Priscilla Preciado, a Cal State Fullerton communications student studying journalism, traces that fear through her father’s experience more than 30 years ago in Tustin. At the time, he was a 21-year-old Chicano who had recently moved to the Orange County city. One day, while driving to a 7-Eleven with four friends, a police officer began following him and directed him into the store’s parking lot.

More officers arrived. What began as one patrol car became several.

Preciado said her father believes his appearance shaped the way officers treated him. He had slicked-back black hair, brown skin, tattoos and the look of a young man who stood out in a largely white community. Music played from his lowrider. Officers searched his car but found nothing incriminating, she said. Her father and two friends who had identification were allowed to leave. Two others, who did not have IDs, were detained.

That encounter has taken on renewed meaning for Preciado as immigration enforcement has intensified in California and across the country. Border Patrol agents have joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement in roving patrols, raising concerns among immigrant-rights advocates and Latino communities about who is being targeted and why.

For Preciado, the current climate has drawn her closer to her father’s history.

Her father, the oldest of five children, grew up carrying adult responsibilities early in life. His father was incarcerated, and his mother worked at an appliance store to support the family. He often felt like an outsider, Preciado said.

When she asked him what parts of himself he felt others judged most, he pointed to his clothing, tattoos and skin color.

“My dress, the color of my skin, tattoos,” he told her. “Even as an adult I still feel like I stand out now.”

Preciado said those experiences shaped the way her father moved through the world — and the way he viewed his role in her life. When she was preparing to graduate from high school, she wanted him there to celebrate with her. But he worried that stepping onto campus might hurt her opportunities or draw unwanted attention.

“I do not want to hold you back from receiving any more opportunities,” he told her.

To Preciado, that fear reflected the toll of years of profiling. Her father had come to see himself through the assumptions others placed on him, she said, even though she saw him as a devoted father, brother and husband — not as an obstacle.

Now, she said, he worries not only about himself, but about her.

“You have to be aware of your surroundings at all times,” he tells her. “You’re darker than your siblings. You look the most like me, therefore are more vulnerable to profiling and the experiences I’ve endured. Be careful of where you decide to go now and only go if necessary.”

Those conversations reflect a broader issue within Latino communities. A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that 57% of Latino adults said skin color affects their daily experiences “a lot.” Among Latinos with darker skin, 62% said their skin tone has hurt their ability to get ahead in the United States.

Concerns about racial profiling have also reached the courts. In a concurring opinion in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that immigration stops may consider certain factors, including the large number of undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles area, locations where day laborers gather and industries such as landscaping, agriculture and construction. Many legal scholars have argued that the opinion gives immigration agents broad room to engage in racial profiling.

In September, the Department of Homeland Security reported that 2 million undocumented immigrants had left the United States, including 1.6 million people the agency described as having “voluntarily self-deported” and more than 400,000 deportations.

For Preciado, the moment has made skin color and identity impossible to ignore. She argues that the narratives attached to Latino men — particularly men with darker skin, tattoos or working-class markers — must be challenged by their families and communities.

She points to earlier periods of Latino activism in Southern California and beyond: the 1968 East Los Angeles student walkouts, when thousands of Mexican American students protested unequal treatment in schools; the Chicano Moratorium of the 1970s, which opposed the disproportionate drafting of Mexican Americans during the Vietnam War; and the organizing that helped lead to the collapse of California’s Proposition 187, the 1990s anti-immigrant measure.

Those movements, she said, show the power of collective resistance during moments of fear and exclusion.

For her, the lesson is also personal. Her father’s experiences did not distance her from him. They strengthened her understanding of what he endured — and why today’s immigration raids feel, for a new generation of California Latinos, like the return of old wounds.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Immigration Raids Put Skin Color at Forefront for Young California Latinos appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

One morning last month, they crammed into a small job center in Pasadena, Calif., ready for more work. But on this day, the situation felt too dangerous.

It wasn’t the contaminants or toxic fumes. Outside the Winchell’s Donut House just blocks away, federal immigration agents had detained six people.

The day laborers went home instead of heading to their job sites.

“They’re living in fear,” said Jose Madera, the director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, which earlier this year helped train about 40 immigrant workers in fire cleanup. “They don’t know what can happen if they go to work — are they going to come back?”

Immigrant workers are playing a crucial role in the recovery of Pasadena, Altadena and Pacific Palisades after the devastating fires in January. They have hauled debris, cleaned smoke-affected homes and in some cases begun reconstruction in the months since the Eaton and Palisades fires burned more than 16,000 buildings in the region.

But raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have plunged workers in various occupations into a state of panic, leading many of them — regardless of immigration status — to stay home. And residents worry that the raids have already hurt recovery efforts in fire-torn neighborhoods.

In two dozen interviews, residents, officials, real estate agents, contractors, community organizers and workers described ways in which the Trump administration’s raids have affected the rebuilding process in Southern California. Many of those involved agreed to speak only if they could remain anonymous because they feared retaliation from the federal government.

“At a time when our communities need help healing from a natural disaster, the Trump administration is manufacturing a man-made one,” said Lindsey Horvath, who serves on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Undocumented immigrants, who make up a sizable share of construction workers in California, have the most acute concerns about the potential for raids. But even Latino workers with legal residency or American citizenship are worried about confrontations with federal agents.

The reconstruction of fire-torn communities has been a priority for President Trump, and the threat of a slowdown has revealed a potential seam in his immigration crackdown. A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman made a point of saying that agents had not targeted construction sites in Pacific Palisades or Altadena.

Still, there are growing signs of frustration in California over the raids across Southern California and their chilling effect on labor in the state. Videos that appear to show arrests at work sites have circulated across social media, giving the impression that federal agents have tried to detain anyone they think looks like an undocumented immigrant.

California Democrats have criticized President Trump for months. In late June, six Republican state lawmakers also pleaded with him to focus enforcement efforts on immigrants with criminal backgrounds.

“The recent ICE workplace raids on farms, at construction sites, and in restaurants and hotels have led to unintended consequences that are harming the communities we represent and the businesses that employ our constituents,” the Republicans wrote, noting that the resulting fear was making the state’s affordability crisis worse.

Though federal agencies were largely responsible for the initial stages of the cleanup, contractors play a significant role in rebuilding efforts. About 75 percent of construction laborers in Los Angeles County are immigrants, and nearly half of those are undocumented, according to a recent analysis conducted for the Bay Area Council, a California business group.

It is not clear how much cleanup and construction efforts in Southern California have been affected by fears of ICE enforcement. But as the raids have intensified, residents and community organizers say construction crews have thinned out. In one case, workers vanished when they were halfway through a job. Others have packed their tools into passenger cars instead of construction vehicles, as well as staggered their work shifts to avoid drawing attention.

Last month, at least 11 people were detained during three separate raids in Pasadena. The city borders Altadena, where the fire incinerated thousands of homes and left others uninhabitable. One video of the arrests outside the doughnut shop showed an agent detaining two men, who the Pasadena’s mayor said were on their way to work on fire recovery efforts.

In a separate episode, federal agents questioned workers at a construction site in the Altadena fire-rebuilding zone, said Brock Harris, a Los Angeles real estate agent who works with the developer involved in the project. No one was arrested, Mr. Harris said, but “the next day, half the workers didn’t come to work.”

Pablo Alvarado, the co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said ICE agents showed up on a street in Altadena where construction crews were repairing two roofs damaged by the fire. The workers fled, Mr. Alvarado said, leaving their tools behind. “As long as they are around,” he added, referring to the federal agents, “workers are going to stay inside.”

But federal officials said that agents with ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have not gone after workers in the fire recovery zones.

“ICE and CBP have NOT targeted any construction sites in Altadena and the Palisades,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in an email, adding that “we will continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets.”

The dread is palpable among workers. On a recent afternoon, three men in white protective suits who were clearing weeds and other debris at a fire-damaged property in Altadena said that they had stayed home for a couple of weeks when raids intensified in Los Angeles in June.

Sergio, a traffic controller who immigrated from Mexico as a child and has been working in Altadena for months, said that the rebuilding process had already seemed to be “falling behind.”

He said that he was in the country lawfully, having arrived through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but he feared reprisal from immigration officials and asked to be identified only by first name. He has been afraid of being profiled on the street by federal agents, and his boss has told him he could miss work if he needed to. He said that he felt that anyone who looked like they were an immigrant laborer could be detained by ICE agents.

In the Pacific Palisades, a wealthy neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles where thousands of buildings burned in January, there have not been any raids, according to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, which has been tracking enforcement efforts. But contractors there said that deportation anxiety was still shrinking the work force.

The owner of a contracting firm with rebuilding projects in the Palisades said many workers and subcontractors — regardless of their legal status — have opted to stay home on many days since the sweeps began. The owner, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of drawing the attention of immigration officials, said other contractors have experienced the same.

It has become increasingly complicated to make construction plans ever since the raids ramped up last month. Workers have texted on some mornings to say they don’t feel safe showing up. The owner has empathized with them but said that the missed days will eventually delay construction.

Oscar Mondragón, the director of a day labor center in Malibu, said that in the past couple of weeks, only about half of the 40 workers contracted each morning by the center were showing up. Some of those workers, he added, were removing smoke-related hazards in homes that were polluted in the Palisades fire.

“All they want is to work, not to do any harm to anybody else, just to work for their families and their own good,” Mr. Mondragón said.

Marco, an immigrant from Mexico who asked to be identified only by his first name because of deportation concerns, said that the raids had forced him to weigh economic survival against the fear of being arrested by immigration officials.

He worked on debris removal in Pacific Palisades shortly after the fire, and he said he has stayed home many days since the workplace raids began.

But doing so had become unsustainable. He had no choice, he said, but to risk an immigration raid in order to survive.

The post ICE Raids Scare Off L.A. Workers Rebuilding Fire-Torn Areas appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The Bishop of San Bernardino, Alberto Rojas, has issued a decree dispensing Catholics from attending Sunday Mass in response to concerns about recent immigration enforcement actions. The last time attendance was made optional was during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Think of the faithful

John Andrews leads communications for the Diocese and said there’s been a climate of fear in their immigrant communities since the raids began weeks ago.

“ We’ve noticed it. We felt it. And then to compound the situation in our diocese, we’ve had two different Catholic churches where immigration enforcement agents have come on to church property and made arrests,” Andrews said.

The Diocese covers both Riverside and San Bernardino counties, with more than 1 million self-identifying Catholics spread across 94 parishes. One out of every five people living in both counties are foreign-born, according to data from the U.S. census.

In the days and weeks following the ICE sweeps, there have been growing questions to Bishop Rojas from worried congregants.

“A lot of people come to him and say, ‘Bishop, is it really smart for me to attend mass? Do I have to do the weekly obligation?’” Andrews said. “And I think that was weighing heavily on him.”

How we got here

Church law allows a bishop to dispense the faithful from usual duties — including attend Mass — when he judges it contributes to their spiritual good. Bishop Rojas decided that the fears experienced by his congregants were a “grave inconvenience” to that spiritual good, according to the decree.

Along with an excuse from Sunday Mass, the decree encouraged alternative spiritual practices such as praying the rosary or attending virtual services.

It also ordered pastors and ministers to provide “compassionate support to those affected by this fear,” and said the dispensation would be in place until the circumstances which caused the decree “are sufficiently resolved.”

Church officials said they hope the decree does not have to be in place for too long.

“We want people to feel free to be able to come to church,” Andrews said. “It really kind of depends on whether these enforcement tactics continue the way they have been.”

A day after Bishop Rojas issued his decree he followed up with a message on the Diocese Facebook page, reiterating the role of parishes to support affected Catholics in their connection to the church at this time.

“Please continue to pray for our immigrant brothers and sisters. ” Bishop Rojas wrote.

Fears across the region

It’s not just Catholic churches that have weighed in amid escalating immigration actions. Last week, the Mayor of Perris in Riverside County took to Instagram to warn constituents about ICE enforcement in the city.

“Do not go out unless necessary. Stay at home and do not open the door to strangers. This message is for awareness and safety.” Mayor Michael M. Vargas said in a video post.

At Cal State L.A. this past week Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Heather Lattimer sent a letter to faculty accounting for and responding to fears from students over taking public transit and driving to campus.

In the letter Lattimer pointed to school policies in place for professors to give excused absences and alternative make-up work to concerned students.

She also wrote that faculty can elect to offer students to join classes remotely in extraordinary circumstances.

Fall semester for the school begins on August 18.

The post Catholics in the Inland Empire can skip Sunday Mass amid ongoing immigration enforcement actions appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

In a statement posted to X, the Dodgers said ICE agents came to the stadium Thursday morning and “requested permission to access the parking lots.”

“They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization,” according to the statement.

“This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots. They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization. Tonight’s game will be played as scheduled.
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June” class=”redactor-linkify-object”>https://twitter.com/Dodgers/st… 19, 2025“

It’s unclear why ICE agents stopped by the stadium in Los Angeles.

The news comes after several days of immigration raids in southern California. It also comes at a time when the Dodgers are expected to break their silence on the ongoing raids.

Video shared by KTLA 5 shows federal agents leaving the stadium Thursday. The TV station reported they were at the stadium for several hours but were told they could not stay on the property.

The move by the Dodgers comes on the same day the team is expected to announce a new initiative meant to assist immigrant communities impacted by the ICE raids and federal crackdown, according to the LA Times.

Dodgers player Kike Hernández, a native of Puerto Rico, voiced his concern over the raids in an Instagram post this past week.

“I am saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city. Los Angeles and Dodger fans have welcomed me, supported me and shown me nothing but kindness and love,” he wrote in the post. “This is my second home. And I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart. ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights.”

The post ICE Agents Denied Access To Dodgers Parking Lot appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The calls come as shocking footage emerged from around the Southland showing dramatic arrests and aggressive tactics used by federal agents on city streets.

“I’m asking you, please listen to me, stop terrorizing our residents,” said Mayor Jessica Ancona of El Monte, who said she was hit by rubber bullets during a raid in her city.

In Los Angeles, City Council leaders accused federal officers in unmarked vehicles of brazenly ‘abducting’ people off the streets without warrants and based on racial profiling. Signs of terror and tension are palpable across the region.

On Wednesday, masked men grabbed a pedestrian in a church parking lot, and unmarked trucks rammed a car with a young family inside, engulfing a baby and toddler in smoke or tear gas. In Orange County on Wednesday, rumors of parents being deported spread through an elementary school, prompting the district to assure families that commencement and award ceremonies would not be open to the public or warrantless immigration raids. In Santa Ana on Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials positioned a rooftop sniper outside a federal building with a rifle trained down at a group of middle-school-aged protesters.

Pastor Tanya Lopez at Downey Memorial Christian Church experienced the fear firsthand.

She witnessed armed men in masks and unmarked vehicles arrest a man Wednesday morning in the parking lot of her church.

“I am a mother, a first-generation daughter of immigrants myself,” Lopez said. “This is not just an immigrant issue. Who knows if this man was a citizen? They were not letting him answer any questions, provide any identification. They surrounded him and just started to grab him.”

“I am disheartened. My daughters were crying. I am completely heartbroken that this is how they started their summer break,” Lopez added. “Now I have to not just try to regulate my own mental health and own sudden rush of adrenaline and everything else. I have to now remind my daughters that everything is going to be okay because they told me that they were scared that (the agents) were going to shoot their mommy today.”

“They are coming, and they are relentless, and cruelty is the point,” Lopez said. “So we will meet that cruelty with love, with justice and compassion because we are non-violent.”

Her husband, a Reverend at the church, said he told the agents he didn’t want this on his property and that’s when the agents told him “the whole country is our property.”

“When someone tells that to you with a weapon in their hands and on their body, that is a very clear message,” Rev. Al Lopez said. “As a man of faith, that is not allowed, that is not correct, and that goes against everything that our country stands for.”

Across the county in Boyle Heights, federal agents in unmarked trucks boxed in and rammed a sedan with a family inside, including an infant and toddler. Armed officers jumped out and deployed smoke or tear gas on the vehicle, and ordered out of the vehicle Christian Damian Cerno-Camacho, a protester suspected of punching a border patrol agent.

The dramatic arrest was caught on video and stirred outrage in the community, but Homeland Security officials defended their work of the officers.

Homeland Security officials responded to Patch’s request for comment about the crash with a statement by Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

“This was no hit and run. This was a targeted arrest of a violent rioter who punched a CBP officer. When Homeland Security Investigations tried to arrest Christian Damian Cerno-Camacho for the assault, he attempted to flee,” she said. “He was ultimately arrested and taken into custody.”

“Our officers are facing a 413% increase in assaults against them as they put their lives on the line to arrest murders, rapists, and gang members,” she added. “Secretary Noem’s message to the LA rioters is clear: you will not stop us or slow us down.”

Archbishop José H. Gomez on Wednesday called for peaceful demonstrations and also urged the federal government not to make ordinary families suffer.

“We all agree that we don’t want undocumented immigrants who are known terrorists or violent criminals in our communities,” Gomez said. “But there is no need for the government to carry out enforcement actions in a way that provokes fear and anxiety among ordinary, hardworking immigrants and their families.”

Meanwhile, the commander in charge of the troops said about 500 National Guard soldiers deployed to the Los Angeles protests have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations. And while some troops have already gone on such missions, he said it’s too early to say if that will continue, even after the protests die down.

Speaking alongside the other mayors at a news conference, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the raids spread fear at the behest of the White House.

“We started off by hearing the administration wanted to go after violent felons, gang members, drug dealers. But when you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you’re not trying to keep anyone safe,” she said. “You’re trying to cause fear and panic.”

Those who have been caught up in the nationwide raids include asylum seekers, people who overstayed their visas and migrants awaiting their day in immigration court.

The administration has cited the protests in its decision to deploy the military. Referring to the demonstrations, which have been mostly concentrated in the LA business district, the Democratic mayor added: “If you drive a few blocks outside of downtown, you don’t know that anything is happening in the city at all.”

The city leaders who joined the call for ICE raids to stop include:

• Paramount Mayor Peggy Lemons
• Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores
• Vernon Mayor Judith Merlo
• South Gate Mayor Maria Davila
• Ventura Mayor Dr. Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios
• Bell Gardens Mayor Jorgel Chavez
• El Monte Mayor Jessica Ancona
• Montebello Mayor Sal Melendez
• Santa Paula Mayor Pedro Chavez
• Santa Monica Mayor Lana Negrete
• West Hollywood Mayor Chelsea Byers
• Cudahy Vice Mayor Cynthia Gonzalez
• Fillmore Mayor Pro Tem Albert Mendez
• Paramount Vice Mayor Brenda Olmos
• Ventura Deputy Mayor Doug Halter
• Lynwood Councilwoman Lorraine Avila Moore
• Artesia Councilmember Melissa Ramoso
• Downey Councilman Mario Trujillo
• Paramount Councilmember Vilma Cuellar Stallings
• Pico Rivera Councilmember Andrew Lara
• South Gate Councilmember Gil Hurtado
• Vernon Councilmember Crystal Larios
• Vernon Councilmember Leticia Lopez

California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has asked a federal court to put an emergency stop to the military helping immigration agents in the nation’s second-largest city. This week, guardsmen began standing protectively around agents as they carry out arrests. A judge set a hearing for Thursday.

The military is now closer to engaging in law enforcement actions such as deportations, as Trump has promised in his crackdown. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers, but any arrests must be made by law enforcement.

The president posted on the Truth Social platform that the city “would be burning to the ground” if he had not sent in the military.

But now, the protests have spread nationwide. Demonstrations have spread to Dallas and Austin in Texas, and Chicago and New York, where thousands rallied and more arrests were made. A nationwide protest is scheduled for Saturday.

The post Scenes Of ‘Fear And Panic’ Prompt Southland Mayors Call For ICE, Soldiers To Get Out appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

In a video posted to social media Thursday, Bianco said his deputies “have not, are not and will not engage” in immigration enforcement, and pushed back at those claiming personnel from the Sheriff’s Office’s 4,000-member staff were actively involved in such operations.

“There has been an alarming increase in the concern over law enforcement and immigration,” he said. “Most of this is being caused by misinformation and fear mongering from dishonest politicians, social media, immigration activists and even disingenuous headlines from the media.”

Immigrant enforcement is the sole responsibility of the federal government, Bianco said, and rumors of Riverside County deputies conducting raids at county schools, businesses and churches “are simply not true.”

Bianco, a Republican and potential candidate for governor, did not specifically identify the individuals, organizations or outlets to which he was referring in his video message.

Bianco’s message comes as Border Patrol agents have conducted raids throughout the state this year, even before President Trump took office. One operation that began Jan. 7 resulted in 78 arrests in Bakersfield.

The raids have sparked outrage throughout Southern California, including days of protests in Los Angeles.

California’s sanctuary law, known as Senate Bill 54, was approved in 2017 and bars local law enforcement agencies from using public money to play a direct role in immigration enforcement. It also prohibits police from transferring people to immigration authorities except in certain cases, such as when people have been convicted of certain violent felonies and misdemeanors.

In an interview with Fox 11 L.A. in November, Bianco said he “will do everything in my power to make sure that I can keep the residents of Riverside County safe. If that involves working somehow around SB 54 with ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] so that we can deport these people that are victimizing us and victimizing my residents, you … can be sure that I’m going to do that.”

Bianco said the legislation drove a wedge between immigrant communities and law enforcement, and emphasized his deputies do not ask about immigration status when speaking with victims.

In his message Thursday, Bianco said he would “continue to fight to reform an extremely dangerous sanctuary state law forced upon us by reckless politicians that forces federal immigration officials from ICE into our communities to find these criminals, rather than removing them from the safety of our county jails.”

On Jan. 28, Riverside County’s Board of Supervisors approved a motion directing the county’s executive officer and county counsel to evaluate how data for the county’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, recipients and “law abiding” undocumented immigrants is collected, managed and stored. It also directs county personnel to evaluate existing and potential new funding sources to support undocumented immigrants who face deportation.

County officials are supposed to report back to the board on Feb. 25.

Bianco was not present for the meeting, according to the Desert Sun, but wrote an email in which he admonished the board, saying they “should be working to ensure that county government is here to protect all residents, (not causing) a political divide.”

The post Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco says deputies won’t conduct immigration enforcement appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.