Late-night noise latest tactic used in LA immigration protests: ‘No sleep for ICE'

USA Today

9 hours ago

The clanging of pots and pans. The steady thud of beating drums. The honking of passing cars with waving flags sticking out the window. Bands playing traditional Mexican songs. Speakers shouting into megaphones. Chants coming from dozens of people.
All unfolding into the middle of the night outside the Home2 Suites by Hilton in Montebello, California in late June.
The goal of this latest protest? Make as much noise as possible to try and keep U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from sleeping and force them elsewhere.
'They were just making noise, playing music, and some people were dancing,' said Verita Topete, a leader of the immigration committee with Centro CSO, who took part in the protest. 'A lot of people were holding signs saying, 'ICE is not welcome here.''
She said she arrived by 8:30 p.m. on June 20, and before she knew it, a crowd began to show up on the sidewalk outside the hotel.
By 10 p.m., dozens more protestors joined the group, and they didn't disperse until 3 a.m. Topete said that the next day they returned with enough people to take over the two-lane street to block people from going into the front of the hotel.
The protests were part of a nightly 'No Sleep for ICE' campaign in and around Los Angeles County, where protestors gather outside the hotels ICE agents are staying at and make noise to put pressure on the hotel staff to kick ICE out and prevent agents from sleeping.
Topete said the protest is important 'to apply pressure and let city and state officials know that we don't agree with this' at a time when 'ICE agents are hunting down our working class community members as if they're criminals, throwing them to the pavement and taking them away from their workplaces.'
During the second night in Montebello, Topete said a band showed up with drums and guitars and many people were dancing to traditional Mexican songs like "Caballo Dorado" and "La Chona." Others attended went with their families. While most people were on foot, others passed by in their cars waving Mexican flags and honking their horns.
'It was a very peaceful protest, just very noisy,' she said.
An ICE spokesperson pushed back on the protests when asked for comment about the demonstrations outside of hotels.
'This violence is fueled by a disinformation campaign, which includes dangerous rhetoric by local elected officials," the ICE spokesperson said. "Our brave officers are out there every day enforcing the laws set by Congress, removing public safety threats from communities.'
A spokesperson for Hilton hotels did not return a request for comment.
Noise protests first begin in early June
Other noise protests include one on June 8, two days after ICE began its raids in Los Angeles. Community members rallied outside of the AC Hotel in Pasadena, about 10 miles from Los Angeles, to protest ICE agents' staying there. Hundreds of people had shown up outside the hotel in the early afternoon after a photo of ICE vehicles parked outside the hotel circulated on local group chats and social media pages.
When some of the first protestors arrived, they learned that many of the hotel workers had left in fear. They chanted 'Chinga la Migra' and 'Fuera ICE,' and by the evening, the agents were kicked out of the hotel. Since then, protestors have continued rallying together outside hotels every night.
'The point is to drive ICE out of these hotels, and make their existence impossible here,' said Andrew Guerrero, a law student at UCLA and PhD candidate at Harvard University. 'We don't want them to be able to access these amenities. We don't want our local neighborhoods to be harboring what a lot of us consider kidnappers.'
Guerrero said he has attended multiple protests outside hotels in Los Angeles County, including ones in Hacienda Heights, Downey, Long Beach and Montebello. He said the protests 'let it be known that they cannot sleep peacefully when they're in our neighborhoods.'
He attended a protest outside the Hilton in Montebello the day before Topete. When he got there around 11 p.m., he said there were already dozens of people, significantly larger than some of the other hotel protests he had been to. He said he brought pots and pans, a speaker, and a case of water for the protestors.
'It's like a little community building around it,' Guerrero said. 'Folks are going to multiple protests in one night and sharing resources and knowledge about what's happening and trying to keep each other informed.'
Guerrero said the protests have also drawn support from those staying at the hotel. He said one man who came out of the hotel was nodding at the protestors, and another family going into the hotel gave them a thumbs up. He said that he sympathizes with anyone else staying there who might feel like 'it's creating a hostile environment' but he believes 'it is a legitimate and just reason that this disruption is occurring.'
'It feels like we're under an occupation, and you just hear back to back stories, like, 'They took this person, they took this person,'' Guerrero said. 'They're literally disappearing people.'
Law enforcement push back
Some protests have been met with law enforcement resistance.
When Kuali Aleman, an indigenous organizer and artist, arrived at a protest outside the DoubleTree by Hilton in Whittier, California, on June 11, she saw many people marching up and down the street with flags and signs. Other protestors stood huddled by the entrance of the hotel chanting 'no one is illegal on stolen land' and 'get the f out of LA.' People were also blasting music through speakers and their cars or revving their motorcycles.
But not long after that, Aleman said Whittier police came out of the hotel and began launching less lethal weapons into the crowd. She said the protestors ran for cover, but not long after, they came back and resumed the protest.
'We just continued to protest and raise our voices because we don't like what's happening,' Aleman said. 'We demand answers because our friends or their relatives, neighbors, kids, adults, everyone of all ages, of all backgrounds, are being abducted.'
The Whittier Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Aleman said the decision to send federal agents to hotels in Los Angeles is a waste of resources that could otherwise have been put into community resources.
'It just doesn't make any sense to concentrate all our resources and manpower or people power on capturing hard working people, people who are just trying to survive, selling fruit on the street or working in construction or on the fields or working anywhere, just not committing any crimes,' Aleman said.
Topete said it is 'crazy to see how many cities are allowing ICE agents' to stay in their hotels. However, she said she is proud to see people taking to the streets to protest peacefully.
'I love seeing that the community is coming out and speaking up for undocumented community members that are being kidnapped,' Topete said. 'We have power over authority if everybody were to unite and come together, they just need to be fearless and not be scared to stand up for our people.'