Duke University and a member of the Union of Southern Service Workers who attended the June protest, \u201cletting them know that we\u2019re here. That we\u2019re going to stand with ya\u2019ll regardless.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cICE is always going to melt in the South, because we bring the heat.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n\n