LA college faculty member encourages students to attend anti-ICE protest amid violent riots
A faculty member at Glendale Community College (GCC) in Los Angeles County encouraged students to attend an anti-ICE rally to 'disrupt and slow ICE incursions.'
In recent days, rioters set cars on fire, looted stores and vandalized buildings in response to the deportation operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles.
A faculty member at Glendale Community College (GCC) in Los Angeles County, California, encouraged students to attend an anti-ICE rally in the wake of violent protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles.
On Sunday afernoon, Julie Gamberg, an English instructor, sent an email to students promoting an anti-ICE demonstration with the Democratic Socialists of America LA (DSA LA) chapter urging students to “disrupt and slow ICE incursions.”
Faculty at Glendale Community College and other institutions have been advised by their respective administrations NOT TO interfere with DHS or ICE activities.
Julie Gamberg is a full-time English teacher at GCC, California. She is encouraging her students via email to attend… pic.twitter.com/t2CwnoqIoy— Sarah Fields (@SarahisCensored) June 9, 2025
The rally is a response to authorities’ arrest of 45 illegal immigrants in Los Angeles, which included individuals convicted of murder, sexual assault, and cruelty to a child, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The arrests were met with a violent reaction from protesters in recent days.
Vandals set cars on fire, blocked a major highway, looted stores, and vandalized buildings while waving Mexican flags. Rioters set fire to an American flag and spray painted “Death to Amerikka” and “Death to ICE” on buildings.
The chaos prompted President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard on Saturday.
🚨The streets in LA officially belong to the rioters pic.twitter.com/de8eGGAH4p
— Cam Higby | America First 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) June 9, 2025
“These rioters in Los Angeles are fighting to keep rapists, murderers, and other violent criminals loose on Los Angeles streets,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated in a press release.
Gamberg encouraged students to join the June 9 protest in downtown LA, which aims to “demand justice for detained immigrants and an end to the ongoing human rights abuses by ICE,” according to the event web page.
Protesters will rally against immigration authorities and “demand” the release of “unjustly detained individuals,” such as recently arrested David Huerta.
Huerta is a California union leader who was arrested for allegedly interfering with immigration authorities and “deliberately blocking a law enforcement vehicle” as officers conducted enforcement operations, The New York Times reported.
The protest is being advertised on social media by the LA chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, which is “the largest socialist organization in the United States” and operates through campus and community chapters.
“This weekend’s shocking and violent raids in Los Angeles are meant to be a show of force from the Trump regime. This is about instilling fear and terrorizing Angelenos,” DSA LA shared on Instagram.
Campus Reform is tracking responses to the LA riots from university faculty members across the country.
Georgetown Law Professor Stephen Vladeck called Trump’s deployment of the National Guard a “dangerous legal & political escalation of what’s going on in and around Los Angeles.”
Via “One First,” me on President Trump’s “Presidential Memorandum” purporting to federalize 2000 California National Guard troops—and how the move is both a modest *and* dangerous legal & political escalation of what’s going on in and around Los Angeles:https://t.co/FrzDiSKFdD
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 8, 2025
Vladeck argued that the administration’s response was an “unnecessary escalation of events in a context in which no local or state authorities have requested such federal assistance” in a June 7 blog post on Substack.
He asserted that “there’s the very real possibility that having federal troops on the ground will only raise the risk of escalating violence.”
University of California, Berkeley Emeritus Professor of Public Policy Robert Reich expressed similar sentiment.
“We are witnessing the first stages of Trump’s police state,” Reich wrote in an opinion column in The Guardian.
“These are frightening and depressing times. But remember: although it takes one authoritarian to establish a police state, it takes just 3.5% of a population to topple him and end it,” Reich stated.
Campus Reform contacted Glendale Community College for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
