The Brief

Last August, Axel Pecero was in Burbank for a conference. He traveled frequently for his work as a foster youth advocate.

He was walking back to his hotel from a concert when Burbank Police stopped him and ran his ID.

A warrant he had for driving with a suspended license from several years ago popped up. It listed a $10 bail amount.

“They took me to the station because of that ten-dollar warrant,” Pecero said.

Burbank police released him hours later with a citation to appear in court later that month, a department spokesperson said. Pecero never made it — when he exited the jail, he said, immigration agents were waiting for him.

“As soon as I opened the door, Department of Homeland Security is literally right at the door. It was three of them. They were, like, blocking the entrance completely,” he said.

They arrested him, took him to the federal building in Los Angeles, and then to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County. Pecero began pursuing legal options to be released.

His case had urgency: Pecero has a 4-year-old — Ajay, short for Axel Junior.

“I could be deported. But I'm fighting my case,” he told LAist from Adelanto. “I have a son here that I'm fighting to stay with and be able to stay to help and support and raise.”

Pecero is one of tens of thousands of parents that have been detained under the current Trump administration. A new analysis by the Brookings Institution estimates that more than 200,000 children in the U.S. have been separated through detention under President Trump.

Pecero shares custody of Ajay with the boy’s mom. Ajay would frequently stay over with Pecero in his apartment near downtown L.A. — they’d go out to the park, or to eat, or play sports. They’d also hang out with Pecero’s younger brother, Isaac, who lived with Pecero.

Axel said Ajay would frequently hang out at his house near downtown L.A.

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Courtesy Axel Pecero

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Isaac Pecero said he was stunned when he had found out his brother had been detained.

“How would they try to deport him if he's been here way before he could, before he even remembered coming to this country? I found it unbelievable,” he said.

Isaac Pecero said after his brother was detained at Adelanto, he tried to make up for his older brother’s absence by taking Ajay on outings to the park and elsewhere.

“But we were missing something and that was my brother. It was sad when I had to tell [Ajay] like, ’Oh, I'm sorry, you can't see your dad.’ I didn't even know what to tell him when he was asking me where his dad was. I didn’t know what to say,” he said. “It was just heartbreaking because, you know, my nephew, me and my brother — we were the trio. Wherever we were at or whatever we were doing, as long as we were together, it was always fun, you know? We were the family.”

A former foster youth

Axel Pecero said he was brought to the U.S. from Mexico by his grandmother when he was three years old, and grew up around Los Angeles and the South Bay with various relatives. As a teen, he lived with his aunt. At 18, he left to live on his own.

“ It was rough. Six months later I had spent through all of my savings and then I was broke, and then couldn't pay for my apartment no more, so I ended up homeless,” he said.

He said he was arrested for trespassing; when it was time to renew his DACA status in 2019, he was denied, according to his immigration attorney.

Axel (right) with California state senator Caroline Menjivar. He said he wanted to work in policy.

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Courtesy Axel Pecero

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“I was young, I was dumb, I was just trying to survive out here by myself,” he said. “It was a journey trying to get all my life in order.”

A spokesperson for DHS said Pecero has pending charges including for drug possession, larceny and burglary. LAist could not locate court records in Los Angeles related to the burglary charge (court records show a drug possession charge was dismissed in 2020; misdemeanor charges related to a joyriding case were dismissed in January). When asked for more details, the DHS spokesperson said they didn’t have information about what jurisdiction the burglary charge was in.

Like the majority of people detained by ICE, Pecero has not been convicted of a crime.

Axel Pecero said his life changed after his son was born. He started attending Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, where a program for former foster youth connected him to resources and housing support. He joined a network of foster youth advocates, landing work with California Youth Connection and other organizations. Pecero traveled around the state and to Washington D.C. to testify on behalf of kids who’ve been in the foster care system.

He said at the time he was detained, he wanted to get his bachelor’s.

“I was doing policy work and I wanted to do policy work — that was the plan,” he said.

Axel, who was a delegate with the National Foster Youth Institute, would travel across the state and to D.C., to advocate for foster youth.

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Courtesy Axel Pecero

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Few legal options

In February, an immigration judge denied Axel Pecero’s bond to be released, citing him as a flight risk, according to his attorney. After seven months in detention, Pecero faced a choice: Leave the country and have a chance to come back to see his son in a few years. Or face deportation, and get barred from returning to the United States for 10 or 20 years, he said, even to visit.

By March, “ looking at at my circumstances, I opted for the voluntary departure,” Axel said. A judge granted it.

A week later, DHS put him on a bus to Tijuana, then he got a flight to Cancun, where his mother lives. He hadn’t seen her for 18 years.

A report by the Vera Institute found that voluntary departures among people who are detained have increased more than 10-fold under the Trump administration.

Before he left the U.S., Pecero saw his son Ajay one last time in an Adelanto visiting room.

“As soon as he saw me, he was crying. He ran into my arms. I picked him up, and he was crying, and I was crying too, you know? And he just said, ‘Dada,’ and he just came and he ran up to me, and I told him I missed him. He said he missed me, too. And I was like, "I love you, son’,” he said.

Starting over in Mexico 

Pecero is still getting used to his new surroundings in Mexico.

“ It's not like anything that I'm used to in the United States. So that’s a big change for me that I have to kind of get used to,” he said. “I’m leaving everything, my life, everything I had went to school for. My son, my friends, my family that I had out there.”

He said he’s been able to talk with Ajay more frequently now on Facetime, but it’s hard to explain where he is or what will happen next.

 ”He was telling me, like, ‘Dada, come home.’ And I was like, I was like, ‘I can't, son. Like, I'm in Mexico.’ And he's like, ‘Why?’ And I'm like, ‘It's because, like, I'm too far. I'm really far away.'"

For now, Pecero is searching for a job in the tourism industry, and he’s not sure if he’ll apply to school. He said he feels like he’s torn on moving ahead.

“It’s complicated because I’m trying to be present in where I’m at, but at the same time it’s hard because I’m like, OK, I don’t really know how long I want to be here just because I’m thinking of Ajay,” he said.

He fears making roots too deep in his new home, because it might create more distance between him and his son.

“It’s frightening because these are the years that he needs me the most,” he said. “Not being able to be there stresses me out because I can’t raise him how I would want to raise him.”

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.