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Community mutual aid network supports undocumented

Angelenos

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Fear of deportation forces many to hide at home

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Thousands of dollars donated for groceries

By Rachel Parsons

LOS ANGELES, August 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - One

recent Tuesday morning, volunteer Kelly Flores parked her car

outside a stranger's house in a working class neighborhood of

South Los Angeles and unloaded groceries worth almost $200.

A petite woman met her at the front gate and, as she thanked

Flores for the bags of food, she started to cry.

Sonya, who asked that her real name be protected because she

is undocumented, said she has rarely left her house in the past

month, afraid of being arrested by federal immigration agents

and deported.

Huge swaths of Los Angeles, home to once-vibrant immigrant

communities, have become ghost towns in the wake of increasingly

volatile and militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement

(ICE) raids throughout the county, resulting in thousands of

arrests since President Donald Trump ordered a crackdown on

undocumented migrants in January.

Between 11 million and 13 million people live in the United

States without legal status, roughly 900,000 of them in Los

Angeles County, according to the USC Dornsife Equity Research

Institute.

The Trump administration claims 140,000 people have been

deported since he took office in January, but some estimates

suggest only about half of that number have been removed from

the country.

Nationwide, 59,000 people are being held in detention,

according to the nonpartisan American Immigration Council.

Too scared to go to work, Sonya and scores of other

residents without legal status have turned to rapid-response

teams of volunteers to get food and basic necessities for their

families.

The response effort is an outgrowth of the Community

Self-Defense Coalition, a group of 65 grassroots nonprofit

organizations that document and warn communities of ICE

activity.

In June alone through the 26th, the latest date for which

there was information, 2,205 people in the Los Angeles area were

arrested by ICE, according to records released by the agency.

The figure does not include arrests made by other agencies

such as Customs and Border Protection.

As raids became more frequent in June, anxious residents

began calling the Coalition's hotlines with requests.

"They weren't necessarily asking for free food," said Lupe

Carrasco Cardona, the organizer and chairperson of the

Association of Raza Educators, a nonprofit in the coalition.

"In some cases it was, 'Can you go shop for us?'" she said.

Others needed help paying rent, she said, or someone to

accompany them to a doctor's visit or immigration appointment

because they were afraid to go alone.

The calls kept coming, so Carrasco Cardona put out a request

for donations. So far, the project has raised more than $7,500

in mostly small amounts through Venmo and PayPal ( PYPL ) that have paid

for groceries for more than 60 families.

"We do not consider this a charitable act," Carrasco Cardona

said.

"We consider this an act of mutual aid because they

contribute to our society in meaningful ways with their labor,"

she said. "This is just us giving back to them."

The employment of undocumented immigrants, many from

Mexico and Central America, sustains multiple industries.

A June report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute

showed the California economy could lose more than $212 billion

in gross domestic product from direct and indirect economic

activity from undocumented workers, with the biggest hits to

construction and agriculture.

'UNDER SIEGE'

The fear and isolation have taken a toll on Sonya's family,

she said.

"I'm scared," she said, in tears, adding that she does not

let her children go to a nearby park to play.

"I don't know how to keep them safe."

After the Trump administration rescinded guidance in January

that limited or prevented immigration activity near schools and

hospitals, ICE agents were spotted in hospitals in Los Angeles.

Federal officials have claimed they are only entering these

buildings as escorts to detainees needing medical attention.

Although some of Sonya's children are U.S. citizens, her

eldest daughter, who is pregnant and due in August, is not.

But the family is afraid to go to the hospital for the

delivery after seeing reports of immigration agents entering

medical facilities, she said.

Los Angeles used to feel "like a safe haven," Flores said

after she left Sonya's house. "Now the city's been under siege."

In June, the Trump administration federalized and deployed

4,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quash

protests in response to increasing immigration raids and to aid

ICE agents.

'HANG ON TO THAT HOPE'

Carrasco Cardona and Flores, both schoolteachers, are part

of a core group of seven to nine volunteers buying groceries and

making deliveries.

Most are teachers, and they worry about what will happen

when they go back to work when the school year starts in

mid-August.

The start of the school year will give three of Sonya's

children a much needed diversion, but she worries they could be

targeted going to or from school or she might be arrested while

they are away and they would not know what happened to her.

For now, the family has put systems in place.

When Sonya needs to do laundry, for example, she sends one

daughter to the laundromat first to make sure there are no

immigration agents in sight, and then she goes. It is one of the

only times she will leave the house.

Seeing such fear and anxiety daily, the volunteers try to

reassure the immigrants that there is a community that supports

and cares for them.

"We want them to know you are not alone," Carrasco Cardona

said.

"They need to hang on to that hope as long as they can to

get them through this," she said.

(Reporting by Rachel Parsons. Editing by Anastasia Moloney and

Ellen Wulfhorst. The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the

charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit https://www.context.news/)