The Brief

On a recent hot morning in Reseda, three members of the neighborhood council gathered in a parking lot outside a Food 4 Less, carrying clipboards, flyers and red "Know Your Rights" cards.

The goal for the day was to inform shopkeepers and store clerks of their constitutional protections, and encourage them to pass that information onto their customers. It wasn't a one-off. Since federal immigration agents showed up in full force in communities across Los Angeles, local representatives in Reseda have also hit their neighborhood's streets.

They say they've visited just about every storefront in Reseda — which neighborhood council president Jamie York said added up to hundreds of locations.

"This is not just to apprise people of their rights, but also to help people have a plan in place for if ICE does come to their business," said York, her hands full of materials to disburse. "We're trying to be very proactive and encouraging people to have those plans."

The Food 4 Less was a good place to start that day. In the weeks prior, York said agents had detained a street vendor near the same parking lot. When another neighborhood council member stopped into a tobacco shop in the strip mall, a cashier there said he saw it happen.

" The way that they took him, it's not good," he said. "Some people have children, have business."

He took some flyers to display in the shop.

Cards in many languages

Neighborhood councils are the smallest form of government Los Angeles has — there are 99 neighborhood councils composed of elected representatives that advise city government and take local actions. Accordingly, they get a small budget to conduct their business.

York told LAist their neighborhood council had ordered red cards back in February, anticipating they'd need them. They started distributing them to places like schools, parks and libraries in March. They ramped up distribution at businesses when the raids started this summer.

The council decided to target storefronts because it would allow each business to become its own hub for community members. York said it's been a huge success that could be a model for other neighborhood councils.

They've ordered nearly 50,000 cards and distributed more than half. And they've expanded the languages they're printing to include Spanish, Farsi, Arabic, Russian, Pashto, Tagalog, Armenian and Thai. They also made cards with a QR code linking to Know Your Rights videos in Indigenous languages. York said those had specifically been requested by some nearby schools.

The Reseda Neighborhood Council has authorized spending $3,000 on red cards and other canvassing efforts so far — no small number, considering its annual budget of just $25,000, York said.

City Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield and Nithya Raman both represent parts of Reseda. York said both of their offices have agreed to reimburse the neighborhood council for some of those costs. Raman's staff has also joined the council in canvassing the neighborhood.

The Reseda Neighborhood Council distributed signs and other materials to businesses to prepare them for potential encounters with immigration agents.

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Libby Rainey

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LAist

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Scenes from canvassing

Now that they've covered the whole community, neighborhood council members are returning to storefronts they've already visited. At a supermarket last week, they stopped at multiple departments to make sure all the workers had a chance to receive some materials.

At a laundromat, neighborhood councilmember Doug Smith handed out red cards in Spanish. Next door, the owner of a water store asked for some in Farsi. But he had questions too. He said he was an immigrant from Iran who eventually became a citizen, and he wanted to see people in the country without documents do the same.

Still, he said he'd put out the red cards.

Bruno Hernandez, another member of Reseda's neighborhood council who was out that day, said the majority of shop owners were happy to see local representatives out in the community talking to people.

" I think it's really important to have somebody from the community… come in and give a sincere hand to try to help," he said.

Why businesses?

It's not just "Know Your Rights" cards that they've been handing out in Reseda. Neighborhood council members and community volunteers have also been distributing papers to show people what a valid judicial warrant looks like. And they've been bringing businesses signs to put up marking private space — which can limit where immigration agents can go without a warrant.

In Reseda last week, the cashier at a kabob restaurant inside a grocery store took a few signs. York gave him tips on how to use them.

"Have that up in the back — that protects your guys' back area as private," she said. "Then they can't come back there without a warrant."

At other shops, Hernandez emphasized that the red cards weren't just for business owners — they were for customers.

" You're giving [business owners] the opportunity to serve their community and their customer base," he said.

Members of the Reseda Neighborhood Council and other volunteers have been talking to businesses about how to respond to immigration activity in Los Angeles.

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Libby Rainey

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LAist

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What are the City Council and other neighborhood councils doing?

Los Angeles has no citywide "Know Your Rights" campaign. The city council voted to explore it in March, but that effort is still in progress.

In the meantime, some other neighborhood councils have taken local actions. In Palms, neighborhood council president Kay Hartman said they'd started putting up "Know Your Rights" lawn signs. Other groups distribute information too, as evidenced by the flyers and cards that have popped up in cafes and on lamp posts around the city.

In Reseda, the neighborhood council there said their efforts are making a difference — and could provide lessons for other communities in Los Angeles.

After visiting stores multiple times, they saw that a donut shop had put up signs marking private space. Others had, too.

" We've also heard success stories of people successfully using their Fourth Amendment rights to prevent raids from happening, people demanding warrants," York said. "And that has actually successfully kept ICE raids from occurring in some of the businesses."