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An Ivy League-educated activist and a socialist union worker are plotting to take their California anti-ICE playbook coast-to-coast – assembling a network of protesters to block federal immigration operations.
Caleb Soto, a Los Angeles lawyer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and Thomas Malone, a San Fernando Valley Democratic Socialists of America leader, traveled east last week to school New York socialists on militant tactics to interfere with federal immigration enforcement at local businesses.
Soto – who branded ICE and Border Patrol agents “armed thug kidnappers” during a radical huddle in the Big Apple – touts a Harvard University degree in social studies on his LinkedIn profile.
The rabble-rouser, who has reportedly participated in a string of LA-based standoffs with federal authorities, graduated from the elite institution in 2009 before heading to Yale Law School, where he earned his law degree in 2014.
A year later, Soto joined the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a nationwide group aimed at improving the lives of day laborers, as a workers’ rights director, his profile shows.
Soto whined to Al Jazeera last June that a downtown LA standoff with federal agents erupted into chaos, leaving at least 80 people detained – and only three lawyers scrambling to provide legal aid.
“The chaotic manner of the raids that we saw today happening throughout Los Angeles and different day-labour worksites and garment worker work sites was an example of the purpose of what this Trump administration has set out to do, which is create as much fear as possible,” Soto told the outlet.
He accused ICE agents of raiding Golden State worksites and arresting immigrants without warrants, claiming the officers lie in wait for suspects to flee before swooping in.
“They use that as the pretext to start arresting people who are there in that area and around them,” Soto said, adding, “We find that to be pretty unconstitutional.”
Malone, a career activist, works as an external organizer for SEIU Local 721, mobilizing labor protests and campaigns across Los Angeles – including prowling Home Depot parking lots to intercept ICE.
The DSA member, part of the Bread and Roses Caucus, often lectures other activist groups on his experiences clashing with federal agents during waves of LA protests.
Malone, a 2023 art history graduate from California State Polytechnic University, told Green Left in June how agents reacted violently to agitators obstructing operations – explaining the Signal chats are used to coordinate warnings and monitor their activity.
“The media and politicians are pushing this idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ protesters, just like they did during the BLM protests,” he told the lefty resistance movement.
“But the Trump administration doesn’t care about that distinction, it considers them all as ‘bad’ and worth prosecuting. This is a massive overreach of the federal level that, separately from the protests spreading, could lead to a constitutional crisis for us.”
English (US)