Since June 2025, Los Angeles has been a central hub for heavy immigration enforcement actions, particularly due to the increased “body collection” efforts orchestrated by the Department of Homeland Security. The Latino/X community has been the face of a targeted demographic of people, as the Trump administration utilized specific rhetoric about immigrants from countries in Latin America and the Latino community in general in its campaign messaging before his second term began.
Increased mass deportation efforts have triggered protests and controversy in California and nationally—as raids have disrupted communities and even influenced the labor market, as immigrants are afraid to go to work in fear of deportation.
“It’s scary. I’ve been very, very careful. I mind my business, and I try not to go out if it’s not necessary. Before this interview I called my friend. He was detained in Houston, Texas, and they moved him to a detention center in San Diego. I also have another friend, a woman, who worked here in LA, and they went to her job and took her,” said the anonymous source, who is a Black immigrant.
According to a USC Dornsife report, Los Angeles County has 74,000 Black immigrants, while the state of California has a little over 200,000 in total. About one in five Black Angelenos are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Almost 40 percent of Black immigrants that reside in Los Angeles County are from Ethiopia, Belize, and Nigeria. Black immigrants make up only 8 percent of total immigrants in the U.S. and face higher rates of discrimination due to their racial identity and anti-Blackness often practiced by others who are non-Black in the U.S.
Two Black immigrants spoke to Our Weekly to detail their stories of living in the U.S. and how the ICE raids have impacted them. For their safety and privacy, both interviewees spoke to Our Weekly on the condition of anonymity. Both interview subjects withheld some key information because they feared deportation if they shared specific information.
The first is a 35-year-old woman from Cameroon, a country nestled on the Gulf of Guinea in Central Africa, who moved to the U.S. 20 years ago. Simply seeking more opportunities, she left Cameroon because of how devastating it was to work and live there.
The country is currently experiencing political and systemic corruption, highlighted by an election controversy involving longstanding President Paul Biya, who is demanding an eighth term at the age of 92.
“I came here to hustle. Back home, there weren’t many ways to hustle, but in America, there are so many ways to make money. When I say hustle, for example, it’s as simple as seeing a woman on the corner selling food that she made to provide for her family. I can do the same thing here.”
She said that she appreciates that in the U.S. one can have many jobs, such as Uber Eats, which she does to make extra money at times. She also said that while medical insurance is expensive in America, it is better than the lack of medical insurance she—and others she knew back home—did not have access to.
She came to the U.S., with her daughter, in hopes of having a better life. When she first moved to Los Angeles, she rented a room in a 4-bedroom apartment with four other women and said how much more feasible it is for her to figure out an adequate living arrangement in the States.
Also, she found community by going to church and developing friendships, giving her the ability to have support, especially if she needed help with resources such as money for bills and even legal assistance, due to her needing legal help with immigration paperwork.
Growing up, she was the second to last child of six children with a single mother, all of whom lived in a two-bedroom apartment. Her mother struggled financially, and they often ate bread, rice, and water with sugar just to get by. There were times that her mother could not afford to pay the electricity bill because she had to pay for all six of her children to go to school.
She shared her thoughts about the current administration and current issues such as the ICE raids and the pause on SNAP benefits due to the government shutdown, saying that some Republicans are “out of touch” due to their decision to not care about Americans.
“When I first came to the U.S., it wasn’t like this. When Democrats were leading this country, I never felt like this even though there was a bit of racism. I have a lot of community, friends, and people from church who are white, Black, and Spanish people who are family to me. As soon as Republicans took over, things became VERY different. It’s crazy!”
She said that Republicans —those who have the political belief and those in power— seem to not care about Americans because some of them did not grow up struggling or really know the devastating effects their vote has over people like herself.
She continued. “I don’t know if they are just using the immigration issue as an excuse to target us due to the color of our skin. They want to send people back to their countries when some of those countries aren’t even doing well right now. There is a civil war in Cameroon right now, and we are praying that it doesn’t turn into a genocide.”
She further added, “It’s not good over there, and it’s very bad! So, who wants to be sent back? It’s really bad, and that’s why people leave to come here.”
The second interview subject is a Black immigrant from Senegal. He moved to the U.S. two years ago seeking asylum and was granted it. He is currently in the process of obtaining his green card. Once he arrived, he immediately began to find community by attending local events hosted by local organizations that host social events.
Upon meeting various others like himself, he realized that some of the fellow Black immigrants he met really needed help with navigating the legal system and immigration office visits. He said that some of them struggled with language barriers, which made it difficult to navigate Los Angeles and obtain resources and help.
“I’ve been helping my community because most of them don’t know English, so I’ve been helping them by translating for them, taking them to their doctor’s appointments, appointments with attorneys, and so forth. I also help them get legal assistance.”
He continued “When the raids started, everyone was devastated. They couldn’t go to work and sometimes couldn’t even pay their rent. On two to three occasions, I had to reach out to the religious community to help us gather money to help each other; all of this occurred because of the ICE raids.”
He went on to share that 4 of his friends have been detained. He sends them money for food and for communication so they can make phone calls. “They are in ICE detention centers. I am not in the best place to give advice because I am not a legal attorney, but you can hear in their voice that they are tired of being there.” He said how one of his friends is a woman who was detained. She sits in a cell daily as agents tell her they will give her paperwork to sign and be released, but they do not do it. She has been detained for months.
“When I saw what was happening, even before the ICE raids in June, there were immigrants who didn’t have a place to stay, no job, and no one to help them translate things into English… I couldn’t resist but to help.”
The issues immigrants face, before the ICE raids and after, inspired him to attend Los Angeles Trade Tech and enroll in courses to become a paralegal. He is passionate about obtaining his degree and furthering his understanding of immigration law to help his community.
On Sept. 8, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to lift restrictions that blocked agents from targeting people upon “reasonable suspicion,” essentially allowing ICE agents to continue their sweep based on skin color, language, and features, according to the BBC.
He spoke about the lifting of restrictions for ICE agents in Los Angeles. “I’m an immigrant, but when I see others’ fear and pain, I forget about mine, and I get very worried. Children weren’t even able to go to school. I used to be a teacher, so that also affected me. I recall how ICE agents went to schools and started questioning children about their parents’ legal status. That’s not normal, and that’s not fair.”
Maraky, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, is a lead organizer at the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI). They said there are three things that community leaders, allies, friends of immigrants, and others can do to maintain support and endurance of immigrants during this time period.
“One is to learn and unlearn, two is to share, and three is to protect. Learning and unlearning is the first thing people can do. Others must learn the fight and how it pertains to Black immigrants right now. They have to know that Black immigrants are heavily criminalized due to their Blackness and racial profiling; it is anti-Blackness. This comes from the system itself and the ‘police state’ that we live in.”
They continued, “People have to learn the rights and experiences of Black folks in general to better understand the Black Diaspora at large and how it also impacts Black immigrants. When I say ‘share,’ we as an organization have been doing a lot of work to inform immigrants of their rights, a lot of calls to action, and discussing companies to boycott.”
They then said that at BAJI, community members are having conversations intracommunally in order to stay safe. “When I say ‘protecting,’ this occurs by showing up for one another, reporting ICE activity if we see it, and also turning to community-based solutions for safety instead of police because we see that they are also going against actual laws to continue to ‘aid in the bed’ of federal agents.”
They continued “We do this through community organizing, trust building, and community relationship building. If we don’t trust each other, our neighbors, and community members, then who can we trust?”
Maraky also encouraged learning how to not be inclined to panic but to instead figure out ways to sustain. “We’ve been here before [historically] and we may be here again.”
