{"id":414256,"date":"2026-07-27T20:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414256\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T20:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:02:10","slug":"us-justice-department-dismisses-charges-against-california-union-leader-ice-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414256\/","title":{"rendered":"US justice department dismisses charges against California union leader | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has moved to dismiss charges against a prominent California union<\/a> leader who was arrested while protesting an immigration raid in Los Angeles last year, in the latest US government case against protesters to fall apart.<\/p>\n

David Huerta, the president of Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West, was arrested at a June 2025 demonstration and has been fighting the charges ever since. On Monday, the US attorney\u2019s office in LA filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.<\/p>\n

Huerta was initially charged with \u201cconspiracy to impede an officer\u201d, a serious felony, though prosecutors earlier this year downgraded those charges to a misdemeanor of \u201cobstruction, resistance, or opposition of a federal officer\u201d. The misdemeanor is now on track for dismissal.<\/p>\n

The justice department in Los Angeles has aggressively prosecuted<\/a> immigrants and protesters for \u201cimpeding\u201d and \u201cassaulting\u201d immigration officers, but many of those cases have collapsed in court<\/a>, with prosecutors facing a stunning streak of losses when the charges have gone to trial<\/a>.<\/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 on Monday. \u201cThere was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The charges against Huerta stemmed from a 6 June 2025 protest against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in LA\u2019s garment district<\/a> at the start of the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on immigrant communities in southern California.<\/p>\n

Huerta\u2019s arrest was partially caught on camera<\/a>, with footage showing him on the ground<\/a> and agents on top of him during chaotic confrontations between officers and protesters. He was arrested and charged based on claims he was blocking a gate in front of a business\u2019s warehouse where immigration agents were trying to make arrests.<\/p>\n

Huerta was hospitalized<\/a> after his arrest, and his prosecution became one of the first high-profile criminal cases against a demonstrator objecting to ICE\u2019s operations. The charges sparked widespread outrage, with the LA mayor, Karen Bass, criticizing the federal government for targeting \u201cone of the most respected labor leaders in this country\u201d and treating him \u201clike a criminal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Huerta\u2019s union represents thousands of security officers, janitors, airport workers and other laborers across California<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his statement on Monday, Huerta said he had been \u201csingled out\u201d for \u201cloudly\u201d questioning agents\u2019 actions during the raid, and he recalled officers tackling and pepper-spraying him before he was detained: \u201cI consider myself fortunate to have been only detained, considering the murders in Minneapolis, Houston, Miami, and the deplorable conditions at federal detention centers throughout the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The justice department\u2019s filing on Monday did not specify the reason for the dismissal, saying all parties agreed for the case to be dropped. Prosecutors\u2019 motion called for the case to be fully dismissed \u201cwith prejudice\u201d by the end of August, meaning charges could not be brought again, a major victory for Huerta and his lawyers.<\/p>\n

Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the US attorney in LA, defended the prosecution in a statement, saying: \u201cThe Department of Justice does not arrest people for peacefully protesting.\u201d McEvoy said the DoJ had reached an agreement with Huerta stipulating that if he continued to comply with the terms of his pre-trial release, the case would be entirely dropped.<\/p>\n

McEvoy also said Huerta had \u201cagreed to accept responsibility for his actions\u201d, though no agreement has been filed in the case, and the justice department spokesperson did not respond to requests for a copy of any agreement. Huerta did not accept responsibility for any criminal activity in his statement to reporters, which decried Trump\u2019s \u201cweaponization of the judicial system\u201d.<\/p>\n

Huerta\u2019s lawyers, Abbe David Lowell and Marilyn Bednarski, said in a statement that he had been arrested for \u201cpeacefully protesting\u201d and exercising his first amendment rights: \u201cThis case, like others, sought to silence criticism of the administration\u2019s improper immigration actions. Today\u2019s filing is proof that David and other critics will not be silenced.<\/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 the lawyers said. \u201cThat is not how a justice system is supposed to work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Justice (DoJ) has moved to dismiss charges against a prominent California union leader who was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-414256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414256","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=414256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}