At any given time, there are hundreds of messages in Tito Rodriguez’s inbox. And they’re all saying the same thing: Help.
They show a visceral picture of the fear that is gripping thousands of undocumented families that leaving your home right now — even for medicine, bread or baby formula — could mean a confrontation with immigration agents scouring Long Beach and Los Angeles in pursuit of Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.
Rodriguez, a longtime nonprofit leader affectionately known around Long Beach as Hood Santa, has quickly pivoted to delivering groceries to families. On Wednesday alone, volunteers trucked food to about 200 homes in Long Beach and nearby cities, like Compton, Hawaiian Gardens and downtown Los Angeles.
“People are so scared that they’re starving,” Rodriguez said. “They put so much fear into them that they’re at home starving, and that hurts. … Imagine what else they’re missing out on.”
Since last Friday, as arrests have been made at car washes, Home Depots and even a Downey church, local immigrant communities have been making difficult decisions: Do I go to Sunday service? Do I go to the store? Do I make that doctor’s appointment? Do I send my child to school?
It’s a self-exit from society, happening in Long Beach and across the Los Angeles area, where the Trump Administration has deployed nearly 5,000 troops from the National Guard and Marines to stand watch over federal facilities and accompany immigration agents whose recent raids sparked protests and, in some cases, violence.
On Friday morning, they were at the corner of 55th Street and Long Beach Boulevard in the northern part of the city. Videos show National Guard troops blocking the street while uniformed personnel enter a mobile home park. Residents, who declined to speak on the record out of fear of retaliation, said they witnessed authorities going up to the doors of some homes, demanding people give themselves up. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to questions about the operation.
White House officials said Wednesday that 330 immigrants have been arrested in Los Angeles since Friday. Another 157 people were arrested for assault and obstruction-related charges, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Long Beach Police Chief Wally Hebeish said in a statement on X Wednesday that he was “aware of the heightened anxiety within our community during this time.” He reiterated that city police are not assisting in any federal operations but added that city police will not take actions that “obstruct federal authorities in the course of their duties, including the dissemination of law enforcement sensitive information.”
Broadly, it’s difficult to know how many locals could be affected, but it’s likely in the tens of thousands. The most recent U.S. Census counted nearly 55,000 Long Beach residents who are noncitizens — either lawful permanent residents, under Temporary Protected Status, awaiting their court date, DACA recipients or without status altogether.
Across the region, schools, churches and shopkeepers say they’re already feeling the chilling effect of the fear of deportation.
A vendor who frequently hawks tacos in downtown Long Beach said the daily lunch crowd has thinned out, to include vendors and customers alike. A minister at Our Lady of Guadalupe Sanctuary, a church in northwest Long Beach, said so few congregants have shown up for nightly mass that they plan to cancel their weekend service.
“Because most of the people in our community are in a panic,” he said.
Attendance at Long Beach Unified schools had dropped 10.8% by Thursday compared to a week earlier, a day before the LA raids started. (The district could not immediately provide data for the same time period last year.)
The district, which already doesn’t allow federal immigration agents on campus without a warrant signed by a judge, said during graduations this week the district would staff security at ceremonies and notify attendees if ICE showed up.
Despite these assurances, a Cabrillo junior who asked to be identified only by her initial, F, said many students have stopped coming to class.
“It’s really heartbreaking to see so many of my friends who shine in a classroom and their smile just illuminates the room, how they (have) become so dim and gloomy,” she said. “It’s like the presence of Cabrillo and all of our ethnic backgrounds (are) kind of disappearing as these students leave the campus to try to keep shelter in their homes.”
Meanwhile, nonprofit workers say they’re seeing a spike in demand for essentials, like food and water, as well as guidance on what to do.
Romeo Hebron, with the Filipino Migrant Center, said his organization’s hotline, meant for immigrants to report enforcement activity or request help, has seen a 25% bump in calls. Most call to review their rights, such as the right to due process and protection against unreasonable search and seizure of property, and the right to not open the doors of their homes.
At a local warehouse on Thursday, volunteers working with Rodriguez rushed to load crates of melons, serrano peppers, cherry tomatoes and avocados. One driver, Angie, said she alone went to 15 homes in Compton to drop off supplies.
As the day began, “it was scary,” she said. Some people thought her kindness was actually a trap set by agents trying to snatch them away from their homes: “They would look at me, look at my car to see if I was really going to give them food.”
Rene Bravo, a pediatrician in San Luis Obispo and president-elect of the California Medical Association, said Friday he’s seen a spike in no-shows among clinics in Los Angeles and throughout the state. And not just since last Friday.
Visiting a community clinic in Santa Maria in April, Bravo said it was remarkably empty. Asking a doctor, he was told people simply stopped coming in.
“Many of them are missing their appointments for precisely the reason that they fear that immigration will be waiting for them,” he said.
Bravo predicts the trend will continue, especially as the Trump Administration said Friday it will relinquish the data of immigrant Medicaid enrollees to federal agencies.
“People who need health care will not be willing to get it because of fear that’s engendered by just the fact that they may be arrested just for getting health care,” he said. “And eventually, they will get sicker and sicker. They won’t seek health care until it’s too late.”
And it’s unclear for how long these conditions will continue.
The National Guard’s orders say they’ll be in LA County for 60 days. A judge on Thursday said their deployment was illegal, but an appeals court temporarily stopped the order from taking effect, allowing the troops to stay until at least Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in a heated press conference in Los Angeles Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters the Trump Administration has no plans to end its immigration crackdown despite mounting protests expected this weekend.
“We’re going to stay here and build our operations until we make sure that we liberate the city of Los Angeles,” Noem said.
F, the junior at Cabrillo, said her mother, her aunts, uncles and cousins — employed in cities from Long Beach to San Jose — are at risk of deportation.
The hardest part for them, she said, is figuring out how to pay bills over the next two months.
F said her aunts, who pick blueberries at a farm in Fresno, have had their hours cut amid raids by border patrol agents this week. There is also her mother, who works as a certified nursing assistant, and who continues to drive as far as Gardena and downtown LA to see patients.
Each time, F and her sister keep their phone close, in the event their mother is caught. It’s a scenario she and her sister have rehearsed with their mother several times in the past few months.
“We would drive as fast as we can toward her and grab her ID and maybe her credit card, so we have something to live off of for a while, and keep all of her papers [as] well placed as we can,” she said.
Heading into her senior year this fall, F is being forced to contemplate the idea of life without her mother nearby.
“If she does ever go back to Mexico in these following months, she’ll never get to see me graduate, or maybe see me get into a college and graduate from there, or even start a family,” she said.
At this year’s graduation ceremony Thursday night, the grandstands at Cabrillo High School, normally packed with cheering parents and relatives, were less full than usual.
In an address to the audience, senior Doranelly Real Gabino spoke earnestly of her own parents, who both emigrated from Mexico 20 years ago and couldn’t attend that night.
“Have you ever seen a woman and a man wake up at 5 a.m. to find and collect recycling bottles to buy groceries and pay phone bills?” she asked the crowd. “Have you ever seen a woman with a carrito de bar selling tamales around your neighborhood at 7 a.m.? What about a woman and her husband selling homemade Mexican dishes to make ends meet? Or a lady at a Cinco de Mayo restaurant selling flowers on Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. Well, those are my parents. I’m not here to criticize what they do, nor am I ashamed of how they make a living. It is because of their hard work that I stand on this stage, wearing a white gown and about to graduate from high school.”
At this proclamation, the crowd erupted in cheers.