Mass deportations, national divides
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Out of nowhere, I guess, on the leg. And a large number of police right around the corner who have been firing tear gas and rubber bullets. The reporter from the Australian network Channel 9 was hit in the leg by a policeman who appeared to aim at her.

Mass deportation plans, street protests, a showdown between Washington and California. As federal immigration cracks down intensify and local leaders push back, immigration has once again taken center stage in American politics. In this deep dive episode, CGTN journalist Han Peng examines what's driving the divide and where the country might be headed next. It's Thursday, June 19th.

So it's been almost two weeks since the ICE provoked protests in LA because of the arrests of the undocumented immigrants. And there have been a lot of spillover protests all around the country, even far beyond LA. In where you are, in DC, how are things holding up? Are you seeing any protests in DC because of the LA arrests?

In DC it's okay, perhaps because of the military parade, there's a heightened security control here over the past few days. But the protests are indeed spreading beyond LA. Major cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, they also rallies against Trump's immigration policies with clashes erupting between demonstrators and also law enforcement. Texas, which is actually a red state,

you know, supporting Trump, but also has major cities being blue, you know, supporting Democrats. It is also on the border of US and Mexico. They are actually preemptively deployed National Guard troops already, a bit fierce and escalating tensions. So it's spreading from place to place. Right. So even in the red states, there are protests against the undocumented immigration arrests led by Trump. Yes, there are blue cities in red states too.

Yeah, and so just last Sunday, Trump again urged the ICE to do all in their power to achieve the single largest mass deportation program in history. So since Trump had tripled the daily arrest quota for ICE, how close are them to reaching those targets? Is it getting close to what Trump is hoping to achieve?

I got to say that ICE is really working hard, no matter for whom, it's working hard on Trump's goals. They increased their daily arrests from 600 to over 2,000 since Trump's inauguration in January. But Trump's daily target is 3,000 people. So ICE is still short of nearly 1,000 arrests a day.

Actually, to meet the quotas, ICE has resorted to indiscriminate raids in schools, workplaces, and even churches, sparking panic in many of the Latino communities here in the US because most of the undocumented workers come from the Latin American countries.

So the agency's aggressive tactics, including using tear gas and deploying military-grade equipment, have triggered public anger here in the U.S. But still, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented population here in the U.S., which means that even if ICE keeps working extremely hard,

hard, you know, like today, with tear gas and military-grade equipment all over the place. To keep the current 2,000 daily arrests, in Trump's four years, they can only arrest a total of less than 3 million out of the estimated 11 million. So, you know, the problem is still there. It won't significantly reduce the number.

Right, so from 600 to 2,000 daily arrests, that's also tripling what they were achieving in the past. But still, in order to achieve this, Trump had...

specifically ordered immigration office to prioritize deportations from democratic run cities. One of them is Los Angeles and the city had become a sanctuary state in 2017 for undocumented immigrants. And I learned that the city's immigration friendly practices could trace back all the way to maybe the 1970s.

So given this long-standing sanctuary policies in LA, does it look like Trump's targeting of Los Angeles? Does it look like a calculated political move to provoke backlash? Because most people would anticipate a strong fight back and resistance from the city given its history.

Well, let me share some of my viewpoints on this. There might be comments, not just facts. But my personal understanding is both sides are staging a show here. Both parties here, the politicians in both parties are staging a show. And they are both gaining from the tensions in LA. You know, like a win-win situation for Trump, Republicans, and also the Democrats.

you know, for Trump, you know, as I said, no matter how hard ICE works, they can only arrest less than a third of the undocumented population. But why does Trump still get so determined on

on doing all this despite all the clashes, tear gas protests and everything. From my point of view, Trump's administration is not avoiding, but actually on the contrary, is aiming at provoking a backlash and frame the Democrats as being soft on crimes. That's what Trump kept saying. In this way, you know, all the news headlines in the US, probably in the world, will rally

will help rally Trump's own base. His unprecedented deployment of, for example, 2,000 National Guard troops without Governor Newsom's

violated decades of federal state norms, testing constitutional boundaries. And then all the newspapers are talking about it. In this way, Trump can actually show to his own supporters that you see, I'm working very hard. I'm even working in terms of, in the way of having all these conflicts and clashes and violating some sort of norms.

so that I can help you to reduce all these immigrants. In this way, I can make way for more jobs for the American workers. That's a way for Trump to consolidate his power

own base. Also, you know, when the Democrats are blaming Trump, the more, the harder, you know, the Democrats blames Trump, the more he is seen, he can be seen by his own voters as being tough, you know, on his 2024 campaign promise to liberate cities from democratic chaos, that's what he says. And this can also help divert attention from economic issues like, you know, rising tariffs and then, you know, chicken out, like some of the say, some people call it. Right.

Right. So Trump is taking this opportunity to rally his political bases. And on the other side for the Democrats, Californian governor Gavin Newsom has been also particularly active on media in pushing back and criticizing and commenting on a lot of Trump's policies and operations in California.

And he has seemingly become a leader that rallies Democrats against Republicans. At the same time, just within the last few days, Newsom had responded to

a Republican farmer on Twitter or X.com, and the farmer had called out the Californian governor to stop, and I'm quoting, auditioning for the 2028 presidential primary.

So there's a lot of these speculations and readings into this spat between Democrats and Republicans. So does Newsom also, has he been waiting for Trump to join this race to take the bait? I think so. As I said, it's a win-win situation to keep the tension there for the politicians of both sides. Democrats are no angel. You know, Democratic strongholds, California,

And also, especially LA, it has weaponized the so-called sanctuary policies to portray themselves as the defender of the so-called democratic values. Almost right after Trump was elected in November last year, LA city council passed a bill with a 13 to zero vote, making the city a sanctuary city. What does this mean?

This means that this bill requires all government officials in LA City not to collaborate with the federal agencies, which mainly is ICE, law enforcement, such as arresting immigrants. So it's open, like a declaring war on Trump's immigration policy and also on the law enforcement on the ground.

So it seems like a strategic provocation against the Trump administration already back there in November. And the clashes in LA today were almost like, you know, destined to happen since last November. You know, then in the clashes, politicians of the Democrats can portray themselves, you know, as the face of liberty, resistance to the so-called authoritarian Trump, you know, diversity,

whatever good words they like to use. They like to do that a lot. And as the LA clashes escalates,

California Governor Newsom, as you said, for example, is already reported by several US and UK mainstream media as the new Democratic leader, suggesting him to be the 2028 presidential hopeful. So in a word, by refusing to cooperate with Trump's eyes, California's Democratic politicians have strategically provoked the federal intervention there.

you know with trump uh sending troops there allowing the democrats to amplify trump's so-called authoritarian image which is politically not correct for democrats and also supporters and then you know trump on the other hand you know uses the democrats provocation to launch retaliation it's a cycle of provocation and retaliation which is helping both parties to gain politically

As I said, it's like a win-win situation for politicians on both sides, and they both have the incentive to keep the tensions there.

only the people are losing. So the seed for today's conflict that we're seeing may have already been planted in November last year when the bill was passed 13 to 0 to amplify its sanctuary status for the undocumented immigrants. And while there's a lot of coverage and immediate attention that's been given to this political dispute between Democrats and Republicans,

there's much fewer attention given to the undocumented immigrants who are at the center of this topic. It's more important, actually. Yeah. For California, how are undocumented immigrants shaping up the economy and the services over there? And more importantly, to what extent does LA situation reflect a larger picture for the entire country when it comes to undocumented immigrants?

Actually, the undocumented immigrants are critical to California's $3.6 trillion economy. They comprise nearly 15% of its workforce in sectors like agriculture, construction, hospitality. Their labor contributes $90 billion annually in the state and also local taxes. However, they lack accesses to healthcare and social services.

L.A.'s crisis is actually a national paradox of the U.S. States like Texas or

Florida, you know, red states are actually also relying on immigrant laborers. They enforce stricter policies and creating a patchwork of laws that destabilizes communities. So the clashes are actually every day because the economy of, you know, everything I mentioned just now is everywhere. So, you know, Trump's deportation drive actually risks raising labor shortages, particularly in farming, which is actually

70% of the workers are immigrants. Economically, it's actually more important than all these political shows that we are talking about just now. Yeah, because most people know that in history, America has largely been a country that's based on immigrants. Looking back, how has the public opinion been evolving when it comes to the immigration topics? And

When it comes to Trump and Newsom, what's making their stance on this issue so drastically different as we are seeing on media today?

Actually, I got to say that this issue has become more and more divisive and polarized here in the US. Before the immigration issue was polarized, actually, the way the US government treats immigrants is like this. During the economic booms, the undocumented immigrants are actually welcomed and viewed as the so-called cheap labor. And then during the economic downturns, they are the scapegoats of the American job losses.

So, you know, it's not the right way to treat people, but economically it seems to be working for a long time. And the undocumented immigrants, how do they feel? Maybe the politicians don't care. They are unhappy, but they seem to be okay with it because they are all desperate to have a better income in the U.S. They are all from very poor countries.

However, this issue becomes more and more polarized, especially since 2015. We still remember at the time it was still the Obama administration, and then there were many of the undocumented immigrants coming to the US. They called them dreamers, saying that they are pursuing dreams. And Obama was kind of lenient on whatever is going on for the immigrants. However, Trump suddenly showed up as the presidential candidate, and then he started to say that we're going to build a wall.

in Mexico, near Mexico. And also he said that we're going to, you know, we call all of the all of the Mexicans rapists. You know, that's what Trump said. So that's that's what's time. This issue becomes more than just the unfair way of economically treating these immigrants in the boom and bust. But rather, it's more like Trump is the person who is always against the immigrants. Well, the Democrats became the person who are representing

Like what I said, democracy, diversity, all these values the US government kept saying in the political correctness. So after that, this issue became more and more serious. Trump became the president in 2016, and then he built walls for four years. And then Biden later became the president, and then he started opening the borders for four years. So this issue became even more...

the conflicts became even more severe. And then Trump, when he was talking about immigrants, he got that bullet going through his ear. And then he became the president. And now he's saying that, okay, I'm gonna do all these tough policies on immigrants, arresting people, having all this indiscriminate race of the schools, churches and everywhere. So this issue,

I don't know. It seems that no one is trying to back off on this. Economically, in the cities, people need undocumented workers because it helps to keep the labor costs low. All the families need cheaper labor from time to time to, for example, mow their lawns and also to be the nannies, for example. Well, there are people supporting Trump saying that these people are stealing our jobs.

And no one is actually looking at economies anymore. Everyone is looking at ideological pursuit of the parties. Right, their own pockets. And so in looking back in history, the public opinion toward undocumented immigrants has been shifting. When the economy is good, they welcome immigrants. And when the economy is bad, then they try to push them away.

And also over the past two weeks, there have been protests around the country against Trump's tough policies. But let's remember that just last year during the national election, Trump had a sweeping victory in all seven swing states. So it does look like there's a lot of people that are sided with Trump's tough immigration policies.

And does that suggest a national pivot toward stricter immigration policies?

I think Trump got this sweeping win in 2024 for a variety of reasons. Right. Not just about the immigration policies. The Biden administration had all these failures, which even the Democrats are still reflecting today, you know, why they lost the election, you know, in such a big way. So while Trump's 2024 sweep of swing states like Michigan and

and Arizona, for example, reflects the anti-immigrant sentiment in the Rust Belt regions. It doesn't actually represent a nationwide consensus for this particular issue. California, for example, and other blue states remain committed to the so-called "sumptuary policies," but it's just that LA going that far to say that no local officials should collaborate with ICE. But other countries have a similar sentiment.

but other cities have a similar sentiment. And even some of the Republicans oppose Trump's very extreme measures on the immigrants too. So the US is increasingly divided on the immigration with federal state conflicts like California likely to intensify.

as both parties are trying to weaponize this issue for their next election, for 2026 midterm and also 2028 presidential election. Right. So and at this time, this issue is still an ongoing unfolding and we'll keep following this matter as it unfolds. Thank you very much for joining this program, Hanpeng. Thank you.

As immigrants and activists rally in streets across major U.S. cities, federal authorities are escalating enforcement. Meanwhile, Los Angeles mayor lifted the downtown curfew Tuesday after nearly two weeks, but blamed the White House for fueling protest chaos. She warned the curfew could return if tensions flare again.

And that brings us to the end of this episode of Deep Dive. If you enjoyed what you just heard, don't forget to follow us on your podcast platforms. Just search for Deep Dive. You can also leave a comment to let us know what you want to learn about China and beyond. This episode is brought to you by me, Li Yunqi, and my colleagues Zhang Zhang and Qi Zhi. Special thanks to CGTN journalist Han Peng. I'll see you in the next one.