California union leader's arrest at immigration protest sparks outcry

Washington Post

4 hours ago

A prominent labor leader on Monday faced charges of conspiring to impede federal immigration enforcement efforts, while his arrest last week in California sparked nationwide demonstrations and accusations of a politically motivated prosecution.
David Huerta — head of the Service Employees International Union of California, the state's largest public sector union — was arrested Friday while rallying demonstrators outside a worksite immigration raid near downtown Los Angeles. He was released from custody Monday, after a brief court appearance, on a $50,000 bond.
Democratic officials, the union leader's supporters and some legal experts criticized the decision to charge him as yet another instance of the Trump administration wielding the justice system to target outspoken critics. Huerta is among several officials — including a judge in Wisconsin and a New Jersey congresswoman — to face felony prosecution and the threat of prison time for alleged behavior in opposition to President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agenda.
'It looks like the Justice Department wants to try and make an example out of him. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) told reporters, before attending Huerta's court hearing Monday in Los Angeles. 'But this is part of the Trump playbook. They selectively use the Justice Department to go after their adversaries. It's what they do.'
Charging documents made public before the proceeding described a tense standoff between protesters and agents carrying out the immigration raid Friday. Huerta allegedly rallied the crowd to sit down and picket in front of the warehouse's gate to block authorities from entering.
As a law enforcement van approached, Huerta allegedly refused to move. And when an officer 'put his hands' on Huerta to move him, Huerta allegedly pushed back, the affidavit states.
'What are you going to do?' Huerta shouted at the agents, according to the affidavit. 'You can't arrest all of us.'
Video of the incident appears to show the officer shoving Huerta, who stands with his hands on his hips near the front of the van. Huerta stumbles backward and eventually falls to the ground. Officers take him into custody.
'Let me be clear: I don't care who you are — if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted,' Bill Essayli, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, said in a post on X shortly after Huerta's arrest.
On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and California's two Democratic senators — Schiff and Alex Padilla — called the arrest 'deeply troubling' in a letter to Trump administration officials and demanded an explanation.
The SEIU organized demonstrations in cities across the country including Washington, Atlanta, Boston and Philadelphia. In Los Angeles, a city that has seen four days of demonstrations and Trump's deployment of National Guard troops, the union's international president April Verrett rallied a crowd that gathered downtown to call for Huerta's release.
'We know bullies,' she said. 'When you pick a fight with one of us, you pick a fight with all of us.'
Since Trump's return to the White House, the Justice Department has directed federal prosecutors across the country to investigate — and potentially charge — state and local officials who interfere with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
They made good on that threat in April, arresting Hannah Dugan, a state judge in Wisconsin, for allegedly helping a man avoid arrest by immigration officials as he appeared before her court.
Last month, federal prosecutors in New Jersey charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-New Jersey) with assaulting federal agents during a clash that erupted between protesters and authorities at an immigration detention center in Newark. Both have denied the charges and vowed to take their cases to trial.
Trump on Monday suggested that the administration's border official Tom Homan should arrest California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), too, accusing him of obstructing the immigration sweeps and encouraging protests in his state.
'I think it's great,' Trump told reporters at the White House. 'Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.'
Newsom responded minutes later in a social media post on X, calling it 'an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.'
'The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor,' he wrote. 'This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.'
Marilyn Bednarski, an attorney for Huerta, did not respond to a request for comment Monday about the union leader's case.
Some legal experts who reviewed the charging documents filed against Huerta said that prosecutors may ultimately be able to prove their case in court — that he worked with others to disrupt the immigration raid at the warehouse.
But Carol Lam, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California under President George W. Bush, said that incidents like the one that ended with Huerta's arrest left the impression that the goal of some of the administration's immigration enforcement efforts is to engage in fights with protesters.
'The problem here is really one of proportionality,' she said. 'There was no effort at de-escalation. Good law enforcement understands that part of their job is to de-escalate, and I see none of that here.'
Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney in Arizona under Bush, said it would be unusual to see the specific conspiracy count with which Huerta was charged taken to trial as a felony — unless, Charlton added, 'this administration was trying to prove a point.'
'I would be very surprised if this wasn't quickly turned around to a misdemeanor and resolved in that way,' he said. 'It's a resource issue, and then you have to have a charge that reflects the seriousness of the offense.'
No matter how the case is resolved, Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University who studies the erosion of democracies, saw a greater danger in the decision to prosecute Huerta and other administration critics in the first place — a risk that America is 'sleepwalking' into what he described as a period of autocracy.
'Americans still to this day — and I'm not talking about everyday Americans — I'm talking about politicians, CEOs, major civic leaders — they're reading about union leaders and politicians getting arrested and they still don't believe that it's happening here,' Levitsky said.
Brianna Tucker in Washington and Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Roebuck, Wu and Stein reported from Washington. Wingett Sanchez reported from Phoenix.