Ongoing raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Los Angeles have reportedly driven members of the city’s Latino population into hiding, with one man claiming: “It’s like Anne Frank.”
A month after protests erupted in opposition to ICE’s actions in L.A. – leading President Donald Trump to send in the National Guard and active-duty Marines to maintain order over the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass – a climate of “insanity and terror” abides, according to The Wrap.
The report quotes anecdotal evidence from locals who say that Latino residents, both documented and undocumented, are preferring to absent themselves from work and stay indoors.
Doing otherwise would mean risking detention by armed agents in combat gear, who have been storming homes, businesses and even medical clinics with “faces obscured, no warrants and no identification” over the last month.
The Department of Homeland Security reports that over 1,600 immigrants were detained in southern California in the two weeks leading up to June 25, equating to 101 arrests per day in support of Trump’s roundup of illegal migrants, the Republican having promised the biggest mass deportation push in American history on the campaign trail last year.
Among those cited in the report is a local father who is struggling for childcare because his nanny is too scared to come to work and owners of car washes, grocery stores and restaurants across the city who say they have been forced to stay closed to protect their work forces, whom they feel are being arbitrarily targeted.
“People are staying home. It does feel very scary out there right now,” immigration attorney Jaclyn Granet said.
“It’s incredibly disturbing to witness as a human and also as an immigrant attorney, who works with foreign talent. I support the idea that America is better when we have a global community within our borders.
“It really feels like this program of mass ICE raids and mass detention is extremely short-sighted… If you’re raiding the farms, the restaurants – how long does it take until a restaurant has to close, or we don’t have this crop or that crop?”
She added: “Do I think that this level of force is necessary? Absolutely not. That is part of the chaos and scare tactics meant to be communicated through these raids. Part of Trump’s plan is to create chaos.”
Residents have been routinely posting videos of clashes between agents and citizens to social media, seeking to document what they regard as scenes of harassment and intimidation unfolding in their neighborhoods.
With tensions running high, Cynthia Gonzalez, the vice mayor of Cudahy, a city southeast of L.A., faced calls to resign last week for challenging the notorious 18th Street and Florencia gangs to help local residents stand up to ICE, which she referred to in an Instagram video as “the biggest gang there is.”
Gonzalez subsequently issued a statement via her attorney stating that she “in no way encouraged anyone to engage in violence.”
