LOS ANGELES — Amid a storm of protest and arrests in downtown Los Angeles, immigration authorities appear to be intensifying operations across Southern California as federal officials vow to press ahead with a crackdown on workers and residents without proper documents.

The immigration sweeps have spread fear and uncertainty across the region and forced some into hiding. Federal agents have been reported outside schools, workplaces and even churches, according to advocates.

At the same time, Los Angeles Police Department officials report increasing success in quelling violence and property damage in the city’s core, thanks in part to an 8 p.m. curfew imposed this week. The number of people taken into custody during the protests declined sharply Wednesday, down to 81 from 225 a day earlier, according to police.

Since last Friday, when federal immigration officers supported by armored vehicles conducted an immigration raid in the Garment District downtown, Los Angeles has been the center stage of the national immigration debate and whom the government prioritizes for deportation.

The sweep was met with swift and furious backlash from community members, who surrounded the scene to protest the enforcement actions. More confrontations followed over the weekend in Paramount and since then in pockets around the county where agents are detaining immigrants without proper documents — about two-thirds of whom so far have no criminal records, according to White House officials.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said during a press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday that federal agents will “continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city.”

“We are not going away,” she said. “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city.”

Noem’s comments were briefly interrupted when U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, began moving toward the lectern and was promptly removed. Noem declined to say how many people have been detained and deported over the past week in Los Angeles. She urged people to self-deport.

“We have tens of thousands of targets we will be going after,” she said.

On Wednesday, masked federal agents detained at least 12 people from businesses in Downey, but community members were able to discourage them from taking one man without proper documents.

In a video of the encounter, the unidentified man can be seen sitting on the ground surrounded by masked agents who had chased him down. The man spotted Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his job and rode away on his bicycle, but one of the masked men grabbed his tire, causing him to fall, ABC7 reported.

Melyssa Rivas recorded community members peppering federal agents with questions about why they were chasing the man. It’s unclear what prompted the agents to leave the scene.

“It looked like a full-on kidnapping scene out of a movie, it was scary,” Rivas told ABC 7.

Downey Councilman Mario Trujillo said the raids are “creating a culture of fear” that’s prompting people, even with documents, to stay home for fear they could be targeted by federal agents simply for being Latino.

The downtown area, which had already been hurting amid a tenuous economy, is now a ghost town, Trujillo said. While he understands that immigration agents have a job to do, Trujillo questions the necessity of grabbing workers trying to support their families and people just trying to go about their daily lives.

“We’re supposed to be made feel safe by this agency because they’re removing bad people,” he said. “That’s what they’re supposed to be doing.”

“We’re starting to feel that we’re the only race that’s being targeted because it’s easy pickings because of the color of our skin,” Trujillo said. “That’s what it’s starting to feel like — racial profiling.”

As the response from the federal government has ramped up — first bringing in the National Guard and then the Marines — so have the demonstrations.

At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the LAPD announced it would be arresting all protesters who remained downtown. Fifteen minutes later, the protest had dwindled to a few dozen demonstrators corralled outside the county courthouse.

Seemingly resigned to their fate, protesters began to sit on the road and write the number of bail support on their arms. More than a hundred law enforcement officers surrounded them on the block.

Los Angeles police on Wednesday arrested 71 people suspected of failing to disperse and 7 people for alleged curfew violations. Two people were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer and one person was taken into custody on suspicion of resisting a police officer, according to LAPD.

A day earlier, Mayor Karen Bass enacted a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. for most of downtown L.A. in an effort to quell violence and vandalism. That night, 17 people were arrested on suspicion of violating curfew, police said.

The curfew, which is expected to remain in place for several days, encompasses the downtown Civic Center, including City Hall, the main county criminal courthouse, LAPD headquarters and federal buildings, which has been the target of protests and resulted in property damage and arrests.

As hundreds have protested peacefully for days, some have taken the opportunity to burglarize businesses or hurl things at law enforcement while hidden within the crowd.

In an effort to respond, the LAPD has altered some of its tactics. Police are now issuing dispersal orders far earlier in the day and immediately targeting anyone throwing objects, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the planning.

Meanwhile, protesters have complained that they are being corralled, or “kettled,” between lines of police and effectively trapped. The ranks of law enforcement have also been boosted by mutual aid from surrounding police agencies, increasing their effectiveness, officials say.

L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman on Wednesday announced charges that included assault on a peace officer, resisting arrest, conspiracy to commit vandalism, vandalism, commercial burglary and misdemeanor reckless driving against five individuals related to the protests.

On Wednesday evening, hundreds of protesters marched from Pershing Square to City Hall, where L.A. police warned protesters to leave the area. Dozens of LAPD officers, backed by L.A. County sheriff’s deputies, declared the gathering an unlawful assembly.

Authorities fired so-called less-lethal munitions, causing the crowd to scatter. Police on horseback charged into the crowd, and several demonstrators fell to the ground. Officers pushed hundreds of protesters into Gloria Molina Grand Park, where they gathered and began chanting, “Shame.”

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(Los Angeles Times staff writers Andrea Castillo and Richard Winton contributed to this story.)

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