UCLA student groups and labor unions joined thousands of protesters in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to condemn violent acts by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the U.S. military’s intervention in Venezuela.

Demonstrators – including UC union members and UCLA’s chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation – protested the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and the shooting of U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week.

The U.S. initiated a large-scale military operation in Venezuela on Jan. 3, capturing Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. U.S. forces also dropped bombs that killed 100 people, said Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister of Venezuela.

The operation followed months of the U.S. aggregating military personnel and vehicles near Venezuelan shores, according to the Associated Press.

ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good, who was sitting in her car in a neighborhood where Ross and other agents were conducting immigration enforcement actions, Jan. 7. Video footage taken from Ross’s cell phone and a witness at the scene depicted Good driving away from the officers and Ross shooting her three times.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents deployed chemical agents on a group of several hundred protesters and journalists in LA late afternoon Saturday. A September preliminary injunction prohibits homeland security agents from deploying crowd control measures on journalists and peaceful protesters.

DHS did not respond in time to a request for comment on their use of force.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation, who organized the Saturday protest collaboratively with Democratic Socialists of America and anti-Trump group, also previously protested Jan. 3 to decry the Venezuelan bombings and ousting of Maduro. Members of the UCLA chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America protested alongside the socialist groups Jan. 3.

Demonstrators assembled Saturday in Pershing Square starting at 2 p.m., filling the park and eventually spilling into the street at about 2:30 p.m.

Grace Fulcher, a third-year psychology student and member of the Students for Socialism at UCLA, said her club attended the protest to stand against what she sees as ICE brutalizing both undocumented people and U.S. citizens.

Fulcher added that the club also sought to protest the recent military action in Venezuela.

“Trump has no right to invade and kidnap the president of a sovereign nation,” Fulcher said. “Trump is trying to manufacture consent with the U.S. population by stating that this is something that they want to happen.”

Other protesters included members of United Auto Workers Local 4811, a union which represents 48,000 academic and postdoctoral researchers across the UC, and University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America Local 9119, which represents 18,000 UC researchers and technical workers.

Ursula Quinn, an occupational therapist and co-chair of the UCLA chapter of UPTE-CWA 9119, attended the protest with her daughter. Quinn said the events of the past week had put strain on her patients.

“It’s been such a horrendous week, somebody being murdered in cold blood on the streets,” Quinn said. “As a worker, this has a direct impact on us. I see it in the patients that are coming in, in fear and dealing with trauma. … It has a horrendous effect.”

Quinn added that she hopes the protest energizes people to resist in more ways than just protesting.

Cole Salton, a member of UAW Local 4811 and a law student at UC Berkeley, said his union decided to attend the demonstration as a group.

“Kidnapping the president of Venezuela hurts the working class as a whole, in the same way that ICE’s terror hurts the working class as a whole,” he said. “That’s why it’s in the interest of unions to stand against both of those.”

Representatives from different progressive and immigration activist organizations gave speeches at the protest, along with California State Senator Sasha Renée Pérez, who demanded Ross be charged with first-degree murder for killing Good.

Protesters held signs calling for the abolition of ICE, justice for Good and what they deemed an end to war in Venezuela. They also repeated chants such as “No more blood for oil, hands off Venezuelan soil,” and “No ICE, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”

The group began marching through downtown LA at 3:30 p.m., eventually stopping outside the Metropolitan Detention Center which houses almost 1,000 people. Protesters chanted “No están solos,” or “You are not alone” in Spanish.

Fulcher said that the majority of protesters departed the detention center and marched toward City Hall by 4:45 p.m.

Several hundred protesters remained outside the center, and walked onto a loading dock where DHS agents in riot gear stood, separated from the crowd by a gate. A voice blared from behind the gate ordering protesters to disperse at about 4:50 p.m.

Most protesters continued to stand outside without moving DHS agents deployed a chemical agent after playing the message a second time, which protesters and members of the media ran away from.

Demonstrators retreated to the sidewalk, pounding drums and utility boxes.

A line of LAPD vehicles and officers carrying less-than-lethal weapons barricaded one side of the street by 6 p.m., restricting protesters’ ability to exit. At 6:11 p.m., LAPD declared an unlawful assembly, warning protesters to disperse within five minutes.

Several people were arrested, including one for battery of a police officer, after the dispersal order, LAPD said in an X post.

LAPD did not respond in time to a request for comment on its barricade and declaration of an unlawful assembly.

“People of all backgrounds showed up to let our leaders know that the people are angry at the government’s actions at home and abroad,” Fulcher said. “If we all work together, we can make this country one that benefits all humanity.”