In September, the United States Supreme Court paused a temporary restraining order intended to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from terrorizing Los Angeles with roving patrols, giving ICE the green light to target people because of the color of their skin or the language they speak.
But even while the restraining order was in effect starting in July, ICE never stopped targeting day labor centers in Los Angeles. On August 8, masked men in tactical gear surrounded the Van Nuys Community Job Center, and pointed weapons at my coworkers and me. When I asked to see a warrant, I was met with cold stares and a Border Patrol agent wielding a teargas canister.
I am the executive director of the Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California (the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California or IDEPSCA), the largest operator of day labor (jornalero) centers in California. We run five of the seven city-contracted day labor centers in Los Angeles, including the Van Nuys Community Job Center. The City of Los Angeles funds these official day labor centers to provide direct services to day laborers, including know-your-rights trainings, health and immunization clinics, housing support, and language classes, and contracts with nonprofit organizations like IDEPSCA to operate the centers. Our day labor centers are overseen and paid for by the city, and several of our sites are on city-owned or state-owned property.
ICE has raided our day labor sites at least 14 times since June.
Just days before the raid, Mayor Karen Bass hailed a 9th circuit ruling upholding the temporary restraining order against ICE as “a great day for Los Angeles” and said that she hoped fear among immigrant communities in our city would subside.
It didn’t feel like a great day for Los Angeles when we looked down the barrels of guns pointed at us by federal agents in our workplace.
While my coworkers and I were held at gunpoint, I felt fear and rage, but not surprise. This was the 6th time ICE raided the Van Nuys Community Job Center in under three months. Just three hours earlier, my staff witnessed the same Border Patrol agents kidnap seven day laborers from the parking lot in front of the center. Over the course of that same week, three day labor centers we operate next to Home Depots were raided a total of four times.
Without the restraining order, things will only get worse. Our entire city is on edge now that ICE is receiving billions more in funding to kidnap and disappear our immigrant neighbors, thanks to congress. ICE’s budget for fiscal year 2026, which began on October 1st, is a whopping $18.7 billion.
ICE’s campaign of terror in Los Angeles escalated in June when federal agents in unmarked vehicles stormed the parking lot of the Hollywood Home Depot and surrounding sidewalks, and violently kidnapped 30 day laborers. When people rose up in response to demand ICE vacate the city, they were met with National Guard deployments, ordered by President Donald Trump.
These raids are not just a threat to undocumented people. Everyone is at risk as this racist and fascist regime uses its power to sow chaos and terrorize our families, friends, and neighbors.
That morning, I started receiving frantic calls from families on the ground, and later, others looking for their loved ones. Many of the people disappeared by ICE were our members. We were able to track down nearly all of those kidnapped — now being held in San Diego detention centers. ICE’s operation was indiscriminate in regard to immigration status: among those kidnapped was a U.S. citizen, later released, and a person with an active asylum case.
These kidnappings were not a one-off horror, but a terrifying new normal driven by the federal government’s white supremacist strategy to erase communities of color. ICE is racially profiling and hunting down people in our streets, making immigrants across our city afraid to leave their homes, go to work, or take their kids to school.
We need political leaders across the nation to act boldly and use the full power of their offices to throw sand in ICE’s gears — introduce legislation, continue to file lawsuits, and call these actions what they are: kidnappings driven by racial profiling. Our city and state leadership must put state resources behind protecting immigrant communities.
Mayor Bass has not been a model of solidarity. In January, she proposed cutting day labor centers completely out of the city’s budget, despite knowing that President Trump specifically named jornaleros as targets and that day laborers were doing dangerous cleanup work during the widely reported on fires that devastated our city. Our funding was only restored because we mobilized and fought back.
The city still isn’t doing enough to protect day labor centers. We call on Mayor Bass and LA elected officials to speak out against ICE’s targeting of day laborers and the worker centers that serve them, and to stand by their promise to protect all Angelenos. It’s time for city and state officials to get creative and use every legal avenue at their disposal.
In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws banning ICE from entering schools or hospitals without a warrant.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson recently signed an executive order banning ICE from operating on any property owned or controlled by the city.
Mayor Bass should follow Governor Newsom and Mayor Johnson’s lead and ban ICE from all city-contracted facilities like our day labor centers.
While we hold our elected leaders to account, we’re not waiting on them to protect and defend our communities. For over 30 years, we’ve built a network of worker and community centers across Los Angeles that builds power and functions as a safety net for our people. Our network includes the nonprofits that run the other two city-contracted day labor centers, the Central American Resource Center and Hope the Mission.
Over the decades, the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California has fought for the dignity and rights of day laborers and domestic workers by providing direct services and mobilizing for campaigns, such as improved minimum wage standards and enforcement, worker safety, and immigrant rights. We’ve raised awareness about the health hazards that day laborers and domestic workers face from wildfires and the frontline role they’ve played in wildfire recovery, and we provide wildfire safety resources as we fight for better protections.
Join or support a local rapid response network. Refuse to let kidnapping become normal.
The Institute of Popular Education of Southern California continues to track down workers detained by ICE, bring people their medications, reconnect families, and deliver groceries and other essential aid to impacted communities.
Across Los Angeles, many community members are responding in creative ways — building community defense centers, protesting outside hotels where ICE agents are staying so they can’t sleep, and growing mutual aid networks. But we need more people to be involved.
These raids are not just a threat to undocumented people. Everyone is at risk as this racist and fascist regime uses its power to sow chaos and terrorize our families, friends, and neighbors.
The way we stop them is by growing our community power. If you see unmarked vans or suspect ICE presence, report it to a trusted immigrant rights group. Join or support a local rapid response network. Donate to mutual aid efforts and funds for those in detention. Check in and share resources with your neighbors. Refuse to let kidnapping become normal.
From what we see unfolding in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, it’s clear that Los Angeles was a test site for a larger project of racial terror and ultimately ethnic cleansing. This will continue until we all rise, in all the ways we can, to stop it.
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