The Brief

Facing a nearly $1 billion deficit, the city of Los Angeles is set to finance much less affordable housing over the next year under a proposed budget released this week by Mayor Karen Bass.

The budget calls for a nearly 80% drop in city financing of new affordable housing units, declining from 770 homes in the current fiscal year to 160 homes in the next fiscal year.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday at a San Fernando Valley car dealership, Bass said economic conditions are increasingly unfavorable to housing development.

“The housing market, period, has been in decline because of interest rates and the general economy,” Bass said. “We have to look for how we cut back everywhere. Obviously, we want to see housing produced citywide, considering the shortage.”

Why such a steep drop? 

The downward projections come at a time when Angelenos continue to struggle with the city’s entrenched housing crisis. Most L.A. residents are renters, and most renters are paying more than 30% of their income on housing costs, a level the federal government deems unaffordable.

Clara Karger, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, said the decline in the city’s affordable housing financing is the result of the sunsetting of Proposition HHH, passed by voters in 2016. That $1.2 billion bond measure has subsidized the creation of thousands of new permanent supportive housing units.

Measure ULA, the so-called “mansion tax” approved by voters in 2022, created a new source of affordable housing revenue. However, it has not increased the number of low-rent apartments in the city’s pipeline yet, officials said, because the measure continues to face litigation.

For now, they said, the city is taking a wait-and-see approach before committing money from Measure ULA to new affordable housing projects.

Karger said the mayor’s office is working “in coordination with City Council to responsibly allocate the funding for affordable housing.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass discusses her budget proposal at a car dealership in the San Fernando Valley.

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Are there other ways for L.A. to get more affordable housing?

Financing from the city is not the only way affordable housing gets built in L.A. However, projects funded by sources outside the city budget are also facing economic challenges.

Continued high interest rates make it difficult for project financing to pencil out. Housing policy experts say the Trump administration’s emphasis on tariffs and deportations will likely make California’s high cost of housing construction even more expensive. And most of the city’s residential land remains off-limits to new apartments because of single-family zoning, which was left untouched in the city’s latest housing plan update.

Executive Directive 1, signed by Bass during her first week in office to accelerate the approval of 100% affordable housing projects, initially generated a surge of applications from developers eager to capitalize on a smoother path to breaking ground.

Many of those proposals were entirely financed by private capital, with no taxpayer subsidies. But the city went to court to try to kill these projects in single-family neighborhoods, and interest in the program cooled after Bass issued further restrictions on where such projects could be built.

L.A. gets some of its affordable housing from new market-rate apartment buildings. Developers are required by state law to set aside a small percentage of units for low-income renters in exchange for greater density. But a recent study from researchers with RAND and UCLA found that Measure ULA has caused a broad decline in these projects.

The researchers said the 40% decline in new housing permits in L.A. since 2022 has been steeper than in other neighboring cities. They concluded that L.A. would likely have more affordable housing if the “mansion tax” — which applies to sales of properties above $5 million — did not apply to recently constructed apartment buildings.

Other housing changes in the mayor’s budget

Bass’ budget proposal also calls for the elimination of the seven-member Affordable Housing Commission and the merging of its responsibilities into the Rent Adjustment Commission, which oversees the city’s rent control program.

Karger, the mayor’s spokesperson, said the proposal emerged from discussions with the city’s Housing Department.

“This consolidation of two advisory bodies promotes efficiency and reduces the Housing Department's administrative burden,” Karger said.

While the city’s Housing Department is projected to receive a net increase of 74 positions under the mayor’s budget, the Planning Department is slated to lose 114 existing staffers in layoffs. The Planning Department’s budget is set to be reduced from $72 million to $56 million.

A pessimistic outlook for housing growth

The city is contending with aggressive housing goals under state law, including a requirement to plan for about 185,000 new homes by 2029 that are affordable to low-income residents. Currently, the city is falling far short of that goal.

Thousands of Angelenos were displaced by January’s wildfires, and many are now looking for new housing. But the mayor’s budget is not counting on much growth in home sales or construction within the city.

More home-buying and building could help boost city revenues because of higher property tax and documentary transfer tax collection. But with home prices out of reach for the vast majority of Angelenos and interest rates remaining high, city officials are pessimistic about the likelihood of any boom in the housing market.

The budget’s revenue outlook says continued inflation and elevated interest rates will likely end up “hampering any rebound in the real estate market and housing production.”

Democrats are searching for a hero to save them in the California governor’s race.

So far, no one in party leadership has come to the rescue.

Despite Rep. Eric Swalwell’s exit from the race this week, the Democratic field remains unwieldy, with seven major candidates still splitting the field less than three weeks before ballots are sent. Each of them refuses to bow out, regardless of their polling numbers, in the hope they can capture some of the voter attention that Swalwell’s demise drew to the race.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the face of the party in California, is not interested in elevating a successor. Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks, who faces criticism for not using his position to cull the field, has relied on party-commissioned polls and vague pleas for candidates to “honestly assess” their campaign’s viability, refusing to openly pressure anyone to drop out.

Even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — known for urging then-Rep. Adam Schiff to run for Senate and former President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid — won’t intervene.

“People have reached out to me saying, ‘Your mom has to do something!’” said Christine Pelosi, daughter of the San Francisco congresswoman and herself a candidate for state Senate.

“I said, ‘You know what? She doesn't, though,’” the younger Pelosi said. “She already did that with Biden and Harris. She's not going to — don't look to her to do that again.”

Gone is the heyday of the San Francisco-based political machine, a network of political talent that dominated state politics for decades and produced titans such as Pelosi and Newsom, both of whom are moving on from California politics.

Now that pipeline has run dry, and this year there is no obvious heir to Newsom for the party to coalesce behind. No current statewide officeholder joined the fray, and both presumptive favorites — former Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla — opted not to run.

That has made top Democrats loath to weigh in on the state’s first truly open Democratic primary in 16 years. In 2018, Newsom, then the lieutenant governor, was widely viewed as the most likely successor to former Gov. Jerry Brown, another product of the San Francisco political machine.

The 2026 race is also only the second time an open field has competed under the top-two primary system, adopted 16 years ago to the chagrin of both parties. That means two Democrats or two Republicans could advance to the general election and lock the other party out.

Newsom reiterated his lack of interest this week when he issued a statement that said in part, “I have full confidence that voters will choose a candidate who reflects the values and direction Californians believe in.”

Too much democracy for Democrats?

While grassroots activists have for decades decried the king-making of insider machine politics, the alternative — an abundance of candidates with no clear frontrunner — has proved unappealing too.

The resulting decision paralysis has resurrected calls for a strong leader to step in.

“This has been incredibly frustrating, not to mention scary, with the idea that we could end up with two Republicans,” said RL Miller, a longtime delegate and chair of the party’s environmental caucus. “I really do believe that there has been a failure of leadership at the top.”

Miller theorized that party leaders were overcorrecting after years of backlash following the 2016 presidential election, in which establishment Democrats disregarded the grassroots support for Sen. Bernie Sanders and instead anointed Hillary Clinton.

As more Democratic gubernatorial candidates entered the fray in the last year, Miller said she thought leadership had the “admirable intent” of letting delegates winnow the field themselves.

But anxieties were already spiking before the Democrats’ endorsing convention in February, where none of the nine candidates vying for the gubernatorial nod amassed more than 25% — far short of the 60% needed. Hicks faced repeated questions then about whether he would step in, but insisted it wasn’t his role.

“By the party convention, the alarm bells had been ringing for months,” said Miller, who has consistently voted against Hicks in internal party elections.

California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks addresses the media in Sacramento on Nov. 17, 2023.

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After the convention, Hicks released an open letter urging that “every candidate honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaign,” and “if you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election” not to file to run. Only one listened, former Assemblymember Ian Calderon, who was polling around 1% or less.

Later, Hicks announced the party would conduct ongoing polls on the race and release them every seven to 10 days through early May, when ballots are sent.

Hicks’ defenders said he was right to abstain from picking favorites. Christine Pelosi said it would be “inappropriate” for the chair to weigh in on the candidates after delegates at the party convention chose not to endorse anyone.

Hicks’ calls for candidates to “consider their viability” was a “somewhat extraordinary and surprising” move, said Paul Mitchell, the architect of the gerrymandered congressional maps that voters approved via Proposition 50 to boost congressional Democrats in the upcoming election.

“It maybe wasn't surprising for people who think that the Democratic Party chair is like a backroom dealer that's going to knock heads or something like that,” Mitchell said. “But that's not the chair’s role in California right now.”

Top-two primary adds to tension

Both Mitchell and Christine Pelosi blamed the top-two system for much of the drama. The slim possibility that two Republicans could emerge from the primary has spurred many of the calls for leadership to weigh in.

Mitchell argued that since President Donald Trump put a thumb on the scale by endorsing former Fox News host Steve Hilton, there’s less risk that both he and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco would end up on the November ticket, alleviating some of the pressure on Democrats.

“If it wasn't a top two, people wouldn't care,” said Christine Pelosi. “You wouldn't have the added agita of ‘there's only two Republicans and there's a bunch of Democrats.’”

Notably, the state GOP failed to endorse a candidate at its recent convention, indicating that Trump’s nod might not hold as much sway as Democrats assume.

Still, if Hicks is trying to convince rank-and-file Democrats he’s doing enough, it’s not working.

Amar Shergill, the former leader of the party’s progressive caucus, suggested that its weak, decentralized leadership was by design so monied interests could exert more control over who gets elected.

“Rusty Hicks is furniture that folks with real power use at their discretion,” Shergill said.

“There's no sort of anger or animosity towards him as a person,” he said. “If it wasn’t Rusty, it would be somebody else. This is just the political situation right now.”

In an interview, Hicks told CalMatters that he is “doing what is required” to ensure a Democrat wins the race. But when pressed repeatedly, Hicks would not elaborate on what that work entails, if he believes what he’s done so far is working or if he should have had a stronger hand in culling the field, as his critics have suggested.

“I'm not interested in opening up the playbook as to what we will or will not do in the coming days and weeks,” he said.

CalMatters’ Yue Stella Yu contributed to this report.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

More than 20 locations in South L.A. will get speed cameras under a pilot program that gets rolling this fall. 

The plan, which was approved by the L.A. City Council last month, will cover a total 125 targeted zones in the city, according to L.A. Department of Transportation documents. The cameras could start snapping photos of speedsters as early as July, with a 60-day warning period  — where drivers wouldn’t be fined — running into September. 

LADOT says the cameras are aimed at reducing traffic fatalities while complying with a 2023 state law that requires LA and five other cities to establish automated speed enforcement programs before 2032.

L.A. saw 290 traffic fatalities in 2025, according to LA Police Department data, 6% less than 2024. Several of the city’s deadliest intersections are clustered in South L.A. along Western Avenue, Vermont Avenue and Figueroa Street, according to data analyzed by Crosstown.

Where will the speed cameras be installed in South LA?

Some intersections will have multiple camera clusters installed on the streets around them. The intersection of Gage Avenue and Figueroa Street, for example, will have cameras to the north, south and west. 

Cameras will be located on:

• Figueroa Street between Adams Boulevard and 23rd Street
• Figueroa Street between Gage Avenue and 62nd Street 
• Figueroa Street between 68th Street and Gage Avenue
• Figueroa Street between Manchester Avenue and 85th Street 
• Normandie Avenue between 62nd Street and 64th Street
• Western Avenue between 55th Street and 53rd Street 
• Western Avenue between 24th Street and Adams Boulevard 
• Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard between Hobart Boulevard and Saint Andrews Place 
• Florence Avenue between Van Ness Avenue and Haas Avenue 
• Florence Avenue between Vermont Avenue and Hoover Street 
• Vermont Avenue between Florence Avenue and 71st Street 
• Vermont Avenue between 58th Place and 57th Street 
• Vernon Avenue between Wadsworth Avenue and McKinley Avenue 
• Gage Avenue between Hoover Street and Figueroa Street 
• Gage Avenue between Halldale Avenue and Raymond Avenue
• Slauson Avenue between Brentwood Street and Inskeep Avenue 
• Slauson Avenue between Budlong Avenue and Menlo Avenue 
• Central Avenue between 92nd Avenue and 91st Street 
• Avalon Boulevard between 77th Street and 74th Street 
• Manchester Avenue between Wadsworth Avenue and Central Avenue
• La Brea Avenue between Veronica Street and Coliseum Street 
• La Cienega Boulevard between Coliseum Street and Bowesfield Street 
• Arlington Avenue between Adams Boulevard and 18th Street 
• Jefferson Boulevard between Crenshaw Boulevard and Bronson Avenue

More than 20 locations in South LA will get speed cameras under a pilot program that gets rolling this fall.

How much will tickets cost? 

Cameras will snap a photo of a speeding vehicle’s rear that includes its license plate as well as its make and model. 

The system will document the date, time and vehicle speed, then issue a citation to the vehicle’s registered owner, according to LADOT’s policy plan.  

Fines will ratchet higher based on how fast a vehicle is moving, starting with a $50 fine for vehicles going 11 to 15 mph above the limit. 

Vehicles moving 16 to 25 mph over the limit will get $100 fines, and vehicles going 26 mph or more over the limit will get $200 fines. 

The max fine will be $500 for vehicles that go 100 mph or more above the speed limit.

LADOT said camera images will not include rear windshields or faces, and that state law does not allow the cameras to use facial recognition technology.

How were speed camera locations selected?

Some Angelenos submitted comments to LADOT, worrying the speed camera program will disproportionately affect people of color, according to a March 20 department memo. 

LADOT said in the memo that it worked to minimize any inequity, in part, by distributing the cameras evenly across the city’s 15 council districts, with every district getting at least eight cameras, and no district getting more than nine.  

The transportation department said it based much of its location selection on speed-related collision data and proximity to places like senior centers and schools. 

State law requires that the city continue monitoring the program’s effectiveness and impact on civil rights and liberties, according to LADOT.

The post Speed cameras are coming to South LA — here’s where they’ll be installed appeared first on LA Local.

Top officials from the Department of Homeland Security talked to House lawmakers about what the agency needs for next fiscal year — even as it's in the midst of a record-breaking shutdown.

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard and others testified about the impact of the current funding lapse on their workforce and programs. Several agency leaders requested money for more staff, while also raising concern that not all their workers were back in the office and had missed paychecks.

Some lawmakers called the hearing on Thursday an "absurdity," and the process "frustrating."

Lawmakers have been in a stalemate for over 60 days about funding the entire department, which includes agencies that oversee immigration enforcement, disaster relief, cybersecurity and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Democrats in the Senate refused to fund DHS as part of regular appropriations for the current fiscal year after immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in January. That meant the department ran out of money to operate on Feb. 14; it's now been without funding for more than 60 days. The previous longest shutdown, in November, lasted for 43 days — though it affected all government agencies.

But Democrats have failed to get Republicans on board with their demands for changes in how DHS's law enforcement operates. The White House and congressional Republicans have instead managed to find alternative sources of funding to continue immigration enforcement.

That includes the $75 billion congressional Republicans provided to ICE last summer as part of a partisan tax and spending package, which also included funds for Customs and Border Protection. ICE has tapped into that funding during the two most recent government shutdowns to continue paying its officers.

During the current shutdown, President Donald Trump signed a memo to pay Transportation Security Administration employees, and later extended it to all DHS employees, without detailing where exactly the money was coming from.

Here are some takeaways from the hearing:

1. Longest-ever shutdown dominates the testimony

In an opening statement, Rep. Rosa DeLauro said she noted "the absurdity of holding a hearing on funding for these agencies" for next year — while both parties are split on how to fund the agencies even for this year.

Republicans for their part are discussing whether they could fund the department for three years, or the rest of Trump's term, through a partisan process called reconciliation — the mechanism also used for immigration-focused funding passed last year.

All three of the DHS officials voiced support for the plan and urged Republicans to pass a reconciliation measure by June 1.

Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., the chairman of the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, expressed skepticism about the plan, saying it was "phenomenally interesting" that the agency officials were asking for a bill with no changes to immigration oversight.

"It's like saying, 'We're going to abolish Article 1 for three years,' no disrespect," he later said during closing comments, referring to the article in the U.S. Constitution that established Congress. "We want to give you your stuff in a consistent, predictable, sustainable way – that's our job. Just prefund me for three years. Really? How about you prepay me for three years. You'd be dumber than hell to do that."

2. Detention conditions, deaths, expansion plans probed

Texas Democrats questioned Todd Lyons, the acting ICE head, on the agency's plans to retrofit warehouses across the country as processing or detention facilities.

Reps. Henry Cuellar and Escobar asked about plans to bring warehouses to their state and argued the communities were rebuking the effort and lacked the infrastructure to support the projects.

Lyons said one facility in San Antonio is scheduled to be a processing center for 500 to 1,000 people and may include an immigration court. Other plans, such as a facility in McAllen, Texas, are under review.

"Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin is looking over the whole detention plan, and he's going to make an informed decision of where he wants to move forward and locations," Lyons said.

Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., asked Lyons about the record number of deaths under ICE custody. Lyons noted that the FBI was not investigating the death of a man at the Camp East Montana detention center in Texas, which a coroner determined was a homicide.

"Zero deaths is what we want. We don't want anyone to die in custody," Lyons said, adding that the agency spent "almost half a billion last fiscal year…to ensure that people have proper care."

But, when asked, he couldn't say how many people were still working in the Office of Detention Oversight, which would investigate such deaths and broader detention conditions and standards.

3. USCIS seeks funding for a law enforcement unit

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow said his agency wants to create a new law enforcement arm and hire and train 200 officers separate from those who work for ICE and CBP.

Under Trump, USCIS has increasingly turned to anti-immigration policing from its traditional focus on the ways people can lawfully migrate and stay in the U.S.

"What I am trying to create here is a very narrow criminal investigation branch that is going to focus specifically on immigration fraud and entitlement fraud," Edlow said, adding that each special agent would go through a nine-week training specific to USCIS.

Republicans and Democrats asked Edlow about growing waits for people to get an answer on their work permits or naturalization application.

"I agree processing times on certain applications have gone up over the last fiscal year," Edlow said. "I consider this to be short-term pain, which is going to really lead to long-term gain in the fair and proper processing of immigration."

USCIS is not directly impacted by the department-wide shutdown since they are funded by fees people pay when they submit their applications. Edlow said that last fiscal year the agency collected $7.5 billion in fee revenue, exceeding its goals.

4. Other DHS agencies including TSA and Coast Guard take the stand

Officials for the non-immigration agencies under DHS also testified about the need for funding.

Nick Andersen, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said the shutdown has harmed his agency's work, with only about 40% of staff consistently working.

Karen Evans, the acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the funding lapse is delaying reimbursements to local governments to handle disasters.

"We know the reimbursements are critical," Evans said, noting the agency and other parts of DHS are responding to several disasters right now, including a super-typhoon in the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.

And U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Kevin Lunday said there were over 500 unpaid utility bills because of the shutdown, "threatening to cut off electricity and water to Coast Guard stations" and a backlog to process 18,000 merchant mariner credentials, a standard credential required to work on U.S. vessels.

5. Upcoming national events pose national security, personnel challenges

Sean Curran, director of the U.S. Secret Service, warned that the next few years through 2028 are poised to be a heavy lift for the agency. Curran noted that the current workforce is not big enough to handle the FIFA World Cup, 2028 Olympics and the 2028 presidential cycle.

His agency is asking for funding to hire 852 new positions and he noted the Secret Service is also helping to train local law enforcement for the events, which also requires funding.

"I found out that [Los Angeles Police Department], they're not ready for drone detection and mitigation so we are going to train them," Curran said.

Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, also said the funding lapse put on hold training for personnel related to the World Cup games this summer.

The agency is also unable to pay for border maintenance, contractors, and certain planes and boats.

Ha Nguyen McNeill, the TSA acting administrator, said the agency is poised to lose more people as the shutdown drags on.

Shortages in TSA staffing prompted hours-long delays at airports nationwide last month, before Trump said the executive branch would pay them.

"We are less than two months away from the FIFA world cup and it takes us 4 to 6 months to train a new officer so with any spikes in attrition that is going to put us in a difficult position come this summer," Nguyen McNeill said.

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A large flatbed truck pulled up outside a remote immigrant detention center north of Los Angeles last month. On the truck bed, converted into a mobile stage, a band played protest songs. Huge speakers projected them loud across the desert landscape. But were they loud enough, the musicians wondered, to penetrate the detention center's tall, thick, concrete walls?

Loyda Alvarado looked toward the barbed wire fence and began to sing to the immigrants jailed inside:

Asómate a la ventana, te traje una serenata

Look out the window. I've brought you a serenade.

Aunque estés encarcelado, mira, te canta quien te ama…

Though you're locked up, someone you love is here to sing to you.

In a crowd of protesters looking on, a young woman's phone rang. It was her dad calling. He was detained inside, fighting deportation. She climbed onto the truck and took a microphone.

"He can hear us!" she yelled. "They all can hear us!" The crowd erupted.

In March, the band brought a musical serenade to immigrants detained at a large desert detention center in Adelanto, Calif. They blared their songs through massive speakers in the hopes the music would penetrate the facility's walls.

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The concert was staged by Los Jornaleros del Norte. Since federal agents began aggressive immigration raids in LA last June, the band's 11 members have been crisscrossing Southern California on their mobile stage determined to lift the spirits of people affected by the crackdowns. The band also hopes to provide a jolt of musical energy at otherwise somber protests.

"Since day one, we as musicians started organizing to protest wherever there were raids," said Omar León, the band's director, accordionist and songwriter. The band has often rolled up to street corners days or even hours after immigration agents have whisked someone away there. Many of their songs are about undocumented workers trying to make a living while evading immigration agents. Most are protest songs played as upbeat Mexican cumbias or as corridos, a style of ballad that often narrates the experiences of working class people.

Band director Omar León is a community organizer and former day laborer, as are most of the band's members. He's also the band's songwriter and plays the accordion and keyboard.

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León said the band's goal at demonstrations is to redirect protesters' anger and sorrow.

"People are already ready to march and to chant," he said. "But when they hear the music, they get more excited. It also minimizes tension and confrontation between police, ICE agents and the people who are protesting."

Loyda Alvarado, a lead singer in the band, said that in the crackdown's early weeks and months, it was hard to bring lively cumbias to the very place where an immigrant worker had just been taken away from their family and community.

"It just felt so heavy," she said. But over time, watching people dance and sing to their music, "I was reminded that this is a way in which we resist as well. The joy, despite all the suffering, despite all the pain, is such an important part of what we do because it helps us to keep our culture and to connect with each other."

Dancing at an October memorial vigil for a day laborer who was hit by a car while trying to evade arrest by immigration agents.

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The concert and serenade outside the desert detention center was one way the band has tried to reach detained immigrants themselves.

"We are bringing music for the people we love," said Manuel Vicente, who plays congas. "And to show them that we're waiting for them outside. And that their community is doing everything we can to bring them back."

Though the band has turbocharged its performance schedule in the last year, it's been performing at immigrant and workers' rights protests for three decades. Pablo Alvarado and Lolo Cutumay were among a small group of workers who formed the band in the mid 1990s after one of them witnessed immigration agents raid a site where day laborers were lining up for free health services. Their first song told the story of that raid

Most of the members of Los Jornaleros del Norte at a recent rehearsal near Los Angeles.

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Their name, Los Jornaleros del Norte means The Day Laborers of the North. To this day, most of its musicians are current or former day laborers, and work closely with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, using music to help mobilize immigrant workers.

On a recent evening, the band's mobile stage pulled up to a Home Depot east of LA. Weeks earlier, masked immigration agents had chased down day laborers gathered in the parking lot in search of a day's work. One of them, Carlos Roberto Montoya Valdéz, ran across the nearby freeway in a desperate attempt to escape. He was hit and killed by a car. The Jornaleros had come to honor his life.

The band often performs at the sites of recent immigration raids, including Home Depot stores, where immigration agents have repeatedly targeted day laborers waiting in parking lots hoping for work.

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For more than an hour, they played sentimental ballads as a tribute, and later, fast-paced cumbias to liven the mood.

"The songs that we do are stories about hardworking immigrants, hardworking women and hardworking men," Omar León said after the performance, as he put his accordion away. "Tonight we chose songs that talk about life, that talk about struggle. We chose love songs to remember Carlos Roberto Montoya."
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