As Angelenos have held a series of mass protests against President Donald Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations, United States Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has continued its sweeping detainment operations. In a proclamation Oct. 14, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to declare a local emergency due to the raids, calling the acts “unlawful.” The county alleged that the federal immigration actions have caused residents to fear leaving their homes.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell represents L.A. County’s second supervisional district, covering more than a quarter of the country’s undocumented immigrant population as well as USC’s University Park Campus. Mitchell voted in favor of the emergency proclamation, which gives supervisors more power to address ICE’s impact in the county and can lead to an eviction moratorium. 

Two members of Mitchell’s staff told the Daily Trojan that they were aware of reports of ICE actions in Exposition Park through social media. According to one official, ICE worries are at the “top of mind” for Mitchell’s office. 

“It is an ongoing, devastating challenge that we’re dealing with, this attack on human rights,” the official said. “Point blank, we see it. Our office sees it and has been taking action on it as best as we can against the federal government.”

The emergency proclamation stated that immigration actions have caused a “climate of fear,”, impacting regional economies. 

Mike, who declined to share his last name for fear of retaliation from the Trump administration, is a member of Centro CSO, a Chicano civil rights group based in Boyle Heights. Mike said that, through conversations with community members, he learned that some even fear going outside to walk their dog. 

“It was evident that people [are] not going out,” Mike said. “I take a stroll down Whittier Boulevard quite often, and I noticed that the foot traffic in the area was low — so low that it almost looked like the [coronavirus] pandemic all over again.”  

Since June, Mike said vigilance in the community has been high. He called this constant stress “the new normal” and said people are paranoid of things that used to be innocuous, such as parked tinted vehicles. 

“People are like, ‘Hey, that car has been sitting there for a lot longer than it should, idling with all tinted windows,’” he said. “Those are the kinds of things that people are looking out for. Why would you have to look out for that on a regular day?” 

When a van and truck seemed to be circling the same block several times, Mike said he got a call reporting that it may be part of a raid by ICE.

When he arrived on the scene, he saw an empty truck running with its doors wide open; a man’s tools and lunch box laid on the passenger’s seat. That was a moment of “utter despair,” Mike said, and a day he will remember for the rest of his life. 

In South Central, groups such as South Central Against Labor Exploitation — a group that includes USC students but is not affiliated with the University — have begun “self-defense patrols” around Exposition Park and South Central, according to a spokesperson for SCALE, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. 

“On those patrols, if you see ICE coming into our neighborhood, we then tell our community members, ‘Hey, ICE is here,’ and inform our community,” the spokesperson said in a September interview with the Daily Trojan. “[The community can decide] whether it’s [best] to avoid that area, or whether it’s [best] to tactfully engage.”

With the lack of record-keeping by ICE on the number of raids, Mike said advocacy groups that track ICE raids in L.A. likely do not have the full data like in other cities that are more dense and more able to track ICE action. 

“There are days here and there that maybe we’ll have one or two reports of people being taken, but there’s so many more that go unreported,” he said. “You have to kind of double [ICE reports] for those that maybe weren’t confirmed or that no one saw. … We’ll never know how many people have been taken.” 

Dahlia Beck contributed to this report.