{"id":414016,"date":"2026-07-27T16:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414016\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:51:08","slug":"a-year-after-california-labor-leader-arrested-at-immigration-protest-feds-move-to-drop-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414016\/","title":{"rendered":"A year after California labor leader arrested at immigration protest, feds move to drop case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Federal prosecutors on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the case against David Huerta, the labor leader who was arrested during the first day of a series of immigration raids that the Trump administration carried out in the region last summer.<\/p>\n

In the court filing, prosecutors said \u201cpursuant to an agreement of the parties,\u201d they were moving to dismiss the indictment against Huerta<\/a>, the president of the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, who was detained by federal agents while documenting an immigration raid on June 6.<\/p>\n

The government initially charged Huerta with a felony count of conspiracy to impede an officer, but later downgraded it <\/a>to a misdemeanor charge of \u201cobstruction resistance or opposition of a federal officer.\u201d He was set to go to trial next month.<\/p>\n

At the time of his arrest, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in L.A., blasted Huerta\u2019s photo on X,<\/a> stating, \u201cLet me be clear: I don\u2019t care who you are\u2014if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Los Angeles maintained that the Department of Justice \u201cdoes not arrest people for peacefully protesting\u201d and that since Huerta\u2019s arrest he \u201chas not engaged in the same obstructive behavior that led to his arrest and criminal charges being filed against him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Huerta has agreed to accept responsibility for his actions,\u201d the office said. \u201cPursuant to an agreement entered into with our office, if Mr. Huerta continues to comply with his pretrial release terms, we expect the criminal case against him to be fully dismissed by the end of next month.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Huerta hailed the move for a dismissal as vindication he did nothing wrong. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis means the government is finally admitting what we knew from day one and what was obvious to anyone who saw the videos: the charge against me was baseless, meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out, organize, or demand justice,\u201d Huerta said in a statement. \u201cThere was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest protest case that has unraveled<\/a> for the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in L.A. Under Essayli, federal prosecutors in L.A. have aggressively charged protesters with assaulting and impeding the actions of immigration agents, filing more than 100 cases.<\/p>\n

According to data from June, prosecutors have secured guilty pleas in 40 of those cases \u2014 but lost nearly every case that has gone to trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case revealed that the Department of Justice was willing to charge a labor leader with a crime, hold it over him for months, and then walk away from it once the charge couldn\u2019t survive scrutiny,\u201d Huerta\u2019s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Marilyn Bednarski, said in a joint statement. \u201cThat is not how a justice system is supposed to work. Our country needs more brave leaders like David Huerta to stand up for the wrongs they see around them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal prosecutors on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the case against David Huerta, the labor leader who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[237,5781,7,9,165673,8,1436,14748,9978,14627,3979,2624,719,2303,346,3025,165674,5783],"class_list":["post-414016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-arrest","tag-bill-essayli","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-labor-leader","tag-california-news","tag-case","tag-criminal-charge","tag-david-huerta","tag-federal-prosecutor","tag-immigration-raid","tag-june","tag-justice","tag-l-a","tag-office","tag-statement","tag-trial-next-month","tag-u-s-attorney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}