Latest news with #CoalitionForHumaneImmigrantRights
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Latino neighborhoods overwhelmingly targeted in immigration raids, rights group says
The neighborhoods targeted by federal agents for immigration raids were overwhelmingly Latino, according to data from a prominent immigrant rights group. A heat map produced by the the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights documents 471 immigration enforcement actions reported to its Los Angeles Rapid Response Network between June 6 and July 20 in L.A. County. "That's only those reports we were able to verify through our responders," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, CHIRLA's director of communications. "It doesn't mean those are the only number of incidents in that area." Cabrera suspects CHIRLA caught one-third of the enforcement activity that took place across the county. During the same period of time, CHIRLA claims to have received 1,677 calls of enforcement activities across the region that it could not confirm, with 1,500 of these reports mentioning armed agents being present, and 389 reports mentioning witnessing random arrests of community members. Here are the areas with the highest number of enforcement actions reported to CHIRLA: San Fernando Valley (Panorama City): 22 actions Pico Rivera: 18 actions Silver Lake-Echo Park: 15 actions Bell Gardens: 14 actions Hollywood: 9 actions Vernon-South Los Angeles: 8 actions Pico-Union-Downtown Los Angeles: 8 actions Little Tokyo-Downtown Los Angeles: 7 actions Glassell Park: 7 actions South Gate: 7 actions Of the five zip codes with the highest immigration enforcement numbers, a combined 76% of the population was Latino, CHIRLA's analysis shows. Twenty-two enforcement actions were reported from Panorama City, the highest of every zip code analyzed. Its population is 42% Latino, and 38.2% immigrants. "The blatant racial profiling by the Trump Administration is clearly visible in this map," said Angelica Salas, executive director for CHIRLA, in a press release. "Areas where People of Color live and work, which also include major Latino hubs, were racially profiled and targeted. This military federal immigration enforcement operation was a surgical attack meant to provoke panic and confusion, and unleash terror in our neighborhoods." ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment from The Times. The agency has pushed back against racial profiling claims in the past. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement that any such allegations are "disgusting and categorically FALSE." She also said, "These type of smears are designed to demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement." The CHIRLA analysis is not a full accounting of the raids conducted in Los Angeles. DHS has not released the number of enforcement actions or the locations. It has reported that from the time the operations began in June to early July, ICE and Border Patrol arrested 2,792 illegal aliens in the L.A. area. "The map shows they didn't go to wealthy, white neighborhoods," said Cabrera. "They went where they could randomly pick up people of color." This report comes during widespread concern about racial profiling by the Trump administration in its immigration policies. Reporting from The Times shows L.A. residents, especially darker-skinned Latinos, have expressed fear about being targets for ICE agents, and even American citizens have been swept up in raids. CHIRLA was one of the groups who sued DHS on July 2, claiming its arrests and detentions in L.A. and the surrounding counties were unlawful and racially targeted. "The preponderance of individuals stopped and arrested in the raids have not been targeted in any meaningful sense of the word at all, except on the basis of their skin color and occupation," wrote the plaintiffs in their lawsuit. U.S District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ruled in their favor, writing that DHS and ICE may not use apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or a person's occupation to justify an arrest or detention. The Trump administration is attempting to have these restrictions lifted. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
L.A. will provide cash assistance to immigrants affected by raids
Mayor Karen Bass announced a plan Friday to provide direct cash assistance to people who have been affected by the Trump administration's sweeping immigration raids. The aid will be distributed using cash cards with a "couple hundred" dollars on them, which should be available in about a week, Bass said at a news conference. "You have people who don't want to leave their homes, who are not going to work, and they are in need of cash," she said. Bass spoke about a family she met who needed two incomes to afford their rent. After one of the breadwinners was detained in an immigration raid, she said, the family is concerned they may face eviction. It was not immediately clear what the qualifications will be needed to receive the cards. The mayor emphasized that the money will not come from city coffers but from philanthropic partners. The cards will be distributed by immigrants rights groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. The city will coordinate between philanthropists and organizations distributing the cards, according to the mayor's office. The mayor compared the program to "Angeleno Cards," created by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2020 to give financial assistance to people struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. The announcement came during a Bass news conference about an executive order she signed Friday directing all city departments to "bolster protocols" and training on how to comply with the city's sanctuary policy, which states that city employees and city property may not be used to 'investigate, cite, arrest, hold, transfer or detain any person' for the purpose of immigration enforcement, except for serious crimes. Departments will have to come up with their plans within two weeks. The Trump administration sued the city over the sanctuary policy last month, arguing that it discriminates against organizations like ICE. Read more: Trump administration sues Mayor Karen Bass, L.A. City Council over sanctuary policy The executive order also creates a working group that will examine — and possibly update — the LAPD's policy on responding to immigration enforcement. Since 1979, the LAPD has taken a strong stance against enforcing federal immigration law, prohibiting its officers from initiating contact with anyone for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status. The executive order also includes a directive to file Freedom of Information Act requests for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to turn over records with the dates and locations of every raid in the city since June 6, as well as the identities of the people detained and the reason for their detention. The cash cards are one of a slew of announcements — including the executive order — this week by the mayor in response to the federal immigration crackdown in Los Angeles that has entered its second month. Earlier this week, Bass and the city attorney announced the city's intention to join a lawsuit calling for an end to the Trump administration's "unlawful" raids in the city. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Los Angeles immigrants swept up in Ice raids already deported in some cases
Some Angelenos rounded up by federal immigration agents have already been deported, according to a new report, as a fuller picture emerges of the immigrants arrested during raids in Los Angeles that have triggered a wave of protests there and in other cities across the US. The Trump administration has not released a count – but the parents of a 23-year-old member of Mexico's Indigenous Zapotec community told the Washington Post they had received a phone call from their son telling them he had been dropped off at the US-Mexico border and told to cross over. The man, who was arrested at Ambiance Apparel in Los Angeles on Friday, told his parents he thought he had signed a consent form to a coronavirus test but may have accidentally instead signed off on his deportation. 'The way they deported him wasn't right,' his 42-year-old father, Javier, told the outlet. 'He is a calm, working man. We are asking for justice because they violated his rights.' They said he had no criminal record and had been in the US for four years. A spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights told the Post that the organisation's emergency line had received more than 120 calls from distraught families. Jorge-Mario Cabrera estimated that many of those detained had been in the US for decades, do not have legal representation, and had been transferred to detention facilities far from their homes. The accounts appear to contradict statements by federal officials who said the raid on Ambiance Apparel was part of a criminal investigation into fake employee documents. Tom Homan, Donald Trump's border czar, told MSNBC's Morning Joe on Monday that the raid in the downtown manufacturing district 'wasn't an immigration raid' – but that federal law enforcement were executing 'criminal warrants' related to money laundering, tax evasion and customs fraud investigations. Homan then agreed that not everyone arrested had a criminal record. 'We're going to enforce immigration law,' he said. Mexico's foreign minister has said four immigrants detained in the Ambiance raid had already been removed from the US, and the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released 16 people who they said had criminal histories. A DHS official told the Post that 2,368 people were arrested on 4 June and 2,267 on 3 June. The increase from about 660 per day over the first three months of Trump's second presidency – which began in January – comes after White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said in May that the administration's goal is for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents to make a 'minimum of 3,000 arrests' daily. Other federal agencies are believed to have contributed to the increase in detentions alongside Ice, including the FBI, US Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Immigrant advocacy groups say they have information that more than 200 people were detained and that many do not have criminal records. DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News on Monday that those detained were the 'worst of the worst'. Despite the conflicting accounts, the raids appear to mark a turning point in efforts by the Trump administration to enforce immigration laws that turn the focus from detaining and deporting migrants with actual or alleged criminal histories to a broader deportation sweep of people who do not possess US citizenship. 'The people who have been arrested are our neighbors and community members and the workers that make the city of Los Angeles run,' Eva Bitran, director of immigrants' rights at the ACLU of Southern California, told the outlet. Bitran said that among those detained was a woman who was pulled over while dropping her young son off at day care: 'We know there were arrests at car washes, at Home Depot – really the places where immigrants are just trying to go about their lives and go about their jobs.' Immigration attorney Elaina Jung Hee Vermeulen told the outlet that she had spoken with a dozen Ambiance Apparel detainees after hours waiting at the federal detention center in Los Angeles on Sunday. She said immigration attorneys had been 'consistently deprived access to them'.
The Guardian
07-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Protesters clash with police at federal detention centre after LA Ice raids
At least 45 people were arrested in Los Angeles on Saturday as people demonstrated against coordinated raids throughout the city by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, said the rights group Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. Ice agents were seen using pepper spray and smoke grenades to disperse the protesters. Federal immigration authorities have been ramping up arrests across the country to fulfil the president's promise of mass deportations
