For days, amid immigration raids and ensuing protests, Los Angeles has been gripped by a tense, anxious quiet. The city’s downtown is plagued by the buzz of helicopters circling at night, unmarked vehicles are idling near homes and businesses, and widespread confusion has cast a sense of unease — a scene that’s amplified on television screens and news feeds across America.
Mayor Karen Bass (D) imposed an official curfew, but for many, there’s another one — the unspoken lockdown that’s left many families afraid to leave their homes at all. The threat of raids has created an atmosphere of paralysis, where daily life is suspended not by force, but by uncertainty.
For many in the city and across the country, this moment feels like a betrayal. Not just because of the cruelty of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, but because of the failures of a neoliberal order that was hammered home by Trump’s second victory and yet carries on nonetheless.
This broader policy failure is on full display in Los Angeles, a sanctuary city within a sanctuary state. Local governments sought to assure their communities that they would be safe from federal forces and deportations. And yet Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are there, moving through neighborhoods, detaining people, terrorizing families. That contradiction isn’t just a policy gap — it’s a crisis of meaning.
