Nigeria’s presidential spokesperson welcomes US assistance ‘as long as it recognises our territorial integrity’.
Published On 2 Nov 20252 Nov 2025
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Nigeria says it would welcome assistance from the United States in fighting armed groups as long as its territorial integrity is respected after US President Donald Trump threatened military action in the West African country over what he claimed was persecution of Christians there.
In a social media post on Saturday, Trump said he had asked the Department of Defense to prepare for possible “fast” military action in Nigeria if Africa’s most populous country fails to crack down on the “killing of Christians”.
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A spokesperson for Nigeria’s presidency, Daniel Bwala, told the Reuters news agency on Sunday that the country would “welcome US assistance as long as it recognises our territorial integrity”.
“I am sure by the time these two leaders meet and sit, there would be better outcomes in our joint resolve to fight terrorism,” Bwala added.
In his post, Trump said the US would immediately cut off all assistance to the country “if the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians”.
Earlier, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu pushed back against claims of religious intolerance and defended his country’s efforts to protect religious freedom.
“Since 2023, our administration has maintained an open and active engagement with Christian and Muslim leaders alike and continues to address security challenges which affect citizens across faiths and regions,” Tinubu said in a statement.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians.”
Nigeria, a country of more than 200 million people, is divided between the largely Muslim north and mostly Christian south.
Armed groups have been engaged in a conflict that has been largely confined to the northeast of the country and has dragged on for more than 15 years. Analysts said that while Christians have been killed, most of the victims have been Muslims.
‘No Christian genocide’
While human rights groups have urged the government to do more to address unrest in the country, which has experienced deadly attacks by Boko Haram and other armed groups, experts say claims of a “Christian genocide” are false and simplistic.
“All the data reveals is that there is no Christian genocide going on in Nigeria,” Bulama Bukarti, a Nigerian humanitarian lawyer and analyst on conflict and development, told Al Jazeera. This is “a dangerous far-right narrative that has been simmering for a long time that President Trump is amplifying today”.
“It is divisive, and it is only going to further increase instability in Nigeria,” Bukarti added, explaining that armed groups in Nigeria have been targeting both Muslims and Christians.
“They bomb markets. They bomb churches. They bomb mosques, and they attack every civilian location they find. They do not discriminate between Muslims and Christians.”
Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow of Africa studies at the Washington, DC-based Council on Foreign Relations, agreed and said the Trump administration should work with Nigerian authorities to address the “common enemy”.
“This is precisely the moment when Nigeria needs assistance, especially military assistance,” Obadare said. “The wrong thing to do is to invade Nigeria and override the authorities or the authority of the Nigerian government. Doing that will be counterproductive.”
On a play-action pass, Chargers running back Najee Harris crumpled to the turf before the fake handoff could fully develop, immediately grabbing his left ankle and tossing aside his helmet in pain.
Needing assistance, trainers helped Harris to the sideline, as he was unable to put any weight on his leg, before he was carted to the locker room in the second quarter of a 23-20 win over the Denver Broncos at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
Harris, who spent the lead-up to his first season in L.A. recovering from an offseason eye injury in a fireworks accident, was expected to be a key piece of a one-two punch with rookie Omarion Hampton.
Now, he appears to be sidelined for the season with an Achilles injury, according to head coach Jim Harbaugh, who called the diagnosis “preliminary” as Harris underwent postgame imaging.
“Not good,” Harbaugh said of his emotions as the play unfolded. “[I was] just hoping for the best — maybe a high ankle, something else that wouldn’t be long-term.”
Speaking at the podium with a somber tone, Harbaugh said he met with Harris at halftime and described the running back’s demeanor as “cold-blooded,” adding that he told him: “You’ll be back, kid.”
The injury appeared clear on film, according to Dr. Dan Ginader, physical therapist and author of “The Pain-Free Body,” who reviewed video of the play.
“When looking at the calf of the back plant leg, you can see the muscle sort of ‘jump’ which is indicative of a complete tear of the Achilles,” Ginader said. “Players who have suffered this injury often describe it as being hit in the heel with a shovel. … When you see the muscle jump and see the player crumble to the floor, you can be pretty sure it’s a complete tear.”
Before going down, Harris had been featured early Sunday, carrying six times for 28 yards. Durable throughout his career, he had appeared in all 71 games across five NFL seasons before the injury.
If it’s a complete tear, the earliest Harris could return is about eight months, Ginader said, though most players don’t feel fully themselves “until at least 12 months” post-surgery. For a skill player, he added, “it takes longer to be able to come back at full force.”
With Harris out, Hampton is expected to shoulder a bigger role moving forward. Hampton, who calls Harris a mentor, admitted the loss stings.
Development financing to Southeast Asia is expected to fall by more than $2bn in 2026 due to recent cutbacks by Western governments, according to a major Australian think tank.
The Sydney-based Lowy Institute predicted in a new report on Sunday that development assistance to Southeast Asia will drop to $26.5bn next year from $29bn in 2023.
The figures are billions of dollars below the pre-pandemic average of $33bn.
Bilateral funding is also expected to fall by 20 percent from about $11bn in 2023 to $9bn in 2026, the report said.
The cuts will hit poorer countries in the regions hardest, and “social sector priorities such as health, education, and civil society support that rely on bilateral aid funding are likely to lose out the most”, the report said.
Fewer alternatives
Cuts by Europe and the United Kingdom have been made to redirect funds as NATO members plan to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the shadow of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The European Union and seven European governments will cut foreign aid by $17.2bn between 2025 and 2029, while this year, the UK announced it will cut foreign aid spending by $7.6bn annually, the report said.
The greatest upset has come from the United States, where earlier this year, President Donald Trump shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashed nearly $60bn in foreign assistance. More recently, the US Senate took steps to claw back another $8bn in spending.
The Lowy Institute said governments closer to home, like China, will play an increasingly important role in the development landscape.
“The centre of gravity in Southeast Asia’s development finance landscape looks set to drift East, notably to Beijing but also Tokyo and Seoul,” the report said. “Combined with potentially weakening trade ties with the United States, Southeast Asian countries risk finding themselves with fewer alternatives to support their development.”
After experiencing a sharp decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese overseas development assistance has started to bounce back, reaching $4.9bn in 2023, according to the report.
Its spending, however, focuses more on infrastructure projects, like railways and ports, rather than social sector issues, the report said. Beijing’s preference for non-concessional loans given at commercial rates benefits Southeast Asia’s middle- and high-income countries, but is less helpful for its poorest, like Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and East Timor.
As China and institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank play a more prominent role in Southeast Asia, less clear is how Japan and South Korea can fill in the blanks, according to experts.
Japan, South Korea
Grace Stanhope, a Lowy Institute research associate and one of the report’s authors, told Al Jazeera that both countries have expanded their development assistance to include civil society projects.
“[While] Japanese and Korean development support is often less overtly ‘values-based’ than traditional Western aid, we’ve been seeing Japan especially move into the governance and civil society sectors, with projects in 2023 that are explicitly focused on democracy and protection of vulnerable migrants, for example,” she said.
“The same is true of [South] Korea, which has recently supported projects for improving the transparency of Vietnamese courts and protection of women from gender-based violence, so the approach of the Japanese and Korean development programmes is evolving beyond just infrastructure.”
Tokyo and Seoul, however, are facing similar pressures as Europe from the Trump administration to increase their defence budgets, cutting into their development assistance.
Shiga Hiroaki, a professor at the Graduate School of International Social Sciences at Yokohama National University, said he was more “pessimistic” that Japan could step in to fill the gaps left by the West.
He said cuts could even be made as Tokyo ramps up defence spending to a historic high, and a “Japanese-first” right-wing party pressures the government to redirect funds back home.
“Considering Japan’s huge fiscal deficit and public opposition to tax increases, it is highly likely that the aid budget will be sacrificed to fund defence spending,” he said.
Mayor Karen Bass announced a plan Friday to provide direct cash assistance to people who have been affected by the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration raids.
The aid will be distributed using cash cards with a “couple hundred” dollars on them, which should be available in about a week, Bass said at a news conference.
“You have people who don’t want to leave their homes, who are not going to work, and they are in need of cash,” she said.
Bass spoke about a family she met who needed two incomes to afford their rent. After one of the breadwinners was detained in an immigration raid, she said, the family is concerned they may face eviction.
It was not immediately clear what the qualifications will be needed to receive the cards.
The mayor emphasized that the money will not come from city coffers but from philanthropic partners. The cards will be distributed by immigrants rights groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
The city will coordinate between philanthropists and organizations distributing the cards, according to the mayor’s office.
The announcement came during a Bass news conference about an executive order she signed Friday directing all city departments to “bolster protocols” and training on how to comply with the city’s sanctuary policy, which states that city employees and city property may not be used to “investigate, cite, arrest, hold, transfer or detain any person” for the purpose of immigration enforcement, except for serious crimes. Departments will have to come up with their plans within two weeks.
The executive order also creates a working group that will examine — and possibly update — the LAPD’s policy on responding to immigration enforcement. Since 1979, the LAPD has taken a strong stance against enforcing federal immigration law, prohibiting its officers from initiating contact with anyone for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status.
The executive order also includes a directive to file Freedom of Information Act requests for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to turn over records with the dates and locations of every raid in the city since June 6, as well as the identities of the people detained and the reason for their detention.
The cash cards are one of a slew of announcements — including the executive order — this week by the mayor in response to the federal immigration crackdown in Los Angeles that has entered its second month.
Earlier this week, Bass and the city attorney announced the city’s intention to join a lawsuit calling for an end to the Trump administration’s “unlawful” raids in the city.
For 22 days, immigration enforcement officials have conducted sweeps in communities across the Los Angeles region, arresting an estimated 722 people between June 1 and June 10 alone.
For families and immigrant advocacy groups, determining the location of detainees has been difficult.
“In some cases it’s been 72 hours where we have not been able to identify where their family member is and when we do, sometimes they’re in the [Adelanto Detention Center],” said Flor Melendrez, executive director of CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, a nonprofit labor advocacy group.
“Sometimes it’s too late and [the detainee is] calling from the Ciudad Juárez or Tijuana, where they have already been deported, and that’s within 72 hours.”
CLEAN has focused on representing workers in the car wash industry for 18 years, but in the last three weeks the group has shifted to helping families find workers who were taken during a raid and guide them toward supportive and legal services.
“When the children are asking if we are going to bring their parent back home and we have no way to even respond [with] where they are, it’s heartbreaking,” Melendrez said.
Here are the immediate steps you should take if your relative is arrested and detained by immigrant enforcement officials:
Reach out to these organizations for help
If your loved one was detained by immigration enforcement agents, reach out to immigrant advocacy groups that can provide referrals, information, resources (such as food and financial assistance) and, in some cases, direct support.
A network of local rapid response hotlines has been established to document immigration enforcement activity and help connect those affected to legal services and other types of support, according to the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.
Gather important documents and personal information
After or before you’ve made the call for help, gather these important documents that pertain to the detained family member:
Birth certificate
Medical records
Past visa applications
Receipt and approval notices for any immigration applications the person has previously submitted
You’ll also need to gather the following personal information that will be used either by you or your legal representation to locate your detained loved one:
A-Number, also known as “alien registration number,” which is assigned by the Department of Homeland Security to noncitizens who apply to live and work in the U.S. The seven- to nine-digit number can be found on a green card, work permit or other immigration document.
Country of birth
Personal information including full name and birthday
Your options when searching for legal representation
There is a coalition of organizations and pro bono attorneys working to support individuals who have been detained, but it can be challenging to get immediate help because there is an overwhelming need.
Because of the high demand for legal help, Public Counsel, a nonprofit public interest law firm, is currently prioritizing cases based on extreme need and often can only take a bond case or help with locating a detained person.
Public Counsel warned that families who have not been affected by immigration enforcement but need help with their immigration status should look for a lawyer now and begin the immigration process in case they are detained in the future.
Scammers try to confuse immigrants into thinking they’re an attorney by calling themselves a notario, notary public, accountant or consultant, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
In Latin American countries, a notario or notary public is an attorney or has legal training, but that’s not the case in the United States.
How to protect yourself from the scam:
Do not hire an immigration consultant or a notary. Only lawyers, accredited representatives and recognized organizations can give you legal advice or represent you in immigration court. Immigration consultants — who may call themselves immigration experts, notarios, notaries public or paralegals — cannot do so, according to California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office.
Do not give your original important documents to anyone, unless you see proof that the government requires the original document, according to the FTC.
You can verify whether a lawyer is legitimate by searching for them on the State Bar of California website and determining if they have an active law license.
How to locate your detained family member
If your relative is arrested in Los Angeles, they will likely be taken to the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles — sometimes called “B-18” — which is located at 320 Aliso St., according to Public Counsel.
Call the detention center at (213) 830-4900 or (213) 830-7911 and provide the operator with your relative’s A-Number, according to Public Counsel.
You can also try locating your relative by using the Department of Homeland Security’s ICE Detainee Locator System online or call (866) 347-2423, but be warned that immigration officials often won’t provide detainee information over the phone and might not update their online data regularly.
Whether you use the ICE online locator or call, you’ll need to provide the detainee’s A-Number and country of birth, or their full name and both country and date of birth.
If you cannot locate your family member through this process, you can contact the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office closest to where the person was picked up.
Los Angeles Field Office: 300 North Los Angeles St., Room 7631, Los Angeles, CA 90012; (213) 830-7911. This office’s area of responsibility includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
San Diego Field Office: 880 Front Street, #2242, San Diego, CA 92101; (619) 436-0410. This office’s area of responsibility includes San Diego and Imperial counties.
San Francisco Field Office: 630 Sansome Street, Room 590, San Francisco, CA 94111; (415) 365-8800. This office’s area of responsibility includes Northern California, Hawaii, Guam, Saipan.
Another option for locating your detained relative is contacting their country’s consulate.
Raíces Con Voz is a grassroots organization in Boyle Heights that is providing grocery and essential items to those in the community who feel they are unable to leave their homes due to recent ICE activity. For assistance, send the group a direct message on Instagram.
World Harvest Charities and Family Services’ Cart With a Heart program is providing families who are sheltering in place with grocery carts full of fresh produce, protein, pantry supplies and more. For assistance, call (213) 746-2227.
La Puente Mutual Aid delivers essentials to community members without asking for a name or address of the person in need, for free. Email [email protected] with a code name, your neighborhood, a safe drop spot and items needed.
The El Monte Business Alliance is offering food assistance and baby products to those in need through their new program El Monte Cares. For help, call (800) 622-4302.
Immigo Immigration Services delivers necessary items to families in need. Call (818) 730-0140 for assistance.
On Friday morning, more than 50 community and religious leaders from around Los Angeles signed a petition that called on the Dodgers “to take a public stand against the indiscriminate ICE raids which are causing immense terror in our communities, hurting businesses, and separating families.”
By Friday afternoon, the team finally started to put some public plans into action.
In their first public response to the immigration raids that have swept through Los Angeles over the last two weeks, the Dodgers announced they have committed $1 million toward assistance for families of immigrants affected by the recent events in the city, as well as plans for further initiatives that are to be unveiled in the coming days.
“What’s happening in Los Angeles has reverberated among thousands upon thousands of people, and we have heard the calls for us to take a leading role on behalf of those affected,” team president Stan Kasten said in a statement. “We believe that by committing resources and taking action, we will continue to support and uplift the communities of Greater Los Angeles.”
After days of increasing calls for the team to address the unrest that has swept through the city over the last two weeks, the pressure on the Dodgers had been ratcheted up again with Friday’s petition.
“This is the moment for the Dodgers to stand with the families whom masked agents are tearing apart,” read the letter, which was signed by religious officials, labor leaders and immigrant-rights activists, and addressed to Dodgers owner Mark Walter.
“If these truly are OUR beloved Los Angeles Dodgers, we need you, more than ever, to stand with us, immigrants and non-immigrants alike. Stand with all of us.”
The petition, which was organized by faith-based community organizing network PICO California, came a day after the Dodgers initially postponed their planned financial assistance announcement.
The club decided to delay its announcement after immigration agents showed up at Dodger Stadium on Thursday morning, attempting to access the ballpark’s parking lots in an apparent effort to use them as a processing site for people who had been arrested in a nearby immigration raid.
The Dodgers denied the agents entry to the grounds, according to the team, but pushed their announcement to Friday afternoon — when they detailed that their $1 million in financial resources will be made in partnership with the City of Los Angeles.
“The Dodgers and the City of Los Angeles have a proven ability to get financial resources to those in critical need, most recently seen in their efforts to aid victims of the January wildfires,” the Dodgers said. “Through our support of the city’s efforts, the Dodgers will encourage those organizations in a similar position to use their resources to directly support the families and workers who have suffered economic hardship.”
The team said more initiatives with local community and labor organizations will be announced in the coming days.
“I want to thank the Dodgers for leading with this action to support the immigrant community of Los Angeles,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a team statement.
That news checked off one of the requests laid out in Friday’s earlier petition, which implored the club to:
Issue a public statement affirming that families are sacred, and that the ICE raids must stop
Stand with and support community organizations that are welcoming, protecting, and integrating immigrants into the fabric of our great region
As when you asked ICE to leave the property yesterday, continue to ensure that no Dodgers’ property or assets will be used to aid or abet immigration enforcement operations
A news release announcing the letter also promoted a public petition campaign for fans to sign.
Many of the signatories of Friday’s petition were local church leaders, including the bishops of the Methodist California-Pacific Conference and Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
The petition was also signed by representatives from more than 20 community advocacy groups, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and National Day Laborer Organizing Network; as well as labor leaders from local teacher unions and the Service Employees International Union, among others.
“We love the Dodgers not only because they are champions, but even more because they are the team of Jackie Robinson, of Fernando Valenzuela, of Kiké Hernandez — baseball players who have helped bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice,” Joseph Tomás McKellar, executive director of the PICO California organization that organized the petition, said in a statement Friday morning. “This is a moment when the Dodgers, a beloved family and cultural institution for 67 years, can take a moral stand and make an impact on the lives of vulnerable families in our region. Families are sacred.”
After the Dodgers’ announcement, Reverend Zach Hoover from LA Voice, a member federation of PICO California, released another statement.
“The Dodgers have taken a meaningful step toward addressing the fear in our communities. By committing real resources to immigrant families, they’re showing that moral courage and civic leadership still matter in Los Angeles, and that we can heal the wounds of hate with the power of love. We pray this is just the beginning — because dignity demands more than silence, and faith calls us to act.”
Before the sun rose Tuesday, Benito Flores fortified the front door of his one-bedroom duplex on a narrow street in El Sereno.
Flores, a 70-year-old retired welder, had illegally seized a home five years ago after its owner, the California Department of Transportation, had left it vacant. He’d been allowed to stay for a few months, then was directed to this nearby home owned by the agency, but now it was time to go.
Later in the morning, deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were scheduled to lock him out.
Flores clearly had other plans. Over months, he’d sawed wooden two-by-fours to use as a brace between the front door and an interior wall to make it harder to breach. He bolted shut the metal screen door. Once Flores was satisfied he’d secured the entrance Tuesday, he retreated to a wooden structure he built 28 feet high in an ash tree in the backyard.
If the police wanted him to leave, they’d have to come get him in his tree house.
“I plan to resist as long as I can,” Flores said.
The homemade structure, 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide, represents the last stand for Flores and a larger protest that captured national attention in March 2020. Flores and a dozen others occupied empty homes owned by Caltrans, acquired by the hundreds a half-century ago for a freeway expansion that never happened. They said they wanted to call attention to the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles.
The issue, Flores said, remains no less urgent today. Political leaders, he argued, have failed to provide housing for all who need it.
“They don’t care about the people,” Flores said. “Who is supposed to give permanent housing to elders, disabled and families with children? It is the city and the state. And they are evicting me.”
For the public agencies involved, the resistance represents an intransigence that belies the assistance and leniency they’ve offered to Flores and fellow protesters who call their group “Reclaiming Our Homes.” The state allowed group members, or Reclaimers, to remain legally and paying rents far below market rates for two years. Since then, the agencies have continued to offer referrals for permanent housing and financial settlements of up to $20,000 if group members left voluntarily.
Evictions, they’ve said, were a last resort and required by law.
“We don’t have any authority to operate outside of that,” said Tina Booth, director of asset management for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, which is operating the housing program on Caltrans’ behalf.
Four Reclaimers, including Flores, remain in the homes.
Two have accepted settlements and are expected to leave within weeks. The final Reclaimer also has a court-ordered eviction against him, but plans to leave without incident.
Flores said evicting him makes no sense because the property is intended to be used as affordable housing that he qualifies for. Flores, who suffers from diabetes, collects about $1,200 a month in Social Security and supplemental payments. If he’s removed, Flores said, he has no other option except to sleep in his van — where he lived for 14 years before the home seizure.
“We are going to live on the streets for the rest of our lives,” Flores said of he and others evicted in the protest group in an open letter he sent to Sheriff Robert Luna last week.
Flores received advance notice of the lockout. His supporters began arriving at 6 a.m. Tuesday to fill the normally sleepy block. Flores already was up in the tree.
Within 90 minutes, more than two dozen people had arrived. They stationed lookouts on the corners. Some went inside Flores’ house through a side door to provide another layer of defense.
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1.Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies speak over a fence to Benito Flores on Shelley Street in El Sereno, CA on Tuesday, June 3, 2025.2.Benito Flores speaks with the media on Tuesday, June 3, 2025 saying that the sheriff’s department that will serve him with eviction lack compassion and that him living on the street will mean facing death.
Gina Viola, an activist and former mayoral candidate, rallied the crowd on the sidewalk. It was “despicable,” she said, to leave homes empty when so many were in need. She said those in power needed to act, just as Flores and the Reclaimers have, to provide permanent housing immediately.
“This is part of a reckoning that is long overdue,” Viola said.
She pointed to the tree house, praising Flores.
“He’s a 70-year-old elder who has climbed … into the sky to make this point to the world: ‘This is my home and I won’t leave it.’”
The structure has been visible from the street for weeks. Flores had attached a sign to the front with a message calling for a citywide rent strike.
The tree house is elaborate. Flores used galvanized steel braces to attach a series of ladders to the ash tree’s trunk. Where the trunk narrowed higher in the tree, Flores bolted spikes into the bark to make the final few steps into the structure.
Inside the tree house and hanging on nearby branches were blankets, warm clothing, food, water and his medication. To keep things clean, there’s a wooden broom he can sweep out leaves and other detritus. Flores expected to charge his phone via an extension cord connected to electricity in the garage. He bolted a chair to the bottom of the tree house and has a safety belt to catch him should he fall.
Deputies had not yet arrived by 9 a.m. Flores descended, wearing a harness, to speak with members of the news media from his driveway. He spoke from behind a locked fence.
Flores rejected the assertion that the Housing Authority has provided him with another place to live. He said the agency’s offers of assistance, such as Section 8 vouchers, aren’t guarantees. He cited the struggles that voucher holders face when finding landlords to accept the subsidies.
“They offered me potential permanent housing,” Flores said of the Housing Authority.
Jenny Scanlin, the agency’s chief strategic development officer, said that Flores was offered more than two dozen referrals to other homes, but that he rejected them. Some involved waiting lists and vouchers, but others had occupancy immediately available, she said.
“We absolutely believe he would have had an alternative place to live — permanent affordable housing” — had Flores accepted the assistance, Scanlin said.
Joseph De La O, 62, seized a Caltrans-owned home in 2020. He accepted a settlement from HACLA and has since returned to homelessness. He came to Flores’ home to help protest the eviction.”
As Flores held court in the driveway, he rolled up a pant leg to show a sore from his diabetes and said that on the streets he’d have nowhere to refrigerate his insulin.
While Flores spoke, supporters were on edge. Representatives of the property management company milled a block away holding drills.
Around 9:45, two sheriff’s cruisers parked a block away. Three deputies got out and met the property managers, then walked to Flores’ home.
Flores’ supporters met them at the driveway. The deputies said they wanted to talk to Flores and brushed past to the locked gate. Flores told them to ask themselves why they needed to evict a senior citizen. The deputies responded that they had offered assistance from adult protective services and were following orders from the court.
A deputy handed Flores a pamphlet describing housing resources the county offered, including information about calling 211. Flores held up the paper above his head to show everyone. The crowd started booing and yelling “Shame.”
An officer then tried to reason with Flores in Spanish. But it was clear things were going nowhere.
“Suerte,” the officer said to Flores. “Good luck.”
Then they left.
The Sheriff’s Department could not immediately be reached for comment, and a Caltrans spokesperson referred comment to the Housing Authority. Scanlin said she expected the lockout process would continue per the court’s order.
Flores and his supporters believe sheriff’s deputies could return at any time. Some are planning to camp out at his house overnight.
Federal agencies must do more to house struggling victims from January’s Eaton Fires, Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) and advocacy groups argued Tuesday.
Chu hosted a roundtable at the Altadena Library with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and other agencies, where a dozen organizations assisting fire survivors pleaded for more assistance.
Even with the availability of federal vouchers and other housing aid, thousands of people remain bouncing between hotel rooms, living out of their cars or in other unstable housing situations, advocates said.
“Survivors of the Eaton Fire are slipping through the cracks,” Chu said at a press conference following the event.
Chu is urging FEMA to authorize a housing program called Direct Lease where FEMA directly rents apartments for disaster survivors who cannot find somewhere to live on their own. The Times reported this month that FEMA hasn’t implemented Direct Lease in Los Angeles even though it’s commonly made available after natural disasters nationwide, including the 2023 wildfires in Maui.
FEMA and CalOES officials have said that their data shows thousands of rental units available across L.A. County, making the program unnecessary.
“We know from anecdotal evidence that that cannot be true,” Chu said. “It is far from the truth.”
Fire survivors have faced numerous barriers to finding permanent housing while they decide on rebuilding their homes, advocates said. Landlords’ income requirements are too high. Potential tenants’ credit scores are too low. Some landlords aren’t accepting the vouchers FEMA is providing survivors. And the agency is including apartments in the Antelope Valley and other areas far from Altadena in its assessment of L.A.’s rental market.
By not taking these factors into account, FEMA officials are ignoring needs on the ground, advocates said.
“There is a huge gap between availability and vacancy and accessibility,” said Jasmin Shupper, president of Greenline Housing Foundation, a local nonprofit.
Chu said that FEMA already has provided $132 million in assistance, including $40 million for help with housing.
She said that money for Direct Lease was available through the existing federal disaster allocation following January’s wildfires. She noted that she supported the state’s request to Trump and Congress for $40 billion for long-term recovery efforts.
FEMA and CalOES didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Chu’s request. After Times reporting earlier this month, state emergency officials said they were reevaluating an earlier decision not to advocate for Direct Lease.
