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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

The U.S. Justice Department has issued subpoenas to California officials in an escalation of its scrutiny of local election administration.

The Associated Press obtained copies of three subpoenas sent Oct. 21 to employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, ordering them to appear in court on Nov. 4, the day after the election. The documents request any records, documents and communications related to letters sent in July and October by federal officials to state election officials outlining allegations of noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. The subpoenas also seek information relating to the office’s “methods for screening for unlawful voting by aliens” and anything about efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted.

The subpoenas were being issued by all four U.S. attorneys in California, according to a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar, said, “threats and intimidated have no place in elections.”

Subpoenas come amid ongoing court battle

The Trump administration has sued to force California to set aside up to 20,000 ballots it suspects went to noncitizens and not count them until citizenship can be verified. A district court judge on Tuesday rejected that request, then on Thursday appointed a special master to evaluate the administration’s claims.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter did not specify the exact scope of special master Daniel B. Garrie’s responsibilities, but said he would be tasked with “developing the factual record” for the court.

In a Tuesday court hearing, Carter said he wanted to vet the federal government’s list of over 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters since there has been extensive debate over its reliability and both sides have agreed that it includes an unspecified number of citizens.

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Carter also said at the hearing that a special master could investigate California’s claims that it cannot logistically separate the ballots in time for the county election certification deadline on Dec. 3. The federal government has contested that assertion.

It is not clear what would happen if a special master did find a substantial number of noncitizen voters on the federal government’s list or whether it would affect the certification of California’s election results. The 20,000 people on the DOJ’s list constitute only a small fraction of California’s 23 million voters.

Trump administration appeals to higher court

Meanwhile, the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to quickly weigh in.

The Justice Department said in a late Wednesday filing that it’s essential the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issue a ruling as soon as possible due to “irreversible ballot processing occurring on an ongoing basis.”

Carter’s decision was the latest legal setback for President Donald Trump in his efforts to expand federal control over state-run elections in the midterms that will decide control of Congress for the rest of his term. The Justice Department has made similar demands in other states, including Washington. Noncitizen voting has been a central focus of Trump’s political messaging for years, although available data indicates it is exceedingly rare.

Trump blasted Carter’s ruling against the federal government on Thursday morning before heading to a campaign rally in South Carolina.

“California is very corrupt. The elections are extremely corrupt. The judge should not have done that but we’ll appeal that, of course,” he told reporters. Trump added without evidence that there are “hundreds of thousands” and then amended it to “millions, in my opinion” of “bad ballots” in California.

Carter, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, argued that the Justice Department’s demands were a clear violation of the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits changes to voter rolls or election procedure within 90 days of an election.

A number of US citizens were included in the Justice Department’s list of names

Both sides agree that an unspecified number of citizens were inadvertently included. Carter argued that separating the ballots at this point would risk disenfranchising citizens and “wreak havoc” on the election certification process.

Over 500,000 votes have already been processed in Los Angeles County alone, according to court filings. The system also protects voter privacy: Once a vote is processed, it cannot be traced back to the person who cast it.

Carter is to rule on the government’s renewed request for a preliminary injunction, which would bar the state from counting the ballots until the litigation is resolved. He said he will do so after a Nov. 13 evidentiary hearing with input from the special master.

He said that if the federal government suspected noncitizens were voting, it could continue to prosecute those cases criminally. Federal authorities have charged over two dozen foreign nationals in California as part of a statewide sweep targeting people officials allege have illegally registered or voted in U.S. elections.

Appeals panel judges have said they wouldn’t support setting aside ballots this close to midterms

The appeal will be the second time that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will consider the case.

The first time was just last week when the Justice Department argued before an appeals court panel that a fast ruling on its request was needed to stop any counting of the ballots.

Although the panel ruled it was premature for an appeals court to get involved before a lower-court ruling, two of the three judges wrote separate concurrences making it clear they wouldn’t support setting aside ballots at this late date. They questioned the accuracy of the federal government’s list of alleged noncitizen voters and argued that to set aside votes risks disenfranchising citizens.

One judge dissented, arguing that federal law bars noncitizens from voting and requires California to vet the potentially illegal ballots before counting them. The failure to do so, he wrote, would cause irreparable harm to the election.

A group representing garment workers in Los Angeles is asking Olympic organizing committee LA28 to invest in the local garment industry, as it prepares to spend on contracts for apparel and linens for the 2028 Games.

The Garment Worker Center launched its “Wear LA” campaign Thursday at its office, which sits south of the Fashion District, where thousands of workers labor daily in the city’s garment factories, and east of the Coliseum, one of the main sites for Olympic and Paralympic competition.

“In the past, contracts have gone almost exclusively to giant multinational brands,” said Marissa Nuncio, executive director of the workers center, referencing past mega-events in Los Angeles. “It's overdue to start sharing these contracts with the businesses that make up the fabric of L.A.”

LA28 already has a raft of high-profile corporate deals, including with Skims, Ralph Lauren and Nike to produce Olympics apparel, but it is planning to purchase sheets, sports uniforms and towels starting next year, according to its procurement plans. LAist reached out to LA28 for comment, but did not hear back ahead of publication.

Olympics organizers will spend billions on goods and services during the Games, and have set a target of 75% local procurement, defining local as anywhere within Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The Garment Worker Center is the latest group to ask LA28 to tighten that definition by restricting apparel manufacturing to the city of Los Angeles. L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson is pushing a motion at City Hall asking Olympics organizers to commit to giving some contracts to businesses in the city specifically.

LA28 has not budged on its procurement plans. A spokesperson for the organizing committee responded to a request for comment by pointing to its “Made for Two Eight” program which allows businesses to apply to use the LA28 emblem on locally-made products.

The center also wants LA28 to commit to sourcing goods from manufacturers that pay $25 an hour and have no outstanding wage claims. Wage theft is rampant in the garment industry.

The new campaign also takes aim at the city of Los Angeles, asking city leaders to establish a position within the Community Investment Department focused on the garment industry and develop a “Made in LA” program to give city apparel contracts to local ethical manufacturers. L.A. County is currently working on developing a similar pilot program, and the Garment Worker Center is asking the city to follow suit.

As her reelection campaign was heating up, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass held a news conference last month at an apartment complex recently built above the Vermont/Santa Monica station on the Metro B Line.

Her message: During her first term in office, the city has tackled high rents by facilitating construction of more than 10,000 new income-restricted apartments.

“Today marks an important milestone in our work to make Los Angeles more affordable for the people who call this city home,” Bass said outside the colorful, six-story apartment building.

Affordability, she said, was the city’s “number one issue.”

L.A. voters who agree with that assessment will need to decide in Tuesday’s election whether Bass has done enough on housing affordability to merit a second term, or whether her challenger, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, would do a better job addressing the deep-rooted problem.

Bass vs. Raman

Raman has pitched herself as the Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) alternative to L.A.’s status quo, bucking consensus opinion among elected leaders who have often been skeptical about the benefits of new housing construction. As a result, she has at times struggled to win majority support on the council for pro-development proposals.

Bass has made several policy changes aimed at boosting affordable housing production. But housing policy experts say the results have been mixed. One thing she didn’t mention in her announcement at the Metro stop housing project was that the building that served as a backdrop had been funded by Proposition HHH.

That $1.2 billion measure to build units for formerly unhoused tenants was supported by former Mayor Eric Garcetti and passed by voters a decade ago.

About half of the building’s 187 units are not available for most renters — they’re reserved for people exiting homelessness, in accordance with the goals of Prop. HHH. The other half is open only to tenants earning less than 50% of the area’s median income.

Jason Ward, an economist and director at Santa Monica-based policy research organization the RAND Housing Center, said permanent supportive housing units can help get chronically unhoused people off the streets, but they have “nothing to do with the housing affordability of an average low-income Angeleno household.”

An LAist analysis found that about 40% of the 10,000 affordable units built during Bass’ time in office were in projects funded by Prop. HHH. That measure passed in 2016, long before her inauguration in late 2022.

“Things that really allowed HHH to have a pretty big impact all preceded the mayor's term,” Ward said. “Any projects getting built in a current mayor's four-year term, you can just basically assume that [mayor] didn't have a lot to do with the conditions that enabled them to begin.”

LAist asked Bass’ campaign about her statements outside the apartment complex above the Metro station. A spokesperson sent LAist an email saying, “Los Angeles underbuilt housing for decades,” and “Mayor Bass changed that.”

“But the Mayor is not satisfied,” the spokesperson continued. “She's continuing to take action to finally address our city's housing crisis."

Housing accomplishments under Bass 

Some housing policy experts give Bass credit for taking some meaningful steps to speed up low-income housing creation, which they say is needed in a city where about 60% of renters spend more on housing than is considered affordable under federal government standards.

Bass signed off on what is, perhaps, her signature housing reform during her first week in office. Her Executive Directive One (ED 1) speeds up city permitting for projects where all units have rents capped at levels deemed affordable to low- and moderate-income tenants.

Developers responded to the program’s fast-tracking by submitting plans for more than 47,000 income-restricted apartments.

Shane Phillips, the housing initiative manager for the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, openly supports Raman. But he said ED 1 has been a positive change for L.A.

“It's certainly not enough, but I think it was an effective policy,” Phillips said. “In some ways, the mayor's office, I think, was a little surprised by how effective it was.”

Most of those ED 1 units remain unbuilt. Again, completing new housing developments often takes longer than a single mayoral term.

Bass’ campaign told LAist that 7,728 units in ED 1 projects are currently under construction, and 418 units are now ready for occupancy.

Bass says the affordable units completed during her time in office represent a fourfold increase from levels under the Garcetti administration.

But L.A. remains far short of meeting the housing production targets laid out in a state-required planning process. To reach those goals, the city would need to build about 23,000 units of affordable housing every year.

“We don't have a lot to be super proud of,” Phillips said. “We've kind of had this trade-off where, yes, we've been building more low-income affordable housing than in past years. But that's been offset by a reduction in housing production overall. And it's housing production overall that actually affects prices and rents for the city as a whole.”

L.A. is not alone in failing to keep up with its state housing production targets. Most cities are far behind. But Bass’ opponent argues the city could be doing much more to reach those goals.

Where has Raman disagreed with Bass?

Raman’s positions on some major housing policies offer a stark contrast with Bass.

Before it was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, Bass opposed SB 79, a recent state law that overrides local zoning restrictions to allow more housing density near major public transit lines. She said the law could “disproportionately impact low-resource neighborhoods.”

A majority of the City Council joined Bass in opposing SB 79. But Raman, who until recently chaired the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, voted against the council’s opposition, saying state lawmakers were right to push reluctant city officials toward permitting more homes.

After ED 1 applications began flooding in, angering some homeowners near proposed projects, Bass rolled back the program. She canceled ED 1 near single-family zones and in historic districts. Nearly three-quarters of L.A.’s residential land remains reserved for single-family homes, and this zoning has been protected by Bass and other elected leaders.

Raman was the lone council member to favor allowing some controversial ED 1 projects to move forward. Her position earned strong disapproval from some homeowners in her district.

Court rulings later found that the city illegally blocked the projects.

“Working Angelenos are leaving the city every single day because they can’t afford to pay the rent,” Raman said in a recent forum. “We can change the policies in the city that have made Los Angeles one of the slowest, most unpredictable, most expensive places to build.”

Bass’ case against Raman

Bass has said that taking a more permissive approach to market-rate housing development could harm existing tenants. She has said she believes new market-rate apartments can end up gentrifying neighborhoods.

“We need housing, but we cannot displace Black and Brown people,” Bass said at another recent forum. “If you have housing that is just built anywhere and everywhere, they're coming for us.”

Bass has also said Raman’s talk on housing hasn’t produced enough results for her district, which stretches from Encino east through the Hollywood Hills and into Los Feliz. Bass’ administration says Raman’s district has seen 130 affordable units completed in the last four years, the second-lowest of any council district.

The Raman campaign has said her district was redrawn in 2022 to exclude many of the neighborhoods where affordable apartments could be built. The single-family zones that dominate her district now restrict low-income units more than in other districts, they’ve said.

“Comparing raw unit totals across districts with very different zoning doesn’t show which offices are actually doing the work to get housing built,” a campaign spokesperson said in an email.

In L.A.’s political system, mayors need to work closely with the City Council on major legislative reforms. But during Raman’s time in City Hall, she has not been able to convince a majority of her colleagues to explore making certain single-family zones more dense, to exempt new apartments from the city’s “mansion tax” or to join her in other housing-related reforms.

“There's a lot of unwillingness to do things dramatically different than the status quo, at least on average, in the City Council,” Ward said. “I think that's going to continue to be a challenge.”

A Raman campaign spokesperson told LAist in an email that some of her reforms, such as speeding up utility hookups for new buildings, could be enacted without council approval.

“Much of her platform is focused on cutting red tape and implementing bureaucratic reforms that fall squarely under the powers of the mayor,” they said.

Where the candidates are aligned 

Both Bass and Raman have been eager to take credit for lowering the city’s rent control caps, which apply to annual rent increases for most of the city’s apartment dwellers.

As chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, Raman oversaw legislative debate on the new policy, which lowered the city’s maximum allowable rent increase from 10% to 4%.

Bass signed that reform into law last year.

Both have also supported efforts to rein in Measure ULA, the city’s so-called “mansion tax.” Many economists blame the tax, which applies to all kinds of real estate selling for more than $5.4 million, for dragging down the development of new apartment buildings.

Bass said her support for “mansion tax” reforms at the state level fell apart as Sacramento lawmakers hit a legislative deadline last year.

Raman’s proposal to ask voters to cancel the tax on new apartment buildings never made it to a vote in the City Council.

For more on Los Angeles-area races in the upcoming election, go to LAist's Voter Game Plan.