The primary organization behind the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests that swept through Los Angeles last week is headed by Carlos Montes, a longtime left-wing radical who cofounded a militant group, has praised terrorists, and has faced several FBI and police investigations.
In the late 1960s, Montes cofounded the Brown Berets, a paramilitary-style organization modeled after the Black Panthers that emerged during the Chicano movement. He was later accused of starting fires at a Los Angeles hotel where then-Gov. Ronald Reagan was speaking and had his home raided as part of a federal investigation seeking potential ties to terrorist organizations. While charges didn’t stick, Montes has been a staunch proponent of radical leftist movements for decades and has pushed pro-Hamas sentiment.
More recently, Centro Community Service Organization (CSO), under Montes’s leadership, has been the primary organizer behind the protests that gripped Los Angeles following President Donald Trump's swearing in, a Washington Free Beacon review of social media posts found.
"Join plans for J20 rally: Legalization for All, No Deportations, Women and Reproductive Rights & Stand with Palestine!" Montes wrote on Facebook advertising an Inauguration Day protest. Several left-wing organizations endorsed the protest, including Unión del Barrio, a radical left-wing militant group offering "self-defense" training to combat ICE raids, the Free Beacon has reported.
Centro CSO organized more intense protests between Jan. 31 to Feb. 9 as Trump's deportations began to take shape. Left-wing activists blocked major roads and highways, engaged in acts of felony vandalism, assaulted police officers, and a teenager was even stabbed.
Such protests are par for the course for Montes. On his personal website, the Centro CSO chief touts his leadership within the Brown Berets, where he served as a minister of information, and boasts about working alongside major figures in the Marxist-Leninist Black Panthers militant group.
Montes "worked to forge alliances with the Black Panther Party and supported the Free Huey Newton political prisoner’s campaign. Worked with Bunchy Carter and John Huggins of the Black Panther LA Chapter and established Black and Brown relations," his website reads.
In 1970, Montes went "underground" due to "heavy repression and threats"—until Los Angeles police arrested him in 1977, according to his website. He was among a group of Chicano radicals accused of starting fires in a Los Angeles hotel as Reagan was giving a speech in 1969—one year before Montes went into hiding. He was ultimately found not guilty.
In 2011, Los Angeles police descended on Montes’s home in an early morning raid. They had a warrant to search through his computer, phones, and other devices as well as look for guns—illegal for him to own because of a felony conviction for throwing a soda can at a police officer during a 1969 protest.
Montes claimed that when he was put in the back of a squad car, a plainclothes FBI agent asked him about the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO)—a Marxist-Leninist organization working to "build a new, revolutionary, communist party" in the United States.
The raid was apparently part of an FBI investigation into the FRSO’s Anti-War Committee, Los Angeles Magazine reported. The bureau launched the probe after two FRSO members told an undercover informant that the committee raised money for two designated terrorist organizations: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Montes claimed the Obama administration’s FBI investigation was part of an effort to suppress and harass legitimate protesters.
Most of the charges against Montes were dropped, but he pleaded no contest to a felony perjury charge stemming from a firearms violation: He had falsely sworn that he’d never been convicted of a felony while buying a shotgun. He was sentenced to three years probation and 180 hours of community service.
Despite his arrests, Montes has been a consistent champion of left-wing causes. His website claims he "participated in solidarity with the El Salvadorian revolutionary struggle" in 1992 and formed an activist group in Cuba. He backed the 1994 armed Zapatista uprising in Mexico, though it isn’t clear what support he gave. Montes joined socialist celebrations in Nicaragua in 2022 and in Venezuela in 2023.
In the late 1990s, Montes assumed control over the Los Angeles activist group, Community Service Organization, and reorganized it into Centro CSO. He’s used the group to organize protests against law enforcement, to push "full legalization" for illegal immigrants, and to bring "an end to ICE repression." Centro CSO has committed to organizing "for the rights of the undocumented, quality public education, and supporting, in solidarity, other communities seeking social justice."
While the group is not a legally established nonprofit, it does solicit donations. A recent GoFundMe page lists Montes as the beneficiary of the nearly $9,000 raised.
Centro CSO was a driving organizer behind nearly a dozen highly disruptive anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles last week, the Free Beacon’s review found. While the Legalization For All Network made the formal call to action, the group’s website listed Centro CSO as the only Los Angeles organizer.
"STOP ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS!! WEEK OF ACTION 1/31-2/9," read a Legalization For All Instagram post that listed Centro CSO as a collaborator. "Join chapters of the L4A Network in holding protests and other actions from coast to coast to fight back against Trump’s racist executive orders and demand no more deportations!!!"
Some protests encouraged students from local schools to walk out of their classes, while others were supported by FRSO, which Montes is a member of. FRSO’s Los Angeles chapter frequently credited Centro CSO for the demonstrations, including the major Feb. 2 protest in which thousands of protesters shut down the 101 Freeway and clashed with law enforcement before dispersing in the evening.
"Tens of thousands of Chicanos hit the streets of Los Angeles to demand an end to the attacks on Raza! They want an end to deportations! They want Migra out of our barrios!" Centro CSO wrote on Instagram that day.
While ICE has not conducted any targeted operations in Los Angeles since Trump took office, the agency is scheduled to conduct a "large scale" deportation raid in the city by the end of February, according to an internal government document reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. ICE has focused on removing dangerous aliens with criminal records, resulting in 11,000 arrests as of Monday.
Montes and Centro CSO have also participated in dozens of anti-Israel demonstrations, including pro-Hamas protests. In the wake of the terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Centro CSO announced that it stood "in complete solidarity with the Palestinian people in their resistance against Israel."
"We in Centro CSO in Boyle Heights and our sister chapter, CSO Orange County unequivocally stand in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers, sisters and families in their resistance against apartheid and occupation by Israel," Centro CSO wrote in an Oct. 25, 2023, statement. "We support the resistance against the genocidal regime that has dispossessed Palestinians for 75 years."
On the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, Centro CSO organized a protest celebrating the massacre and blamed Israel for committing "genocide." Photos and video of the event consistently showed Montes as a leading figure at the protest.
"This October marks one year of since Israel’s Zionist genocide in Palestine. Join us in the streets of Boyle Heights to stand against the Zionist occupation that has been backed by the U.S. and stand in solidarity with Palestinians!" the group wrote on Instagram.
Earlier, in 2017, Montes posted an article to his Facebook page praising the PFLP, including its secretary general, Ahmad Sa’adat, and Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, the PFLP leader responsible for the 2001 murder of Israeli minister Rehavam Ze'evi
Centro CSO did not respond to a request for comment. Montes directed an inquiry to a representative, who reacted to a Free Beacon text with a heart emoji.