Right now in Los Angeles, fear beats louder than the helicopter rotors overhead.
My neighbors are terrified. Not just stressed or on edge; I’m talking stay-inside-and-don’t-even-answer-the-door type of fear. I’ve seen teachers online telling parents they would bring students home after school because their parents are too scared to leave the house. Grocery store runs? I’ve been doing those for neighbors because they’re afraid they might not make it back if they go out.
This isn’t some dystopian film. This is real life in Southern California in 2025.
And here’s the part that’s hard to say but even harder to ignore: This current administration is using Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to terrorize and instill fear in communities. It carries out its racist and xenophobic agenda, not even attempting to hide it.
There is no pretense of going after only “the bad ones” anymore. Agents are posted in residential neighborhoods on stakeout, pulling up to grocery stores and shopping plazas as if it’s an ambush. They are stopping and searching cars at traffic lights and pulling people they suspect to be undocumented from vehicles. They are raiding restaurant kitchens.
From my kitchen window, I’ve seen them circling the neighborhood, hoping to catch people at bus stops, parks or just walking the streets. I’ve heard stories of raids on elementary school graduations, leaving kids standing alone onstage after their parents had to run. Imagine the kind of trauma that causes a child.
They are not just detaining and deporting. They are hunting.
ICE is stopping anyone with Black or Brown skin. It doesn’t matter if you were born here, if you have your green card, if you’re just walking to the corner store to buy orange juice. They are asking people to prove their right to exist in neighborhoods they’ve built and lived in for decades. I’ve started carrying my passport with me when I leave the house, not because I’m traveling but because I need to be prepared — just in case.
You hear the talking points of doing it “the right way,” but that isn’t safe anymore. People who spent years scraping together the money, jumping through endless hoops, staying out of trouble, working two or three jobs to save for filing fees are being arrested at their own immigration appointments. They are showing up in good faith to handle their business and are being ambushed in waiting rooms.
How is that legal? How is that justice?
Let’s not get it twisted. This is not about keeping America safe. This is about exploiting labor, feeding private prison systems and advancing white supremacy. The people being captured aren’t being given due process and deported quickly. They’re being funneled into detention centers with substandard conditions. It’s a modern-day-slavery pipeline dressed up in a signature red hat.
The narrative being pushed is that all these people are criminals, freeloaders, burdens on the system. But the reality? Most are paying taxes in multiple ways. Many contribute to industries that this country relies on, including agriculture, hospitality and domestic work. Many don’t get to benefit from what they’re paying into. No Social Security, no health care, no safety net — just constant surveillance and intimidation.
These raids need to stop. You cannot call this the land of the free while you’re actively terrorizing communities of color. We need to overhaul the immigration process. There must be a clear, affordable and human-centered pathway to citizenship — no more broken promises and booby-trapped systems.
We also need to be real about the gaslighting. “Do it the right way” is a lie when the system is designed to make sure you fail.
It’s not just red tape. It’s economic sabotage. People are forced to work low-paying jobs just to survive, then expected to save for fees to file paperwork quickly. One in four Americans have less than $1,000 in savings, yet people seeking legal status are expected to save thousands more for paperwork and legal fees. Then, after years of scratching and surviving, they finally get an appointment, only to be snatched up at the door.
That’s not policy. That’s cruelty.
So yeah, I’m angry. I’m exhausted. But I’m not quiet. Because silence is complicity, and we’ve been silent for too long.
Los Angeles deserves better. This country deserves better. Immigrants deserve better.
We all do.
LaurenMichelle Maroney is a social media manager for the Southern Poverty Law Center who is based in Los Angeles, California.
Image at top: Anti-ICE protesters in Los Angeles gather at City Hall on June 11, 2025. (Credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)