By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan/ Democracy Now / Column / June 26, 2025 

With each passing day, the violence wielded by ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, grows more intense and widespread. One grotesquely emblematic example of this was the recent violent arrest of 48-year-old Narciso Barranco in Santa Ana, California. Narciso, a hardworking immigrant laborer who came from Mexico over thirty years ago, is the father of three US Marines. While landscaping outside an IHOP restaurant on June 21st, he was assaulted by at least seven armed, masked men, who tackled him and repeatedly punched him in the head. They handcuffed him and shoved him into an unmarked SUV. The plainclothes agents wore face masks, bullet-proof vests and military-grade helmets. Some of the vests read, “Police–US Border Patrol” on the back, but to anyone confronted by these gangs, no identifying marks, names, or badges were visible.

Image Credit: Instagram/@santaanaproblems

One of Narciso’s sons, Alejandro Barranco, a US Marine Corps veteran, was able to visit his father in jail. Narciso was still wearing the same work clothes that were bloodied in the assault.

“He looked beat up, he looked rough, he looked defeated, he was sad,” Alejandro said on the Democracy Now! news hour. “Anybody would be scared if they see these guys come up to them, masked, not in uniform, guns out.”

City of Santa Ana councilmember Jonathan Hernandez, also on Democracy Now!, added, “We are watching violence unfold, racial profiling increase in cities like Santa Ana, where 41% of our residents are migrants, 70% are of Latino descent…agents come into our community, and they’re refusing to identify themselves, they don’t have judicial warrants and these ICE raids are an example of the government’s overreach.”

In mid-June, President Trump briefly paused immigration raids on farms, hotels and restaurants, ostensibly to ensure these key industries that have supported him in the past continue to do so. “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote.

Soon after, he reversed himself. The short pause revealed a fundamental truth about undocumented immigrants: the US economy doesn’t function without them. Nevertheless, urged on by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, ICE, Homeland Security and Border agents are snatching and deporting the very workers on whom our economy depends.

There are some sectors of the economy that are thriving amidst the mass deportations. GEO Group, the private prison corporation, has seen its stock rise by over 50% since Trump’s election. Palantir, the tech and AI firm co-founded by Trump backer, billionaire Peter Thiel, has seen its stock rise over 500% in the past year. It was recently reported that Palantir is building tools to allow near real-time tracking of immigrants in the US. The Program on Government Oversight, POGO, reported that Stephen Miller’s financial disclosure reveals he owns up to $250,000 in Palantir stock.

Meanwhile, the Republican majority on the US Supreme Court has handed Trump a deportation-related victory. Several immigrants sued the government to stop or reverse deportations to Guatemala, South Sudan and Libya. A federal judge in Massachusetts issued an injunction against these so-called “third party nation removals.” This week, the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices overturned that injunction, without comment. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing that the Trump administration’s “flagrantly unlawful conduct,” backed by the Supreme Court, is “exposing thousands to the risk of torture or death.”

Resistance is active, growing and making a difference. Grassroots pressure and legal battles have won the release of international students targeted for their solidarity with Palestinians, among them Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and the first such student arrested and threatened with deportation, Mahmoud Khalil.

Likewise, grassroots, legal and Congressional pressure forced the Trump administration to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States. The Maryland father received asylum during Trump’s first term, in 2019, based on credible threats from an El Salvador gang. Then, this past March 12th, he was snatched from a parking lot and sent, against a court order, to El Salvador.

Under enormous legal and grassroots pressure, the federal government finally returned Abrego Garcia to the US. Despite that victory, upon his return the federal government promptly rearrested him, charging him with human trafficking for allegedly driving undocumented immigrants several years ago. He remains in federal custody in Tennessee, and, if released, ICE will likely attempt to deport him.

Meanwhile, Narciso Barranco sits in ICE detention, with his two sons still on active duty in the US Marines not far away, at Fort Pendleton. It is past time to unmask the violent agents targeting people like Narciso, and halt Trump’s racist, xenophobic mass detentions and deportations.