AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

As mass raids continue to terrorize communities nationwide, we look now at the grassroots response and the people who are organizing and fighting back. ICE has faced widespread backlash over the arrest of community advocates who have been swept up while documenting raids, including U.S. citizens.

In Los Angeles, a nurse and community activist was released from federal custody this weekend without criminal charge, after she was arrested early Friday morning while recording the operations of ICE agents. Amanda Trebach is a member of the group Unión del Barrio. She was participating in a peace patrol outside Terminal Island, a Coast Guard base that’s used by ICE and Customs and Border Protection as a hub to prepare and deploy agents for raids across California. Dozens of volunteers have routinely stationed outside Terminal Island to monitor the movement of the federal vehicles streaming in and out of the staging area. Terminal Island was once a thriving Japanese American fishing village that was demolished during World War II, its residents forcibly sent to internment camps.

Footage of Amanda Trebach’s arrest Friday morning shows two plainclothes, masked agents pinning her against the pavement as they kneel on her back to handcuff her. One of the agents is seen putting his knee on Trebach’s head for a brief moment as a person recording yells, “Get off her head!”

EYEWITNESS 1: Filming you.

EYEWITNESS 2: Get off her head!

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

EYEWITNESS 2: Get off! Your knee is on her [bleep] head!

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

EYEWITNESS 2: Get it off!

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

ICE AGENT 1: Get back. Get back. Get back.

EYEWITNESS 2: Get off her head!

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

ICE AGENT 1: Get back. Get back.

ICE AGENT 2: You better get back.

AMANDA TREBACH: Get off me!

ICE AGENT 1: Get back. Get back.

EYEWITNESS 1: This is public property, sir. This is public property.

EYEWITNESS 2: Streaming live, this is ICE beating her up. They’ve got a knee on her head.

ICE AGENT 1: Scoot back.

EYEWITNESS 2: I am where I need to be: 10 feet. So…

ICE AGENT 2: Can you guys get her in the van?

AMANDA TREBACH: Sir?

EYEWITNESS 2: You OK?

AMANDA TREBACH: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Amanda Trebach is a U.S. citizen. She was then forced into an unmarked, black van by at least six unidentified agents. Her release Saturday came amid pressure from activists and protests, with the National Nurses United union describing the efforts as, quote, “a testament to the power of organizing resistance and solidarity against the ongoing attacks by the Trump administration on our lives and livelihoods,” unquote.

For more, we go to Los Angeles, where we’re joined by Ron Gochez, high school history teacher, community organizer with Unión del Barrio, Amanda’s group.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Ron. We don’t have a lot of time. Can you describe what happened and what continues to happen? Amanda is one example. And ultimately, while she was detained, what got her out?

RON GOCHEZ: Yeah, good morning. Thank you for having me.

What happened is another intimidation attempt by the U.S. government against Unión del Barrio and against the movement that’s defending our community. Amanda was doing what she’s done every single day, and that is to document cars going in and out of Terminal Island, which is a military base where ICE has been using for staging.

And so, when they — they had already identified her before. And when they saw her again, they strategically went at her, they attacked her, and they kidnapped her. And so, they threw her into an unidentified vehicle, they took her away, and then they actually came back with her in a different vehicle, and they unlawfully went into her vehicle and took her backpack. They seized her backpack from her vehicle, without a warrant, without her permission.

And so, this is just another example of the Trump administration and their fascist ICE agents — or whoever they are, because they’re unidentified — violating the rights and breaking the law that they’re supposed to protect.

AMY GOODMAN: Did they ever charge her?

RON GOCHEZ: As of now, she has not faced any charges. She was released because of the pressure of the community. They, themselves, the place we were calling that was holding her, said that they had received over 500 calls in that day. So, we organized the community. We mobilized people. The nurses’ unions, people from all over the country offered their support.

And we’re lucky — we’re lucky and happy to have Amanda free, but we know that there’s still thousands of our people who have been kidnapped, who are not free. And we’re fighting for the liberation of all of our community members who have been kidnapped by these masked, armed, violent men, who don’t identify themselves, who can do whatever they want. They drive around Los Angeles with no license plates. They’re just — they’re armed and dangerous. And that’s why we warn our community about their activity, so that the people can protect themselves, because obviously the police department doesn’t protect us. The politicians don’t protect us. Only the people, only we, ourselves, can organize and defend ourselves.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s astounding that they’re allowed to be masked. I remember when if a police officer covered their number on their shirt, there were grounds to punish them. That was just the number that would identify them on their shirt. Now they can be masked and hooded. Tell us about Unión del Barrio and what these peace patrols are that Amanda was on?

RON GOCHEZ: Yeah, when the second Trump administration was about to begin, we knew that we didn’t have the people power to cover all of Los Angeles, so we started training a lot more people, and we created a coalition called the Community Self-Defense Coalition. To now, there’s more than 70 organizations that are part of the coalition, and we’ve trained them all to do community patrols.

What that is is that we drive around our neighborhoods, we look for any type of suspicious vehicles or any type of ICE activity, so that we can document and then alert the community, so that our people have the chance to defend themselves, protect themselves and their families from being kidnapped. And so, this is peaceful work. We don’t advocate for violence. We don’t break any laws. We have a legal team who’s advised us on what we can and cannot do. So we’re really clear about what we’re doing. We train people, and we’re all over Los Angeles. And there isn’t — there isn’t a corner in the city where an ICE raid can happen where we won’t know about it in less than five minutes. And we can deploy our members to go to document and to defend the community. That’s the type of work that Amanda was doing heroically. That’s the type of work that we’re doing every day.

As a teacher right now, we’re getting ready to go back to school. This Thursday, school starts in Los Angeles, and there’s a lot of fear on the part of students, parents and teachers, and so we have to get our city ready, because we know that these ICE raids, although they did slow down a bit, they have continued, and we have to defend ourselves. We have to be organized in case anything happens near one of our schools.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have 20 seconds, Ron. I just talked to California Attorney General Bonta, who’s brought dozens of lawsuits against Trump. Yet your organization is accusing the California police of working with ICE.

RON GOCHEZ: Absolutely. You know, while the legal folks are fighting in the courtrooms, we’re fighting in the streets. And while they’re having winning battles in the courtroom, we’re winning battle in the streets. We know that what’s happening right now with the LAPD and sheriffs in Los Angeles is complete collaboration with these ICE raids. They protect — 

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there — 

RON GOCHEZ: They do logistical protection for the operations. So —

AMY GOODMAN: — but we’re going to do a Spanish interview at democracynow.org.

RON GOCHEZ: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Ron Gochez with Unión del Barrio. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.