The Brief

This story is part of ICE vs. LA, a collaborative reporting project by LA Public Press, Caló News, Capital & Main, Capital B, LA Taco, and Q Voice.

Four months after nearly 5,000 federal troops descended onto Los Angeles, Marsha Mitchell, a Black organizer in South Central, explained what made it impossible for her not to act: her neighbors.

At the peak of the federal immigration raids this summer — when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was arresting an average of 540 people per week in the city — her neighbor, Erica, and her husband and friend were taken by federal agents while eating breakfast in their home.

All three were placed in a van and driven toward downtown Los Angeles.

But Erica knew she had to get back to her small children, recalled Mitchell, a lifelong South Central resident, from a conversation she had with her neighbor.

“As a mother, her whole thing was, I got to get to my babies,” Mitchell said.

When the agents opened the van doors in downtown L.A., Erica broke free — still tied up, still terrified — and ran. While Erica managed to escape, her husband was placed in the detention center, where he said conditions were unbearable. According to Mitchell, he self-deported rather than endure them, choosing to escape the system that had trapped him.

Erica was the family’s breadwinner through her tamale stand, but with her husband gone, she is too afraid to leave her home. The family has collapsed financially under the weight of a single raid, Mitchell said.

“Not only has she lost her business, but also her husband and the ability to give her family what they need to survive,” said Mitchell, an organizer with Community Coalition, the long-standing anti-violence and drug addiction group founded by now-Mayor Karen Bass in 1990.

In South L.A., where Los Angeles City Council Districts 8, 9, and 10 have transformed from predominantly Black to predominantly Latino, and where the highest percentages of undocumented residents in the city now live, Erica’s story is part of the new normal.

For some South Central residents, the raids have triggered economic and social catastrophes. During the first weeks of concentrated immigration enforcement, 465,000 fewer workers reported for work. One local business owner told the economic justice group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy that he’d lost 80% of his business in the first month of the ICE crackdown. Other shops across South Central and downtown lost business for weeks.

The raids are posing a new hurdle for Black and Latino families to pay rent in one of America’s most expensive cities. But they’ve also catalyzed Black neighbors to act.

“[Erica] is a member of our community, and she is afraid to come outside,” Mitchell said. “She is not alone, and that is why we’re helping with mutual aid.”

Immediately, that looked like bringing her family groceries and referring them to resources for free mental health care.

Community Coalition, known as CoCo, is training dozens of block captains to canvass their communities and coordinate food drop-offs, safety check-ins, and care referrals in real time. They’re organizing their neighbors around the threats facing everyone, regardless of their race or residency status.

The immediacy of this care network — 18 block captains now, with hopes to reach 28 — emerged after Erica’s abduction by ICE, according to Mitchell, who works for CoCo.

L.A. County’s Black residents — 20% of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants — are standing in solidarity with their Latino neighbors, saying they are part of a shared fight against over-policing and racialized violence. Nine out of 10 ICE arrests have been of Latinos.

“Seeing families torn apart is so reminiscent of the white supremacist playbook that we’ve seen historically in communities of color, and that starts with our Indigenous siblings to slavery and through these latest ICE raids,” Mitchell said.

Neighbors moved to action

Pamela Riley envisions her South Central neighborhood with all the resources it needs to thrive, but that starts at the block level, she said.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

On a quiet stretch of 92nd Street, Pamela Riley propped open her front gate around 8 a.m. For one Saturday in October, her front yard — one of the typical South Central flair caged in by a sagging iron gate — became the heartbeat of a block fighting back against abandonment.

Within minutes, her neighbors began to gather. Grandmothers sipped coffee, young mothers munched on donuts, and teenagers organized flyers printed in Spanish and English.

Just steps from the 110 freeway and the ghostly remains of shuttered shops and clinics, her community is forging new lines of solidarity amid chronic neglect and a deep need for connection. This is the new frontline in South Los Angeles, where a coalition of Black and Latino residents is launching a network of “Neighborhood Action Hubs” along the Vermont and Broadway corridors to keep mutual aid alive as official support shrinks.

The goal: to weave a grassroots shield against ICE crackdowns and social services cuts and offer a model for how neighbors, not institutions, can bridge fear and isolation.

“That blueprint of success is there. The road is paved, we just need to walk it together,” said Riley, a 64-year-old lifelong South Central resident.

Later that morning, as the sun tried to fight through the gloomy sky, a group of three of the women who showed up at Riley’s event — two Black, one Latina — passed the same mural-painted utility boxes and chain-link fences that mark so many South L.A. blocks. Old-school Chevys, some missing hubcaps, were parked next to pickups and battered minivans, while the sound of cumbia drifted from a doorway where a woman watered her agave under the music’s sway.

As they moved from house to house, the group stopped at gates and asked neighbors about the specific issues facing their blocks and individual households. At one, a longtime Latino immigrant, gray-haired and smiling, shared how she planned to vote in the now-passed November election.

Riley’s block has become a lot more quiet and less frequented since ICE raids began.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

Deeper onto the block, the canvassers encountered two undocumented migrants — one a young father, the other a middle-aged woman. The father spoke to tangible issues in the neighborhood: “People have started stealing car tires at night and cutting wires from light poles for quick money,” he said.

The mother spoke quietly about work drying up and more neighbors “laying low” as rumors of ICE sightings swept through the area. The Latina canvasser asked directly about food access and whether anyone still sold homemade snacks. The woman hesitated, then explained in Spanish that she stopped selling crepes out of fear.

The canvassers turned to the others and suggested a solution: organizing a block-wide food vendor party, so people could sell their products safely.

Walking farther, they found themselves cautiously welcomed by a Black city worker who had lived on the block for decades. She described losing sleep as the city’s racial demographics shifted and her worry about Black and Latino votes being split or erased.

At each stop, the canvassers handed out cards with voting information and explained how to register, where to find drop boxes, and how to access rapid response teams if ICE was spotted or the lights went out again.

“Solidarity is literally in L.A.’s DNA,” Mitchell said. “We know that when communities come together, we weather all kinds of storms — governmental, financial, whatever comes our way.”

L.A.’s long-history of racial coalitions

Neighborhood canvassers speak to a women. This specific Saturday, these two canvassers knocked on dozens of doors for over 2 hours.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

Riley said her memories are filled with better days: bustling shops, a hospital on 94th, neighbors who’d send their kids to college together. She has watched her neighborhood swing from prosperity to depression and now, uncertainty.

Today, Riley’s yard and days are devoted to strategizing — she and other block captains count names, rehearse response plans and dream of new “welcome to South Central L.A.” signs at every corner. During meetings, they talk about how, in other parts of the city, neighbors stand by each other in crisis; here, too, unity could mean survival. The terror of recent abductions — a beloved tamalera torn from her routine and dayworkers swiped off the streets — still haunts these blocks, sharpening every knock at the door.

“I grew up in a civil rights era of the ’60s, and I’m starting to realize this is the new era of civil rights,” Riley said, explaining that the attack on civil rights today has extended far beyond immigration raids. “It is requiring more from all of us.”

Having lived through what she considers broken promises following the devastation of the 1992 L.A. Riots, Riley said she understands that revival cannot rely on state intervention alone, and it bridges racial divides. Instead, she insists, “what’s going on in Washington DC is showing us we need to join together and support each other.”

It also reminds her of the power of community. During the 1992 protests against police brutality, Latinos constituted the largest portion of arrests despite making up a smaller percentage of the overall population at the time.

Dozens of volunteers began their Saturday at 9 a.m. to door knock.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

The roots of Black and Latino collaboration go back to the founding of L.A. itself, where 26 of the city’s 44 original settlers in 1781 were Black/Afro-Latino with Spanish surnames — establishing a tradition of mixed neighborhoods and joint political action. This foundation was later strengthened during the Great Migration and again throughout the 20th century, when Black and Latino residents forged working alliances in the face of shared exclusion from citywide power.

In recent decades, the demographic mix in South Central has shifted further. Where once the community was predominantly Black, Latino residents now form the majority. The change created new opportunities for solidarity, as well as challenges, especially after Latino L.A. City Council members were caught on tape using racist anti-Black language while discussing concerns about the political power of Black residents. The tapes reopened wounds over neighborhood displacement.

Today, the skepticism remains real for a lot of Black people in L.A. In June, a viral moment spread across the internet after Latino protesters hurled racial insults at a Black L.A. police officer.

“A significant number of Black folks don’t see this as their fight,” author and commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson said after the protest in June. “They’ve seen anti-Blackness in Latino communities. They’ve felt left out when it came to our issues. That breeds skepticism.”

But “if anything, the debate over whether Blacks should link hands with Latino activists in the immigration battle seems age old,” Hutchinson wrote on his daily blog.

Hector Sanchez, CoCo’s Deputy Political Director, agreed.“It takes a lot of work. I’m not going to say it’s very easy … but it’s people that are willing to have those difficult conversations at times to ensure that we have each other’s back.”

Just a day after the city council tapes leaked, more than 400 people came together in Boyle Heights “to talk about the importance of multi-racial solidarity,” he said. Despite the tensions, neighbors continue fighting side by side for justice and belonging.

When canvassers could not get in contact with residents, they left behind these door hangers with a list of resources.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

In the years since, organizers have responded by promoting cross-cultural events, joint canvassing efforts, and language exchange programs. Language exchange workshops and “know your rights” sessions — alongside mutual aid deliveries — have become linchpins of the hub approach.

“We are not just helping Black folks, not just one population. It’s for all of us,” explained Sequarier McCoy, a 49-year-old lifelong L.A. resident.

“I grew up in a Black and Brown community,” she added. “I smelled Black-eyed peas, but I also smelled tortillas. I like corn on the cob and Esquites.”

McCoy is also acutely aware that the issues of migration, detention and deportation are far from just Latino issues. “It’s also for Dominican folks. It’s also for Belizean folks. It’s also for Caribbean folks,” she said. She said her partner, a Belizean migrant, is living in fear too.

Black undocumented migrants are deported at a rate four times more often than their numbers would suggest, according to an analysis of federal data by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

It is why this practical solidarity spans crises, organizers said. When SNAP benefits run dry, when an ICE van is spotted, or when a neighbor’s lights go out, the same phone trees and rapid response plans kick in.

“This work is an honor as a human being, not just as an activist,” McCoy said.

A judge on Thursday indicated that she’s inclined to order federal immigration agents to stop arresting people without warrants in Los Angeles if they haven’t assessed their flight risk.

If she grants the order, it would be one of the most significant so far in a wide-ranging lawsuit over the government’s ongoing immigration raids in Southern California. It would force agents to fundamentally change the way they’ve conducted the sweeps at the heart of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Since 1946, federal law has allowed immigration officers to arrest someone without a warrant only when they have probable cause both that the person is in the country unlawfully and that they are likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. Courts have long held that to mean that agents are required to consider the person’s ties to the community, like a person having a job, a home and a family in the community where the arrest occurs.

However, in raids in Southern California and across the country, supervisors have told agents to “get out and start grabbing people,” and agents have ambushed people without knowing their immigration history and targeted Latinos at places like car washes and bus stops, court records and body camera footage show.

Last month, plaintiffs attorneys in the lawsuit filed with the court text messages and body cam footage that showed federal agents using racial slurs to identify targets in the Los Angeles raids. They argued the evidence showed immigration agents simply detained people who looked Latino.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s ruling Thursday means agents now need to obtain “individualized, pre-arrest probable cause determinations of flight risk” in the city and the areas surrounding Los Angeles, home to 19 million people.

That means people who have longstanding ties to the community, U.S.-born children and spouses and long-term homes in the Los Angeles area would not likely be considered by a court to be a flight risk, unless they have serious criminal records.

Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong on Thursday became at least the fifth federal judge across the country to block the administration’s warrantless arrest practices, following courts in Oregon, Colorado and Washington D.C. Two courts have also already ruled agents continued the practice of warrantless arrests even after being ordered to stop.

In July 2025, weeks after the sweeps first began, Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued an order barring agents from stopping people based on factors like their apparent race, speaking Spanish or wearing certain clothing. The Supreme Court eventually put that order on hold. Thursday’s order is distinct in that it doesn’t address who agents may stop for questioning, but what info they must collect before deciding to arrest the person without a warrant.

The ruling comes after a motion brought by attorneys for immigrants caught up in the LA raids, which began with high-profile raids under former Border Patrol leader Gregory Bovino and have continued, with lesser public attention, into 2026.

Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union and Public Counsel, among others, analyzed 113 arrest narratives produced as discovery in the case, finding nearly 80% contained either no escape-risk assessment or used boiler plate language.

In those narratives, some agents wrote that they determined a person was likely to escape because they either allegedly ran from law enforcement officers, lived in a sanctuary state, ignored commands or just based on the person’s “illegal presence in the United States.”

In several instances, the government’s own body camera footage contradicted the arrest paperwork. For example, an agent wrote a man was “running in the opposite direction” during a warehouse raid in Pomona, but body camera footage shows the man was not running and had very limited mobility, court records say.

In another example, court records show an agent wrote a man was “running away” from him during an August 2025 raid at a Westlake Home Depot. Video shows the man was walking toward the agent while texting.

In depositions, federal officials defended warrantless arrests. The Border Patrol supervisor who oversaw the arrests of three men taken from a Pasadena bus stop testified that if a person makes a “self-admission of alienage,” that’s enough to justify a warrantless arrest.

Just walking his dogs

As part of the motion, attorneys for immigrants swept up in the raids released hundreds of new exhibits including body camera footage from agents, text messages and official orders from ICE headquarters.

In one previously unreleased body camera video, a swarm of federal agents move through a parking lot and stop a man with two small barking dogs.

A woman tries to explain to an immigration agent that the man they’ve detained does has papers, he just didn’t bring them with him. “Salió a caminar sus perros,” she says, telling them that he’d just went out to walk his dogs. The agent says he doesn’t understand – “No entiendo.” “It’s the law, ma’am,” another says, telling her she is welcome to file a complaint with the U.S. Border Patrol.

At no point in the video do agents ask the man anything about where he lives, where he works or whether he has family here, the kinds of questions courts have said agents must weigh before arresting someone without a warrant.

Citing newly released evidence, plaintiffs attorneys argued that immigration officials are also creating poor conditions in detention to force people to voluntarily deport themselves.

A man identified in a declaration only as D.V.V. said while he was detained at Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County he was pressured multiple times to sign a form he didn’t understand.

“I asked to see the form. The second time, the officers took me to a meeting room where a man told me they would force me to sign if I refused to sign,” D.V.V. wrote in his declaration, submitted under penalty of perjury with the court.

“When I refused, they brought in a bigger man who said he would force me to sign. It seemed like they were trying to intimidate me,” he said.

One of the exhibits points to damage that can’t be undone. In a declaration, a tamale vendor who has been in the United States for more than 30 years describes the long-lasting impacts of being detained for five months in Adelanto.

“I want to be strong and move on, but I am struggling. I feel incredible sadness. I am not the same man I was before I was detained. I feel like a stranger to myself. Sometimes I cannot hold in all my emotions and I just cry for a long time. At night, I can’t sleep,” he wrote.

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

LAist’s weekly podcast Imperfect Paradise has won a 2026 national Edward R. Murrow Award — among the highest honors in journalism.

The episode "Rebuilding a life, 100 miles at a time" won in the Podcast category and tells the story of Cesar Quijano, who was struggling with addiction and reentry following years in prison.

Quijano found purpose and salvation in an unlikely hobby: ultrarunning. The episode follows Quijano as he prepares and completes a 100-mile race and unpacks consequential questions about the support people need to successfully transition out of prison and into society.

The episode was co-reported by Lucy Copp and Senior Producer Natalie Chudnovsky and hosted by Antonia Cereijido, with production help from James Chow and engineering by Shawn Campbell.

The award was announced Thursday.

"We're honored for this recognition," said LAist Editor in Chief Megan Garvey. "This is a moving, well-told story of resilience and rebirth. It's a great example of the deep and human-centered enterprise journalism that is a hallmark of LAist and our flagship podcast, Imperfect Paradise."

The winning episode advanced to national consideration after taking top regional honors earlier this year. Another Imperfect Paradise episode, "Rebuild or leave? One Black family in Altadena decides their future after Eaton Fire" also won a regional Murrow award.

Residents and City Council members are raising concerns about Long Beach’s plan to shut down a fire engine, lay off dozens of firefighters and reduce fire station staffing on a rotating basis.

They said city management should consider other options to balance the budget before making cuts that would drive up response time and limit how effectively first responders can handle emergencies.

Objections came during a City Council meeting Tuesday night when officials discussed potential cuts at the Long Beach Fire Department, which are part of sweeping cost-saving measures City Manager Tom Modica proposed to close a $58 million deficit in the coming fiscal year.

Modica’s plan called for trimming $11 million from the LBFD’s $201 million budget. It would mean shutting down Fire Engine 14 in East Long Beach, eliminating 34 positions overall — including 28 currently filled jobs — and taking one engine out of service on a rotating basis among the city’s 23 stations.

Four fire captain positions would be cut, including roles tied to the Los Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center, community services and public information, and training and recruitment, along with a vacant battalion chief position in the Operations Bureau. The Fire Department’s headquarters front desk would also lose its in-person staffing and shift to a remote receptionist system.

In arguing to shut down Engine 14, which operates out of the fire station near Colorado Lagoon, officials said it responds to about 2,200 — mostly medical — emergencies each year but only about 200 fire calls, which is fewer than other engines. Fire Station 14’s ambulance crew will continue without interruption, they added. Eliminating the engine, along with laying off the firefighters assigned to it, is expected to save the city $3.88 million.

Long Beach Fire Engine 14 pulls into Station 14 at the intersection of Colorado Street and Elliot Street in Long Beach Tuesday, November 29, 2022.

(

Thomas R. Cordova

/

Long Beach Post

)

Taking an additional engine out of service on a rotating basis would save an additional $3.82 million.

But after pushback from the public and City Council members, Modica said his office would bring back other options to consider within the next week.

The City Council must ultimately vote on any cuts before they take effect.

What would the cuts mean?

Cuts of the magnitude proposed would invariably affect operations, Fire Chief Dennis Buchanan told City Council members. “When I say operations, I mean I have to impact the community,” he said.

The cuts would lead to an increased strain on firefighters and paramedics, leading to longer response times and instances where there is no engine available to respond to an emergency.

“Even a mild adjustment can affect the way we respond to calls,” he said.

Lamont Nguyen, president of the city firefighters union, said that the loss of Engine 14 would reverberate through the city. He said the engine, unlike some others, is also a paramedic-assessment unit, meaning it’s equipped to respond to medical calls and administer IVs and life-saving medication, or use heart monitors that could save someone in the time leading up to the arrival of an ambulance.

Firefighters and paramedics responded to more than 67,200 calls for service in the past fiscal year, department data show, with 85% for medical emergencies and 11% for fires.

The pushback

Councilmember Kristina Duggan, whose district includes Station 14’s coverage area, said the calls for service won’t stop just because the engine does.

She noted her district has more than 1,200 new housing units coming online in the next two years, along with an expanded battery storage facility next to a natural gas power plant.

“It still does respond to 2,200-plus calls per year,” Duggan said of Engine 14. “If Engine 14 is eliminated, that doesn’t mean the calls disappear.”

Calls currently handled by Engine 14 would be redirected to Engine 4 in Belmont Heights, Engine 8 in Belmont Shore and Engine 22, which serves the area near Cal State Long Beach.

Councilmember Daryl Supernaw said that redistribution could overextend Engine 22, whose coverage area already stretches north to Cal State Long Beach, sometimes along the 405 Freeway and south to the border of Seal Beach.

“To say it’s going to be impactful is an understatement,” Supernaw said.

Supernaw also noted that Engine 22 sits near the 405 Freeway and sometimes must respond to time-consuming freeway incidents and must go into the coverage area of Fire Station 18, which does not have its own engine.

During the City Council meeting Tuesday, resident Patrick Pianezza urged the council to reconsider the cuts, arguing that removing Engine 14 would leave a gap that ambulances alone can’t fill, since they typically don’t carry fire-suppression equipment.

“When you remove resources for public safety and public health, nothing good happens,” Pianezza said.

What’s next?

Mayor Rex Richardson has already proposed revising a portion of the cuts, specifically the rotating engine closure.

However, he said Long Beach has survived prior budget crises that also required public safety cuts.

“We know that budgets are cyclical. Sometimes there’s good years, sometimes there’s bad years,” Richardson said. “The last three mayors had to deal with it, the last three councils had to deal with it.”

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson outlines his budget proposals during a press conference at City Hall on Thursday, July 30, 2026.

(

Thomas R. Cordova

/

Long Beach Post

)

He and others pointed out that Long Beach has closed and later restored fire engines before.

Engine 12 was shut down and took roughly a decade to be structurally re-funded, according to city officials, while Engine 17 was restored in 2019 after seven years without full funding.

Both engines, along with Engine 8, have since been brought back into service. Some council members and residents argued that history shows how difficult it can be to bring back a unit once it’s gone, even as the surrounding neighborhoods continue to grow.

Richardson expressed optimism that the current shortfall is temporary and that the city is on track to reach a structural surplus within two years.

“But the good news is, once it is structurally addressed through this plan, you know, forecast long-term fiscal stability that we haven’t had since the pre-pandemic era,” Richardson said. “That’s what we’re doing in this budget.”

You can give your opinion on the budget by submitting a comment card here until Friday. The City Council and its Budget Oversight Committee will also continue discussing the budget at upcoming meetings, which you can find here. City Council members must adopt a balanced budget by October.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Two pieces of legislation were announced at a press conference on Wednesday at Proyecto Pastoral in Boyle Heights that aim to keep the Lineage cold-storage facility accountable in the aftermath of the fire. 

Here's what you should know about the proposals:

AB 817: Tax-free settlements

One bill — proposed by Assemblymember Mark González — seeks to prevent the city and county of Los Angeles from issuing new building permits to cold storage facilities like Lineage, “unless they maintain a contingency fund that can be accessed in states of emergency.”

The legislation, known as AB 817, also aims to ensure that any future settlements be tax-free for residents impacted by the Lineage fire. It would require local governments to take quicker action on controlling vectors if a state of emergency is declared.

“If you’re going to operate in a community, you have a responsibility to that community, and if something goes wrong, the community should not have to beg for the resources just to survive it,” González said. 

“AB817 will not undo what has already happened, but it can make sure that the next community in California is not left asking the same questions we are asking today,” González added.

SB 716: Fines for violators

The other bill, proposed by state Sen. María Elena Durazo, would increase the amount that cities and counties can fine companies that violate their ordinances. 

Under this proposed legislation — known as SB 716 — violators would face $1,000 per day for a first violation, $2,000 for a second violation, and $5,000 for each additional violation. If the violation results from a state or federal disaster declaration, these fines can be multiplied up to $50,000 per violation, according to the legislative factsheet.

Durazo said the current cap of $2,000 per day on city and county fines is not a “deterrent” for a company the size of Lineage, which has been cited by county health officials for unsanitary and nuisance conditions. Durazo said L.A. County issued six citations to Lineage and imposed $500 fines per day from July 23 through July 29.

“It is outrageous that my constituents, the residents of these communities, are expected to endure these conditions while clean-up continues at the company’s slow pace,” Durazo said. “We need more tools to address this emergency now … and to prevent this from ever happening again.” 

Why now

These proposed bills come weeks after permit applications were filed to restore the Lineage cold-storage warehouse.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who attended Wednesday’s press conference, has directed city departments to pause any approval of permits to rebuild the Lineage warehouse pending an investigation.

Just last week, the South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing board ordered Lineage to strengthen odor-control measures, expand air monitoring and improve communication with residents as cleanup of the burned warehouse continues.

The board, however, did not require Lineage to pay any financial penalties, which several elected officials, including Bass, had requested in light of the numerous air quality violations it had been issued.