Queer singer Doechii spoke out against the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant raids during her acceptance speech after winning the title of Best Female Hip-hop Artist at the 2025 BET Awards on Tuesday night. Trump has deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and National Guard troops, working with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), to conduct anti-immigrant raids and suppress pro-immigrant protests.
“There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order,” she said. “Trump is using military forces to stop a protest, and I want y’all to consider what kind of government it appears to be when every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us. What type of government is that?”
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Trans actress Jen Richards injured by anti-immigrant officers during Los Angeles raids
She shared an image of her injuries on Instagram.
“People are being swept up and torn from their families, and I feel it’s my responsibility as an artist to use this moment to speak up for all oppressed people: For Black people, for Latino people, for trans people, for the people in Gaza,” she continued. “We all deserve to live in hope and not in fear, and I hope we stand together, my brothers and my sisters, against hate and we protest against it. Thank you, BET.”
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Los Angelinos began protesting after ICE agents conducted weekend anti-immigrant raids in the neighborhoods of Compton and Paramount — specifically at two Home Depots, a doughnut shop, and a clothing warehouse in the Fashion District — that led to at least 118 arrests by Sunday, NDTV reported.
In response, crowds confronted the agents’ vehicles, began chanting for ICE officers to leave, and protests consisting of hundreds of people amassed outside federal buildings and detention centers, and blocked the 101 Highway, calling for the release of detainees.
Legal officials began declaring the protests as unlawful assemblies and used teargas and rubber bullets against protestors while making arrests for obstruction. Amid the resulting tumult, some vandals set fire to a police cruiser, shattered windows in the LAPD headquarters, set fire to trash bins, and painted graffiti on about a dozen buildings, CBS News reported.
In response, Trump deployed 2,000 troops from California’s National Guard to Los Angeles, marking the first time in nearly 60 years that any president has federalized the National Guard without that state’s consent, The Washington Post reported. Both California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass publicly slammed the deployment as an unwarranted escalation.
“When you raid Home Depots and workplaces when you tear parents and children apart… you cause fear and panic,” Bass said. Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (CA) accused Trump of inflaming the situation in an attempt to declare martial law so he could further suppress local protesters.
Newsom sued the Trump administration on Monday, calling their deployment without his consent “unconstitutional.”
“Democracy is in the balance. I mean, you’re seeing these authoritarian tendencies that are being acted out by this administration, and we’re a case in point as it relates to nationalizing, federalizing, the National Guard, threatening now to put in Marines,” he said, referencing a threat by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to deploy Marines if unrest escalates.
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