By admin 
The federal government will no longer prosecute a labor leader who was arrested and injured while protesting deportation raids in downtown Los Angeles last year.
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Federal prosecutors in the Central District of California filed a motion Monday to drop a misdemeanor charge of impeding a federal police officer against SEIU-United Service Workers West President David Huerta.
Huerta initially faced a felony charge that carried a maximum sentence of six years in prison after immigration officers slammed him on the pavement and arrested him in June 2025 after he joined a protest outside the Metropolitan Detention Center. The charges were later downgraded, and Huerta was set to go to trial next month, according to court records.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a Monday motion that “pursuant to an agreement of the parties” it would drop its case against Huerta.
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“This 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,” Huerta said in a statement. “There was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights.”
California leaders from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to Gov. Gavin Newsom had rallied around Huerta’s case as an example of federal overreach after the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon sent in federal troops to protect immigration officers carrying out raids against immigrant garment district workers.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of Huerta’s lawyers was Abbe Lowell, the high-powered Washington, D.C. attorney who is also representing Newsom in a separate DOJ probe into Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s finances.
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