Work is worth the risk: Undocumented workers in LA say they have no choice

USA Today

2 days ago

LOS ANGELES – Perched on a plastic lawn chair outside a Home Depot in paint-stained pants and scuffed work boots, Jose Luis Valencia, 54, kept one eye out for ICE agents and another looking for work.
Days after a series of federal immigration raids across Los Angeles sparked isolated but intense protests around the city, Valencia and other undocumented immigrants risked detention as they sought a paycheck. For them, picking up work at Home Depot is their only source of income, and some work as little as one day a week.
While Valencia and other day laborers sought wages, other community members in Paramount and Compton, both in Los Angeles County, are cautiously watching federal troops, bracing for more raids and trying to look to the future while looking out for each other. Some are still seaching for detained family members. And others? Well, they've seen worse.
"We're a little nervous, but we're here looking for work to survive," said Valencia, who was born in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City. "We need money to put food on the table and support our family."
Some of the fiercest clashes between police and community members protesting ICE took place in the street outside the store on June 7, and National Guard troops remained stationed in the area two days later. Small pieces of debris still littered the streets and people remained on edge following reports of continued ICE detentions.
A man rushed across the parking lot toward Valencia's group, calling "la migra, la migra," his alert turning heads as they looked for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. While one man immediately turned and walked away, Valencia stayed put.
"There's no money," Valencia said. "The money I make doesn't stretch. I just make enough money to eat."
Nicaraguan immigrant Johandry Gabriel Obando, 38, said he fled unrest at home with the hope that the United States would provide a better life for his family. Now he worries they'll be deported, forcing them to start life all over for the second time.
"It's tough," he said.
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Different perspectives on recent events
The ICE raids have sparked broad concern across Los Angeles, where 32% of its residents were born in another country. The city has long been home to immigrant communities from around the world, and many families have mixed status, with undocumented parents raising children born as American citizens.
And while many residents and officials in Los Angeles have sought to tamp down reactions to the sometimes-violent protests, President Donald Trump and his administration have appeared to fan the flames, hurling insults in social media posts and encouraging an aggressive response to protests. Trump sent out an email June 9 to supporters asking for campaign donations to support his approach because things are "looking really bad in LA," he said in an email to supporters.
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Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom have continued their longtime feud, with the governor suing the federal government over Trump's decision to send in the National Guard, and Trump threatening to have Newsom arrested for interfering. Trump on June 9 deployed at least 500 U.S. Marines to back up the 4,000 National Guard troops.
The president pledged in a social media post to "liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots. Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free."
But to many residents of Los Angeles, there's no invasion, no "illegals" and no freedom to be restored – the city was doing just fine until ICE began detaining people, USA TODAY found in a series of interviews.
Among those frustrated by the president's approach was 30-year LA resident Ira Long, 67, a retired teacher and pastor at the Alondra Church of Christ in Compton. Speaking while volunteers prepared to distribute oats, rice, tuna and canned tomatoes to community members, just as they do every Monday, Long said there's a palpable unease in the air.
Long said he still remembers when the National Guard was called out in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots. This, he said, is far less significant.
"That was a really really terrible time. Right now I don't feel any of that tension or anxiety," said Long, a retired special education teacher. "But people are uneasy and there's a real sense of loss because we have lost people (to federal immigration authorities) who were a part of this community."
'This wasn't the first time and it won't be the last'
Among those struggling was longtime Compton resident Isabel Ramirez, who said she is "dying of sadness" after multiple family members were detained on June 7. Waiting in line in a folding chair at the Alondra Church of Christ, Ramirez said her family was visiting from San Jose, but had left her house to buy gardening tools when they were detained by ICE.
"They took them away," Ramirez says. "They're all married and have children who were born in the U.S., but they don't have papers."
Ramirez said she found out about the raids on TV and is anxiously awaiting word about her family's fate.
"We don't know where they are. We don't know where they took them. We're just waiting, still," Ramirez said, tearing up. "Their poor kids, what's going to happen with them? What's going to happen? We're sad, we're praying to the Virgin Mary that this gets resolved. Wherever we go, we have our cellphones with us, just in case."
Just down Alondra Boulevard, longtime donut shop owner Charlie Lim looked out at the handful of broken windows and widespread anti-ICE graffiti spraypainted on buildings and the street itself. On June 8, hundreds of community members clashed with authorities outside Lim's "Dale's Donuts," and small piles of debris still sat in the intersection. Nearby, a law enforcement remote-monitoring station lay tipped on its side, smashed and spraypainted.
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"I've seen worse," said Lim, who has owned the shop for 33 years. He said he started just after the King riots, when the border between Compton and Paramount was far more dangerous every night.
"They would rob you just for the fun of it," Lim said, recalling a time when drug dealers ran the streets.
Today, he said, the city is far safer for businesses like his.
"This wasn't the first time and it won't be the last time," he said, looking at the cracked window and spray paint.
'We take care of people'
On June 9, community resident and retired teacher Jose "Bear" Gallegos, 61, kept watch on the deployed National Guard troops blocking the entrance to the Paramount Business Center, which Gallegos said is home to a small federal detention site.
Protests broke out there when ICE agents tried to transfer detainees from that site to a larger facility in downtown Los Angeles, he said. Gallegos, who graduated from and later taught at the adjacent Manuel Dominguez High School, said the community was fine without ICE intruding.
"They're the ones snatching people who look just like me into unmarked vehicles," said Gallegos, after showing off a carton of spent tear gas canisters he collected from the street. "They had a plan all along. They wanted a reaction from us."
Gallegos said he felt compelled to join the protest and calm unrest among his former students, and said that while there were a small number of agitators who clearly wanted to battle with law enforcement, the vast majority simply wanted to stop ICE.
"We don't have guns. All we have is prayers and feathers," he said. "And there are going to be some young people who are going to be mad, rightfully so. We love L.A. We take care of people. But you can't blame young people when they've had enough. And they've had enough."
At the Home Depot, Valencia shifted in his plastic lawn chair and considered his options. He said he's resigned to being deported if ICE catches him, but finding work remained his top priority.
Valencia and the group of men, whom he said are "like brothers," immigrated from Mexico and Nicaragua. Some arrived as recently as three years ago, although Valencia has been living in the United States for more than 30 years. Valencia said they have been unable to afford attorneys to help them become legal residents.
"We're not criminals, we're not thieves," he said. "We're just looking for jobs."