TikTok captures harrowing ICE raids as US immigration arrests surge under Donald Trump order

According to New York Post, one surge day saw ICE arrest 2,200 individuals in a single, pushing the daily average towards a new mandatory quota of 3,000 arrests per day, more than double last year’s rate.

As the raids unfolded, social media videos, especially on TikTok, captured distressing scenes, including a distraught woman being filmed as ICE officers arrest her father outside his clothing store.

Others posting tearful appeals, including one woman organsing fundraising efforts to legalise her undocumented Guatemalan husband. In Los Angeles, the federal immigration agents were pelted with rocks by protesters who tried to block them from carrying out raids to arrest illegal immigrants on Saturday (June 7).

Cops in Los Angeles have finally intervened in response to escalating anti-ICE riots in the city after being ordered to stand by as protesters pelted federal immigration agents with rocks and tried to block them from carrying out raids to arrest illegal migrants on Saturday.

This resulted in 2,000 National Guard troops being activated in Los Angeles - the first domestic deployment under Title 10 since the 1992 riots. At that time, widespread violence broke out in reaction to the acquittal of four white police officers for brutally beating Black motorist Rodney King. The order to deploy the soldiers came from Donald Trump late on Saturday night.

The raids come as President Trump intensified his administration’s immigration crackdown by issuing Proclamation 10888, a directive that labels undocumented immigration as an “invasion” and authorises the expansion of expedited removal procedures deep into the U.S. interior, according to official documents and civil rights watchdogs including the ACLU.

In addition to executive action, the Laken Riley Act, passed by Congress in January 2025, now mandates the detention of undocumented individuals accused of crimes. The law also grants individual US states the authority to demand federal immigration enforcement in their jurisdictions.

Under new leadership at the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, agents have begun high-intensity raids targeting undocumented residents in homes, workplaces, hospitals, and even schools, according to multiple reports.

Trump has vigorously defended the sweeping raids, describing the nationwide deportation drive as fulfilling the “American people's mandate,” and reiterated that the surge is necessary to halt what he characterises as “an invasion” at the southern border.