Migrant workers still want jobs after federal immigrant raids across LA sparked fear and protest.
Los Angeles residents take pride in their town amid ice protest
USA Today spoke with Los Angeles residents about the recent ice attack and protests.
Paramount, Calif. – Sitting in a plastic lawn chair outside Home Depot in painted pants and worn work boots, 54-year-old Jose Luis Valencia was keeping an eye on ice agents and another person looking for work.
A few days after a series of federal immigrant attacks across Los Angeles County sparked isolated but intense protests, Valencia and other undocumented immigrants put their detention in jeopardy as they sought wages. For them, picking up jobs at Home Depot is their only source of income, with some jobs only one day a week.
Valencia and other day workers were seeking wages, but other community members in Paramount and Compton, Los Angeles County, are looking carefully at the federal forces, preparing for more raids, looking to the future, looking for each other. Some are still seeking for families who are detained. And others? Well, they got worse.
“We’re a little nervous, but we’re looking for work to survive here,” said Valencia, who was born in Mexico City’s Tepito area. “We need money to put food on the table and support our families.”
Paramount is a small home and strip mall community that sells everything from churros and empanadas to doughnuts, and was once African-American.
Currently, over 80% of residents identify themselves as Hispanic. Trump crackdowns are a fierce hit as thousands of families here mix together immigrant states.
Losing wage-hunting players is devastating for these families, as about a third of their residents earn less than $50,000 a year.
On June 7th, a clash between police and community members protested the ice on a street outside the Paramount Home Depostore, and two days later National Guard forces remained stationed in the area. After reports of ice deterrence continued, people were still scattered on the streets, and people remained on the edges.
The man rushed across the parking lot towards the Valencia group, calling it “Ramigra, Ramigra,” turning his vigilance in search of immigrants and customs enforcement agents. Valencia was left standing while one man quickly turned around and left.
“I don’t have any money,” Valencia said. “The money I make won’t grow. I make enough money to just eat.”
Nicaraguan immigrant John Hundley Gabriel Obando, 38, said he escaped anxiety at home in hopes of the US offering a better life for his family. Now he worries about them being deported and forces them to start their lives again.
“It’s tough,” he said.
Various perspectives on recent events
The ice attacks sparked widespread concern across Los Angeles, where 32% of residents were born in another country. The city has long been home to immigrant communities from around the world, with many families mixed together, with undocumented parents raising children born as American citizens.
And while many Los Angeles residents and officials have sometimes tried to curb the response to violent protests, President Donald Trump and his administration appeared to incite the flames, cast insults on social media posts, and encourage positive responses to the protests. Trump sent an email on June 9th to ask for campaign contributions to support his approach. Because things “lol seem really bad in LA,” he said in an email to supporters.
President Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom have been in a long-standing feud, and the governor sued the federal government over Trump’s decision to send the National Guard, threatening that Trump was arrested for interference. On June 9, Trump deployed at least 500 US Marines to back up 4,000 National Guard troops.
“We will release Los Angeles from immigrant invasions and end these immigrant riots. Orders will be restored, illegals will be expelled, Los Angeles will be released,” the president said in a social media post.
Active Marines deployed to anti-ice protests in Los Angeles
President Donald Trump is sending active-duty Marines to support law enforcement in immigration protests in Los Angeles, California.
But many of Los Angeles residents and the surrounding communities have no freedom to invade, “illegitimates” or recover.
Among those who were unhappy with the president’s approach was 67-year-old LA resident Ira Long, a 30-year-old LA resident who was a retired teacher and pastor at Alondra Christian Church in Compton. While volunteers prepare to distribute oats, rice, tuna and canned tomatoes to members of the community, just as they do every Monday, Long said there was obvious anxiety in the air.
Long said he still remembers when the National Guard was called in after the 1992 Rodney King Riot. This isn’t that important, he said.
“It was a really bad time. Right now I don’t feel the tension or anxiety,” said Long, a retired special education teacher. “But people are uneasy and there’s a real sense of loss because they lost people who were part of this community (for federal immigration authorities).”
“This isn’t the first time, not the last time.”
Among those struggling was Isabel Ramirez, a longtime resident of Compton. Isabel Ramirez said he was “around dying of grief” after multiple families were taken into custody on June 7th. Ramirez, who was waiting in line in folding chairs at Alondora Church of Christ, said her family was visiting from San Jose, but had left the house to buy gardening tools when she was restrained by ice.
“They took them away,” Ramirez said. “They are all married and have children born in the US, but they don’t have any papers.”
Ramirez said she learned about the TV attack and was waiting for words with concern about the fate of her family.
“I don’t know where they are. I don’t know where they took them. I’m still waiting,” Ramirez said with tears. “Their poor children, what will happen to them? What will happen to them, we are sad. We pray to the Virgin Mary that this will be resolved. Wherever we go, we have a cell phone for Habas.”
Just below Alondra Boulevard, longtime donut shop owner Charlie Lim saw broken windows and extensive Anti-Ice graffiti scattered across the building and the street itself. On June 8, hundreds of community members clashed with authorities outside the “Dale Donut” in Rim, still sitting at the intersection with a small mountain of tiled deblis. Nearby, a remote law enforcement monitoring station was tilted sideways, destroyed and sprayed.
“I’ve seen it get worse,” said Lim, who has owned the store for 33 years. He said it started shortly after the King’s riots when the Compton-Paramount border was far more dangerous each night.
“They’ll take you just to enjoy it,” Lim said.
Today, he said cities are much safer for businesses like him.
“This isn’t the first time, it’s not the last time,” he said.
“We take care of people.”
On June 9th, Jose “Bear” Gallegos, a 61-year-old community-resident retired teacher, watched as the deployed National Guard forces blocked the entrance to the Paramount Business Center.
Protests erupted there when ICE agents tried to move detainees from the site to a larger facility in downtown Los Angeles. Gallegos, who graduated from and later graduated from adjacent Manuel Dominguez High School, said the community was fine without ice invasion.
“They’re the kind of people who snatch out people like me who look like unmarked vehicles,” Gallegos said. “They had a plan the whole time. They wanted a response from us.”
Gallegos said he felt compelled to take part in protest and mild anxiety among former students and wanted to clearly fight law enforcement, but the majority simply wanted to stop the ice.
“We don’t have guns. All we have is prayers and feathers,” he said. “And there will be some angry young people. Naturally, we love to look after people.
At Home Depot, Valencia moved to a plastic lawn chair and considered his options. He said that if Ice catches him he will resign to being deported, but finding a job will remain his number one priority.
Valencia and a group of men said they were “like brothers” who had moved from Mexico and Nicaragua. Valencia has lived in the United States for over 30 years, but recently arrived three years ago. Valencia said she cannot afford to help her lawyers become legal resident.
“We are not criminals, we are not burglars,” he said. “We’re just looking for work.”
(This story has been updated to add new information.)