ICE’s big payday makes mass deportation possible

FOR MORE THAN a month Los Angeles has been subject to countless immigration raids. Certain places are regular targets: car washes, Home Depots, bus stops, street markets. One video taken in the Ladera Heights neighbourhood shows federal agents pinning Celina Ramirez to a tree. They are wearing bullet-proof vests, masks, hats and sunglasses to hide their faces, and guns strapped to their sides. Ms Ramirez had been selling tacos near a Home Depot. The agents shove her into a van, deploy tear gas at onlookers who were recording the encounter, and race off. She was probably taken to the basement of the federal detention centre, where troops are still stationed outside.