LOS ANGELES – Immigration officers have been repeatedly found outside Hollywood’s homeless shelters since May, with staff members accompanying residents of war-torn countries, working at work, errands and courts.
A shelter executive, which serves people ages 18 to 24, said he saw two Venezuelan men who were handcuffed and arrested after returning from work to shelter by ice agents.
“There was no conversation,” employee Lailanie said. Lailanie asked not to use her last name, as she feared retaliation from immigration and customs enforcement.
She said about half a dozen immigration officers went up to the residents and “quickly put their hands behind them.”
Homeless shelters appear to be another target for the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown. This led to around 3,000 arrests in the Los Angeles area. They are currently participating in Home Depot, 7-Jonevens and Cannabis Farms as the locations where the federal government is carrying out a massive deportation effort.
Local media reports that in addition to Hollywood shelters, service providers are also watching immigration enforcement at North Hollywood and San Diego shelters.
Immigration officers did not respond to an email asking if homeless shelters were being targeted as part of their enforcement efforts.
With more than 72,300 impervious people, Los Angeles County is the epicenter of the country’s homelessness crisis. There are no immigrants as the federal mandatory annual count does not include citizenship questions.
The encounter at the Hollywood Shelter came weeks before President Donald Trump ordered the area to the National Guard and the US Marines in response to massive protests over deportation efforts.
A service provider in Los Angeles said the strengthened enforcement efforts have made their work even more difficult as clients are being consumed by fear of deportation.
Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the National Union of Homelessness, said offensive operations would “put a target” on the backs of homeless immigrants.
“It makes them worse,” he said.
CEO John McElri said people are worried about people in downtown Los Angeles, fewer clients stop by to use showers and other public facilities.
He said even US citizens at a permanent residential facility in the San Fernando Valley are hesitant to go outside as they are worried that they will be stopped by the ice and be questioned.
“Frankly, anyone with dark skin and brown skin, especially dark brown skin, doesn’t want to go out,” Makeli said. “They don’t want to go to the grocery store. Some of them are missing out on work. They’re really scary. This fear factor really works.”
According to the Humanitarian Immigration Rights, or Chaila’s nonprofit coalition, Los Angeles’ most advanced ice outages occur mainly in Latinos regions of the San Fernando Valley.
Sen. Alex Padilla, a native of San Fernando Valley who was handcuffed by federal agents at a press conference last month by Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem, said it reflects the Trump administration’s strategy of targeting vulnerable communities, as well as violent criminals whom he has pledged to arrest during his campaign.
“This is an administration that proudly altered its policies to pursue these enforcement measures in schools, including workplaces, elementary schools and places of worship,” he said. “If they’re focusing on dangerous, violent criminals, you’re not going to find them in schools, churches, or homeless camps.”
The map released Tuesday by Charla showed that out of the 2,800 arrests made by the Department of Homeland Security from June 6 to July 20, 471 occurred in the San Fernando Valley, primarily in Latinx areas. They did not specify how many of the arrested were homeless people.
Chirla President Angelica Salas said the data highlighted “racial profiling” by federal officials who refused to target people based on their skin color.
“It’s not your skin color, race or ethnicity that’s what’s targeting someone on ice, it’s when you’re illegally in the United States,” DHS said in a recent statement.
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order encouraging cities to take homeless people off the streets. Whitehead said the order could cause more arrests of homeless people and further increase their fears.
Residents are on alert at the shelter for the homeless, where two Venezuelan men were arrested, Lylany said. Immigrants are currently accompaniing workplace, errands and court appointments by car staff not marked without the organization’s logo.
Shelter officials have requested that the name not be used due to fears of retaliation by the Trump administration.
The 20- and 22-year-old Venezuelans spoke little English and lived in shelters for several weeks before being arrested, she said.
They weren’t there long enough to pair them with an immigration lawyer, she said. The 22-year-old was deported and the employee couldn’t find a young man, she said.
Since his arrest, staff have witnessed at least three immigrant stakes around the facility, two shelter employees said.
One day a police officer in uniform asked me to use the inner bathroom in the center. The maintenance worker allowed him to come in because he didn’t know what else to do, the two employees said.
Staff are looking at the unmarked black SUV near the centre and in the car park.
Recently, two people working at the shelter said an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who lived in the shelter was arrested after reporting to immigration court.
The employee said he had struggled to apply for the job as he was wearing an ankle monitor before his arrest.
Confusing, he went to immigration court and asked officials to remove the monitor, the two employees said, but were arrested instead. He was taken to a high desert detention center in Adelanto, California, where his lawyers sued his asylum case, which is still pending, according to Lailanie.
He is afraid that he will be returned to Central Africa, where his father was killed, she said.
“People are scared and people are hurt, but people are forced to continue working, do the right thing and fight for the right thing,” she said.
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