Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the Long Beach Civic Center on Tuesday, June 10, to protest recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the Los Angeles area and to ask the City Council to allocate additional money to a local fund supporting legal services for immigrants.
The gathering began with about 100 people at Harvey Milk Park in downtown Long Beach, where demonstrators gathered before marching to the Civic Center, just a few blocks down the road.
Robert Marquez, with Time and Space — a company that does community organizing — helped plan the march from Harvey Milk Park to City Hall on Tuesday. The march, a precursor to the 5 p.m. rally hosted by community organization Orale, was put together in an effort to show support for Long Beach’s immigrant community, Marquez said.
Just before 5 p.m., the crowd had grown to about 300 people, many donning signs decrying ICE and the Trump administration’s actions.
“This is a very deeply personal issue. This is our family, culture, friends, neighbors,” Marquez said. “Our neighbors are scared — that’s reality.”
Marquez said he personally has family and community members staying home from work to avoid interactions with ICE.
“To be unfairly approached without due process — for the ones that don’t have legal status — we’re fighting for those rights,” Marquez said. “We’re fighting for due process.”
Long Beach’s gathering, which grew to around 500 at the Civic Center, came amid ongoing protests in Downtown Los Angeles, where protestors continued demonstrating against ICE’s presence for a fourth day on Tuesday.
After the rally at City Hall, some protesters remained and started taking over a portion of Ocean Blvd and Chestnut Avenue.
By around 8 p.m. LBPD had called the protest an “unlawful assembly.” LBPD blocked the protesters from moving east on the street so protesters moved around the police and moved west heading toward Pacific Avenue.
By 9 p.m. the protest had been completely dispersed — and police on motorcycles and in police cars, some wearing riot gear, returned to the LBPD headquarters next to City Hall.
Federal authorities followed multiple immigration raids around Los Angeles on Friday, June 6, with another action on Saturday — this time gathering in a Home Depot parking lot in Paramount. Following ICE clashes with protestors in Paramount, Trump announced he would deploy around 2,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles to “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said.
That news was met with an even larger response from protestors. More than 1,000 people shut down the 101 Freeway on Saturday, June 7. Video on social media showed California National Guard troops with riot shields pushing protestors into the streets, as well as tear gas being deployed and less-than-lethal rounds exploding in the roadway.
Trump’s decision to federalize the National Guard has been met with sharp criticism, including in a joint statement from every Democratic governor in the country — which called the decision “an alarming abuse of power.
Overnight protests continued on Monday, June 9, after the Trump administration announced that about 700 Marines would soon be deployed to Los Angeles, further increasing tensions between law enforcement and protestors after the arrival of the National Guard in the area.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has challenged President Donald Trump’s move to send troops into his state, filed an emergency motion on Tuesday to block Marines and the National Guard from what he called “the illegal deployment of Marines and National Guard in Los Angeles.”
Federal officials told members of Congress on Tuesday that it would cost $134 million to send the troops to L.A. and defended Trump’s decision to do so, saying they are needed to protect federal agents as they do their jobs.
In Long Beach, city officials have been vocal about the damaging impacts of federal law enforcement agencies in the area.
“Let’s be clear: recent ICE actions are meant to create fear and division in our communities. We won’t be divided in Long Beach,” Mayor Rex Richardson wrote on social media on Tuesday. “You have the right to feel safe in your schools, home, workplace and neighborhood — no matter your documentation status. We’re staying vigilant and working with trusted partners to keep you informed. If you want to help, support local immigrant rights organizations.”
Tuesday’s Long Beach demonstration, meanwhile, focused on urging the City Council to allocate additional money to the Long Beach Justice Fund — a program that provides legal help for low-income immigrants at risk of deportation who live or work in Long Beach, according to the city’s website.
“We’re calling support for the Long Beach Justice Fund because our community needs these crucial services,” said Romeo Hebron, executive director of the Filipino Migrant Center. “We need people to be able to know their rights, to be empowered, and to know that they’re not alone.”
The rally was organized in part by local nonprofit Órale, which works to support immigrant protections, resources and more, and has been a longtime advocate and steward of the Justice Fund.
The demonstrators are asking the city to allocate 2.2 million to the Justice Fund for fiscal year 2026 – double the amount in the current budget.
Other recipients of Justice Fund dollars include United Cambodian Community, the Filipino Migrant Center and Al Otro Lado.
Since its establishment, according to Órale’s website, the Justice Fund has helped provide a better sense of safety for immigrants living in Long Beach, increased education about the immigration system, and more.
The Justice Fund has represented more than 70 clients, including 16 children, since 2019, according to the city. It has also helped 18 people get work permits.
“However, community advocates who make referrals to the program have also identified several growth areas for the program,” the website says, “both in terms of the types of cases residents require legal assistance with and in terms of how the program liaises with clients, their families, and other advocates.”
Advocates argue that those existing challenges, now coupled with the Trump administration’s promises to bolster federal immigration action and its mass deportation agenda, additional Justice Fund support is needed.
Services provided by the Justice Fund aren’t getting to the community in time, organizers said, because they don’t have consistent structural funding. Most of their allocations from the city are one-time funds.
“Neither contractors nor the community can count on the Justice Fund continuing beyond the most modest of services,” said one rally leader, who declined to give her name for safety reasons. “That means that services are not getting to our community in time.”
Most people supported by the Justice Fund also have to travel outside of Long Beach for legal counsel, organizers said.
But more — and more consistent — funding could help fix that problem, organizers said.
“Structural funding on a larger scale would allow legal service providers to fully invest in Long Beach and open an office here,” the rally leader said. “But we can’t do that unless we win $2.2 million.”
Organizers also asked the City Council to put the Long Beach Values Act on an upcoming agenda to ensure local law enforcement doesn’t cooperate with ICE. The City Council, though, reaffirmed the values act in January.
Staff writer Christina Merino contributed to this report
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