ICE Out of South Central! ICE out of South Central! was the main battle cry of dozens of residents of South Los Angeles, an area heavily affected by the aggressive immigration raids carried out by ICE HSI, FBI, DEA, National Guard agents and members of the United States Army, who have paused the fear and terror they sowed in communities of color.

Our message and that of the community is one of solidarity, unity, and power, said Gloria Medina, executive director of the community organization Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Political Education (SCOPE). As we have done for over 30 years, we will continue to be a platform for African American and Latino communities to have an opportunity to raise their voices.

They did so by marching from 1715 West Florence Avenue to the intersection with Normandie Avenue, carrying signs with messages such as: Not in Our City. ICE Out of California (Not in our city. ICE out of California); Reclaim Our Streets (We reclaim our streets)

We will continue to defend our communities where there has been chaos and violence in our streets, where our communities live in fear, and although there has been a pause [in the raids} we say to our community, not only in Los Angeles, but throughout the country, that unity is strength and that we will continue to be united between Latinos and African Americans to continue protecting our people.

The pause in the raids remains in place after a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard arguments but did not issue an immediate ruling on the Trump administration's request to suspend a temporary restraining order that halted the federal government's aggressive immigration raids. in California.

The panel questioned the legality of the government's actions and the origin of an alleged White House directive requiring immigration agents nationwide to make 3,000 arrests of undocumented immigrants a day.

The appeal stems from a lawsuit filed July 2 by Southern California residents, workers, and advocacy groups alleging that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is implementing a program of kidnapping and disappearing community members through unlawful arrest tactics, confining detainees in unlawful conditions, and denying them access to attorneys.

The class-action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Los Angeles by five workers, three membership organizations, and a legal services provider, who allege that DHS has unconstitutionally arrested and detained individuals to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration.

Guatemalan Locked Up for Over a Month

One of those detainees was Guatemalan Pablo Calvac Chan, who was arrested on June 6 at the Ambiance textile company in the Fashion District of downtown Los Angeles.

Calvac Chan was held at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center, from where he was sent to Adelanto, for one month and five days, until his family could post a $12,000 bond.

Like any other workday, I arrived at my shift at 8:30 a.m. I was in the office when my coworkers said something was happening outside. I thought it was the police or immigration, and I wasn't afraid. "I hadn't done anything wrong," he said.

"I went out to see for myself. That's when I saw that the FBI, Homeland Security, and the DEA were already inside the store. When I tried to understand what was happening, the officers told me that months before, [in February], agents had already come asking questions about the workers."

Management had told them not to worry. Some wanted to quit, and they were never warned that immigration authorities would visit them.

"Days before the operation, we saw people dressed as firefighters checking cameras and fire extinguishers. We didn't know they were preparing everything for this raid, he added.

Latinos and Asians were lined up in separate lines; they weren't allowed to contact their families. They were threatened that if anyone used their cell phone, it would be taken away and never returned.

After releasing a few people, most of us were still detained. At one point, the officer in charge mocked us and said, Let's take a family photo. They lined us up with immigration and FBI agents. They took the photo and laughed at the protests outside, he added.

They couldn't get us out easily. Later, they brought in the National Guard and used tear gas to force us into the vehicles. And what happened next is on the news."

He said that at the Adelanto Detention Center they were only given bean burritos that tasted bad.

Pablo is due to appear before an immigration judge on August 12. For now, he wears a shackle on one foot and said he will fight to stay in the United States.

"I did nothing wrong. "I don't know if it's a crime to work," said the young Guatemalan.

The raids also influenced the life of Blanca Lucio, a Mexican activist from Puebla, who was paralyzed by fear for more than a month and did not go to work cleaning her house.

"When everything got really bad, my children told me not to go out, because immigration agents were everywhere in South Los Angeles," she said. In fact, since that June 6th, I just went out on the streets today [Tuesday].

Members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), the Community Coalition, and the Black Power Network also participated in the demonstration.

Aggressive Hunt: Dehumanizing Immigrants

Agustin Cabrera, policy director at SCOPE, analyzed that the ICE raids in south-central Los Angeles not only provoked fear and terror in the communities, but also the dehumanization of immigrants with the government's aggressive tactics, with the presence of the military and the federalization of the California National Guard.

The recent ICE raids have drastically changed the lives of many immigrants and families of color, Cabrera said, There has been fear and terror in our streets due to the presence of the armed forces, the National Guard, and ICE, who literally kidnap our neighbors in broad daylight.

Therefore, she added, it is natural for people to feel fear and nervous when living their normal lives: going to the grocery store, picking up their children from school, going to work, or even attending organizations like SCOPE, where they learn about local government and how to impact and change the lives of others.

While the immigration operations began on June 6, Cabrera indicated that this is not new.

The entire ICE system and its operation seek to dehumanize immigrants, whether by picking them up, by illegally detaining them without a warrant, at their workplace, or by taking them to a detention center, he stressed. The conditions we have seen in detention centers, the entire process, are a way of dehumanizing people.

He asked not to forget that in the cruelty of the process, children are detained and subjected to a system of dehumanization.

It is children who are being dehumanized, So let's not forget that we're talking about families, and what this administration has decided to do is dehumanize them," he said.

"It has drastically changed the way people get around. But people are also starting to reclaim our streets, to say that they will no longer be afraid.

The activist analyzed that the raids were an event invented and dramatized by the federal government.

The federal government and ICE agents are creating that fear, so I think the community is ready to respond and say: ‘We will not be intimidated, we will not live in fear, but we will continue to do what we have been doing for decades: organize and unite with other communities, such as the African American community and the Asian community, who have also been affected by these raids.

That 20% included more than 300 Iranian citizens, who allegedly represent a threat to national security and who should be deported.

We hear from the affected people, whose relatives or neighbors have been kidnapped by ICE and federal agents, and that this is the reality they live with, said Agustin Cabrera. We see it constantly on social media and in videos, which shows that this is happening, that they are targeting people without criminal records and entering homes and communities with large immigrant populations, or communities of color, like South Los Angeles, victims of racial discrimination.