raids

A Southern California Roman Catholic bishop told his diocese of roughly one million parishioners this week that they can stay home on Sundays to avoid Mass while concerns about federal immigration sweeps still loom over the region.

Bishop Alberto Rojas of the Diocese of San Bernardino wrote in the decree Tuesday that many church-goers have shared “fears of attending mass due to potential immigration enforcement action” and that “such fear constitutes a grave inconvenience that may impede the spiritual good of the faithful.”

In lieu of Sunday service, Rojas encouraged his members to “maintain their spiritual communion” by praying the rosary or reading scripture and directed diocese ministers to offer support and compassion to the affected.

Since early June, countless Southern California families have been living in fear and gone underground amid an extraordinary federal immigration enforcement push by the Trump administration. Nearly 2,800 people have been caught up in the sweeps in the L.A. area alone, including U.S. citizens and hundreds of undocumented immigrants without any criminal record.

The threat of an immigration raid has rippled through all aspects of Southern California life, including church attendance, where some houses of worship say up to a third or half their congregants are no longer showing up in person.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, multiple people were arrested at or near diocese churches on June 20, including a man at Our Lady of Lourdes in Montclair, which ICE officials dispute.

“The accusation that ICE entered a church to make an arrest [is] FALSE,” wrote Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin in an email to The Times. “The illegal alien chose to pull into the church parking lot [and] officers then safely made the arrest.”

Days later, Rojas wrote a message to worshipers on Facebook.

He said that he respected and appreciated law enforcement’s role in keeping “communities safe from violent criminals,” but added that “authorities are now seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately, without respect for their right to due process and their dignity as children of God.”

As for his latest edict allowing worshipers to forgo Mass, Rojas said it will remain in effect until further notice or until the circumstances “necessitating this decree are sufficiently resolved.”

Times staff writers Andrew Castillo, Rachel Uranga and Queenie Wong contributed to this report.

The city and county of Los Angeles are among the local governments seeking to join a lawsuit calling on the Trump administration to stop “unlawful detentions” during ongoing immigration sweeps in Southern California.

On Tuesday, the governments filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Public Counsel and immigrant rights groups against the Trump administration last week.

The lawsuit claims that the region is “under siege” by federal agents and aims to stop federal agencies from an “ongoing pattern and practice of flouting the Constitution and federal law” during immigration raids.

“These unconstitutional roundups and raids cannot be allowed to continue. They cannot become the new normal,” said Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

Feldstein Soto was joined by Mayor Karen Bass and officials from other cities also seeking to join the lawsuit.

The motion from the local governments comes as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Southern California enters its second month. Between June 6 and June 22, federal agents arrested 1,618 immigrants for deportation in Los Angeles and surrounding areas, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Day in and day out, there is no telling who these federal agents will target or when they will strike, since they refuse to coordinate with local authorities,” attorney John Schwab, who is representing Los Angeles and other cities, wrote in the motion to intervene. “All that is certain is that Defendants’ aim is to instill maximum fear in … communities and wreak havoc on the economy of one of the most diverse and vibrant areas in the country.”

The motion argues that the immigration raids are obstructing local governments’ ability to perform critical law enforcement functions and depriving them of tax revenue because of a slowdown in the local economy.

L.A. County and some cities — Culver City, Montebello, Monterey Park, Pico Rivera, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Pasadena — hope to become part of the lawsuit at a hearing Thursday where a judge will consider issuing a temporary restraining order that would bar the administration from making unconstitutional immigration arrests.

“How do we know the difference between this and a kidnapping?” Bass asked at the news conference.

In a statement, L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis said, “For the past month, we’ve seen individuals picked up at car washes and Home Depot parking lots, then simply disappear without warrants, probable cause, or due process … These actions have created fear, trauma, and instability in our communities. Small businesses are suffering. People are afraid to go to work, take their kids to school, or ride public transportation.”

Feldstein Soto stressed that a temporary restraining order would not stop the Trump administration from conducting legal civil immigration enforcement in L.A.

In a court filing opposing the temporary restraining order, U.S. Department of Justice attorneys argued that L.A. and the other local governments were trying to “interfere with the enforcement of federal immigration law.”

L.A. officials had already been considering a lawsuit before filing the motion Tuesday. Seven City Council members signed onto a proposal asking Feldstein Soto to prioritize “immediate legal action” to protect the civil rights of Angelenos. Feldstein Soto said her office would soon have more announcements on litigation against the administration.

The Trump administration has sued the city of Los Angeles as well, claiming that its sanctuary policy is illegal and discriminates against federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Times staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Arrests continue to mount in the aggressive federal operation that began more than a month ago to track down and detain undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles, according to Homeland Security figures released Tuesday.

“DHS and its components’ immigration enforcement operations are ongoing in Los Angeles,” a Homeland Security official said in a statement provided to The Times. “Since operations began in June, ICE and CBP have arrested 2,792 illegal aliens in the L.A. area.”

Federal authorities said earlier that 1,618 undocumented immigrants had been detained between June 6 — the start of the DHS operation in Los Angeles — and June 22. The new total includes nearly 1,200 arrests in just over two weeks since then. President Trump deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines in the city days after the operation began amid heated protests.

The latest figures were released a day after dozens of immigration agents and National Guard members swept through MacArthur Park, just west of downtown, forcing children from a summer camp to be rushed inside.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called it a “disgrace” and the action drew widespread condemnation from local officials. They have repeatedly criticized the federal operations for terrorizing immigrant communities, where business has slowed and many have holed up in their homes.

“The actions from the federal government over the last month do not represent the values of our city or of our country,” said City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the area. “Sending United States soldiers to intimidate children at camp and señoras at the bus stop is not making anyone safer. Raiding Home Depots is not stopping crime. Tearing families away from their children isn’t upholding family values. And let me be clear, this cruelty and the chaos that we see is the point.”

The president’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles has been a test case for the Trump administration as it presses the bounds of executive authority, deploying federal agents and the military to a major metropolitan city with leadership hostile to its cause of deporting mass numbers of immigrants.

The detentions have proven a challenge to local and state officials, who have been dealt setbacks in federal court over the ability of the White House to conduct enforcement operations at the local level.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has also ruled that Trump can maintain control of the California National Guard, for now, after he took the extraordinary step of federalizing the guard and deploying them to Los Angeles.

Wilner reported from Washington, Uranga from Los Angeles.

Every year, nonprofit organization Chicxs Rockerxs (pronounced cheek-ex roh-kerr-ex) hosts a week-long summer camp in Southeast Los Angeles for girls and gender nonconforming youth to unleash their inner rock stars.

At the camp, which took place from June 30 to July 4 this year, students learn new instruments, attend creative workshops, and perform original songs in bands with their fellow campers. Students ages 8 to 17 qualify for enrollment.

Yet two weeks before camp this summer, amid the citywide uptick in raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, organizers heard some students were staying home in fear.

“As we were planning and getting ready for camp in person, that’s sort of when the raids started happening in Southeast L.A., and we saw how intensified they were in the area and how violent [they were] and just really damaging to the community,” said organizer Audrey Silvestre.

To safeguard campers and their families from ICE raids in the region, Chicxs Rockerxs canceled the in-person camp — but not entirely.

Organizers quickly moved the program online. Staffers offered to drop off musical instruments, gift cards for food, and camp supplies to families who were not comfortable going out during the raids. They also made a formal announcement on Instagram, informing supporters about the crucial format change.

“We want to reaffirm that CRSELA stands in solidarity with our Black and Brown immigrant communities. As an organization, we formed in response to the firsthand challenges faced by girls and LGBTQ+ youth in Southeast LA, a predominantly Latinx/e immigrant region,” the post read in part.

“Thank you for thinking of the babies!!!” one person commented on the camp’s post.

“Your SELA community supports you!” another person wrote.

“It didn’t feel safe to be asking our communities to take the risk to leave their homes if they didn’t feel safe to do so,” Silvestre said.

Chicxs Rockerxs previously went virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic and facilitated their music camp by having students connect through Zoom to create bands, learn songwriting skills, and come up with an end product they could record together in the video sessions. According to Star, an organizer who asked that their full name not be disclosed for privacy reasons, the virtual model they developed for the pandemic was restructured for this year’s camp, and many changes were made to enhance the experience.

“We wanted them just to have an opportunity to have a safe space to create and to express themselves, and it didn’t necessarily have to result in a song at the end of the week,” Star said. “It was just opportunities to be creative.”

Students still learned new instruments this year, as staffers were able to drop off keyboards, guitars, bass guitars, drum pads and karaoke microphones to campers for daily lessons. Besides music courses, students also participated in smaller breakout rooms called “jam rooms,” which included different themes and creative activities. For example, some jam rooms consisted of karaoke, while others focused on making TikToks and interviewing one another.

“The idea behind these rooms was to keep it fun, because it’s Zoom and it’s not the most exciting for many kiddos who went to school on Zoom,” said Silvestre. “It’s not the most enjoyable way to experience camp, but it’s for them to have fun, bond with their bandmates and just be in community with each other.”

While campers all participated online from home, some staffers operated in person at their campus to stream lunchtime performances and daily assemblies. The organizers created a “DIY television studio,” which they described as similar to public access cable, allowing them to toggle between different cameras from their set to make sessions dynamic and improve the virtual experience for students.

Students like 17-year-old Naima Ramirez, who attended camp for the past four years, said she appreciated what Chicxs Rockerxs did for her and fellow campers.

“I think it was very thoughtful and kind of them to forget all of the scheduling that they had originally done for in-person camp and scramble into doing everything on Zoom,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez said she was initially disappointed to hear that camp was moving online but believed Chicxs Rockerxs did the right thing because of the current environment in Southeast L.A.

“I was bummed because it’s my last year and I was really looking forward to being in person,” Ramirez said. “But I also understood why we had to go online.”

For organizers at Chicxs Rockerxs, the safety and well-being of campers and their families is their top concern. Even though camp took a different approach this year, they said they’re always willing to help campers beyond the creative services they provide.

“One of the things CRSELA prides itself in is that this is meant to be a safe space,” Star said. “I’m really proud that we [were] able to create a safe space in a different way for [camp this year]. It’s a safety precaution for our community, and I think that’s more important at this time.”

Gloria Jiménez and Bruce Martin, leaders of a Galaxy supporter group called the Angel City Brigade, are certain this is no time to be quiet.

Since its founding in 2007, the Angel City Brigade, one of the Galaxy’s largest fan groups, has made its voice heard in sections 121 and 122 of Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.

On Friday, during the typically festive Fourth of July fireworks game, Galaxy supporter groups decided to express their frustration and anger over seeing Southern California’s Latino community targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in recent weeks.

The fans say they are upset by the Galaxy management’s silence amid ICE’s presence in the Latino community. The majority of Galaxy fans are Latino, but the team has not issued any statements in support of fans, remaining as quiet as the Dodgers until the MLB team felt pressure and made a $1 million donation to benefit families impacted by the raids.

The Galaxy and representatives of the teams’ supporter groups have held closed-door talks, but it didn’t lead to a public statements by the club. Before the match against the Whitecaps on Thursday outside Dignity Health Sports Park, Angel City Brigade displayed signs that read “Stop the Raids,” “Free Soil” and “No One is Illegal.

At the end of the national anthem, “Victoria Block,” the section where most of the Galaxy’s fan groups stand, unfurled a tifo with three images: a farm worker; Roy Benavidez, a U.S. Army Medal of Honor recipient; and Elena Rios, president of the National Hispanic Health Foundation. At the bottom, the banner read: “Fight Ignorance, Not Immigrants.”

Members of the Angel City Brigade, including Gloria Jiménez, center, protest ICE raids in Southern California during the Galaxy’s game against Vancouver on Friday at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.

(Jill Connelly/Especial para LA Times en Español)

During the 12th minute of the match, the Angel City Brigade left the stands in protest. Supporter groups the Galaxians and Galaxy Outlawz protested silently, carrying no drums or trumpets. They also did not sing or chant during the game.

“What’s going on in Los Angeles has nothing to do with the players. They know that. What’s going on in Los Angeles we don’t like,” Manuel Martínez, leader of the Galaxy Outlawz, said before the match. “I belong to a family of immigrants who became citizens. So we know the struggle that people go through. We know that there are hard working, innocent workers out there.”

The Riot Squad, on the other side of the stadium, also remained silent during and displayed a message that read: “We like our Whiskey Neat, and our Land and People Free.”

Members of the Angel City Brigade hold up a sign that reads “Smash Ice” during the Galaxy’s match against Vancouver on Friday at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.

(Jill Connelly/Especial para LA Times en Español)

This is not the first time Galaxy fan groups have taken action when they were unhappy team management.

Angel City Brigade, along with other groups such as LA Riot Squad, Galaxy Outlawz and the Galaxians, led boycott while demanding the removal of then-team president Chris Klein following mismanagement and decisions they felt didn’t make the team competitive enough to win. Their effort paid off: Klein stepped down and new management eventually led the club to its sixth MLS championship secured at the end of last season.

On Friday, in addition to issuing a statement reaffirming their “non-discriminatory principles, which oppose exclusion and prejudice based on race, origin, gender identity, sexuality or gender expression,” the fans decided to organize a fundraiser to support pro-immigrant organizations affected by the Trump administration’s budget cuts: Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Border Kindness and Immigrant Defenders Law Center.

To raise funds, they sold T-shirts with an image of a protester in Chinatown confronting an ICE agent.

“This is our way of showing that we want to help, and to fight what’s going on,” said Martin, a Los Angeles native.

The T-shirt sales raised $4,000 for the three organizations.

Previously, Angel City Brigade, like other Galaxy supporter groups, decided not to travel to the June 28 road match against the Earthquakes in San José as a precaution against the raids. About 600 Galaxy fans typically attend the road match.

“We have members who have not been able to work. We have members who have not been able to, go out to games or attend events. San José would have been one of them,” Jiménez said. “We decided that as a group, we couldn’t travel without leaving our brothers and sisters here. So in solidarity with the people who can’t attend because of fear of what’s going on, we decided to cancel the event.”

While the other two professional soccer teams in Los Angeles — LAFC and Angel City FC — have issued public statements in support of the Latino immigrant community, the Galaxy’s ownership has not addressed the issue. Angel City took its support further, wearing “Immigrant City Football Club” warm-up shirts, giving some shirts away to fans and selling more on its website as a fundraiser to support an organization that provides legal support for immigrants.

So far, the only member of the Galaxy who has addressed the issue publicly is head coach Greg Vanney.

“I think we all know someone who is probably affected by what’s going on, so it’s hard from a human standpoint not to have compassion for the families and those who are affected by what’s going on,” Vanney said prior to a game against St. Louis City SC in June.

“We have to really help each other, versus expecting others to do it,” Jiménez said. “That the support didn’t come from our team, as we expected, broke our hearts into a thousand pieces.”

In the past, the Galaxy and supporter groups have collaborated while celebrating various Latin American countries, incorporating their cultural symbols into team merchandise. But amid the Galaxy’s silence, fans are starting to doubt the sincerity of the cultural celebrations.

“It’s sad and disappointing to me. This team that has been in Los Angeles since the mid-1990s, and they’ve leveraged the culture for publicity. When they signed [Mexican soccer star] Chicharito for example, they were strong on Mexican culture and things like that. So when this all started, you would think that they would be for their culture, that they would be there for the fans,” Jiménez said. “And by not saying anything, it doesn’t say that they really care about it. Families are being torn apart and they just stay silent.”

Jiménez said there isn’t a day that goes by that she doesn’t cry or feel anger about the ICE raids.

“We already know what we are to them, we are not friends or family,” she said of the Galaxy. “We are fans and franchise.”

Martin said he has received messages on social media, including from Galaxy fans and supporters of other teams, criticizing his stance. However, Angel City Brigade said its members made a unanimous decision to protest.

“We have always had moments where we have a very clear vision about how we feel,” Jiménez said. “And I think this is one of the times when everyone has made the same decision.”

Galaxy fans plan to stage more protests during the team’s next home match.

This article first appeared in Spanish via L.A. Times en Español.

Lawrence Herrera started carrying a folded-up copy of his birth certificate in his wallet last week. He also saved a picture of his passport on his phone’s camera roll.

For the 67-year-old Atwater Village resident who was born and raised here, the precaution felt silly. But he’s not taking any chances.

“I started hearing, ‘He’s taking anyone and everyone,’” Herrara said, referrring to President Trump’s immigration crackdown. “I thought, ‘You know what? That could be me.’”

Herrera was one of hundreds of protesters who spent Fourth of July in downtown Los Angeles to rally against the immigration raids that have roiled the region and the surge in federal funding approved this week to keep them going. Many on the street said they were skipping the barbecues and fireworks this year. Instead, they showed up at City Hall, some in costumes or wrapped in flags. A 15-foot balloon of Trump in a Russian military uniform sat in Grand Park.

Erica Ortiz, 49, was dressed as Lady Liberty in shackles. Herrera wore a Revolutionary War outfit covered in anti-Trump pins that he said was appropriate for the occasion.

“Guess what? We have no independence right now,” he said. “That’s why we’re out here.”

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1. Elizabeth Natividad wears a dress representing Lady Justice on the steps of City Hall . 2. Nancy Gonzalez poses in an outfit showing her Mexican heritageon the steps of City Hall. 3. A protester wearing a dress representing Lady Liberty holds her fist in the air on the steps of City Hall at a rally against the ongoing ICE raids taking place in the city on Friday, July 4, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA.

They marched through Olvera Street and outside the Federal Building, which houses the immigration court, waving signs. Several police officers were monitoring the protest but kept their distance during the gathering, which lasted a few hours.

“No more occupation! No more deportation!” the protesters chanted.

At the Federal Building, military personnel members lined up shoulder-to-shoulder guarding the property with shields and guns.

Jacob Moreno, a high school English teacher from Rialto, held a sign that called the day a “funeral for the freedom we pretend” still exists. He said the mood felt more solemn than the “No Kings” demonstration last month, which he attributed to the passage of Trump’s budget bill. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill adds roughly $150 billion to carry out mass deportations and fund border enforcement.

“This situation, this occupation is only going to get worse,” Moreno said. The 50-year-old said some of his students and their family members are undocumented. He and his daughter, a 16-year-old student, are helping set up a program to provide school supplies and hygiene items to students whose parents may be too afraid to go to work.

“I’m here to support my students, my community, and ultimately to stand on the right side of history,” he said.

Cristina Muñoz Brown, of North Hollywood, shared a similar sentiment.

“I’m desperate for my people, I’m desperate to show up,” she said. Since the raids began, she said, the Fashion District where she works in the costume industry is a “ghost town.”

An American flag passes by marines standing guard during a rally against the ongoing ICE raids taking place in the city at the Federal Building on Friday, July 4, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stand guard during a rally against the ongoing ICE raids taking place in the city at the Federal Building on Friday, July 4, 2025.

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) addressed the crowd outside City Hall, calling the budget bill the “Big Beautiful Scam.”

“Immigration spending in this country is now more than the military spending of 165 countries around the world. ICE has more money than the city of Los Angeles 10 times over,” he said as the crowd booed. “That’s not what we want our tax dollars going toward.”

The city is still reeling from weeks of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the Southland and the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to respond to the protests that followed.

There have been sweeps targeting day laborers at local car washes and Home Depot parking lots.

“There’s too many things to protest right now,” said Hunter Dunn of the 50501 Movement, which organized the July 4 rally. Many immigrants, he said, are “afraid to go to work, afraid to go to school.”

Federal agents, often shielding their identities with face masks and sometimes driving unmarked cars, have been carrying out aggressive raids since early June, triggering widespread protests.

Trump sent more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the L.A. area to protect federal buildings and workers during the unrest, which garnered pushback from state and local officials who complained that the military presence exacerbated the situation. Earlier this week, about 150 Guard members were released from the protest assignment.

The immigration enforcement actions in L.A. have heightened tensions between city and state leaders and the Trump administration. The public sparring has played out on social media and in court.

Angelenos march near Los Angeles City Hall on the Fourth of July in a demonstration against the ongoing ICE raids taking place in the city.

Mayor Karen Bass renewed her calls this week for Trump to end the ICE raids, saying in a post on X that his administration is “causing the fear and terror so many in L.A. are feeling.”

“They came for our neighbors in unmarked vans. Raided workplaces. Ripped apart families. Even U.S. citizens. This is not law enforcement — it’s political theater with human costs,” she wrote in another post.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is battling the Trump administration in court over the deployment of Guard troops without his consent. And this week, the Trump administration sued the city of L.A., Bass and City Council members, saying the city’s sanctuary law is illegal. The law generally prohibits city employees or city property to be used to investigate or detain anyone for the purpose of immigration enforcement.

On Wednesday, immigrants rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Public Counsel sued the Trump administration in federal court seeking to block what the suit describes as the administration’s “ongoing pattern and practice of flouting the Constitution and federal law” during immigration raids in the L.A. area.

July 3 (UPI) — Immigration raids and enforcement actions have prompted some Southern California communities to cancel their annual Independence Day fireworks displays, officials announced Thursday.

Organizations opposed to the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions have said they plan to carry out planned demonstrations on Friday in Los Angeles, regardless.

Last month, several protests turned violent, prompting President Donald Trump to dispatch National Guard troops and Marines to the city, where local police and Gov. Gavin Newsom said the soldiers were not needed to help them enforce the law.

The city announced that it would postpone its annual Fourth of July block party “in light of recent events affecting a portion of downtown Los Angeles and the ongoing circumstances impacting the region,” NBC News reported.

More than 1,600 people have been arrested during ICE enforcement operations since the National Guard and Marines arrived in the city to bolster local efforts to remove undocumented immigrants from businesses and locations that knowingly hire or harbor them.

The Los Angeles chapter of 50501, a group that organized a “No Kings” rally last month in opposition to Trump’s enforcement tactics, has said it plans an all day demonstration outside City Hall on Friday, pushing back on the administration’s immigration actions.

“This isn’t a celebration, ” the group said in a statement. “It’s a stand.”

Prompted by high profile immigration enforcement-related arrests, other, smaller communities that have large immigrant populations are also reconsidering Independence Day celebrations, including East Los Angeles, the Boyle Heights neighborhood, Lincoln Heights and El Sereno, all of which have historically been home to large immigrant populations.

More than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines remain stationed at federal office buildings in Los Angeles while other Guard soldiers have been redeployed to prepare for a busy wildfire season as hot, windy weather and low humidity have combined to create tinder dry vegetation and other dangerous conditions.

Legal action to remove more federal troops from Los Angeles remains pending in court.

Fear and uncertainty of surprise ICE enforcement actions have cast a shadow of fear and uncertainty over events that still remain planned in Southern California and other places with a high concentration of immigrant populations, including cities in the Midwest and on the East Coast.

As federal immigration raids continue to upend life in Los Angeles, Asian American leaders are rallying their communities to raise their voices in support of Latinos, who have been the primary targets of the enforcement sweeps, warning that neighborhoods frequented by Asian immigrants could be next.

Organizers say many Asian immigrants have already been affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants working in the country without documentation. Dozens of Southeast Asian immigrants in Los Angeles and Orange counties whose deportation orders had been on indefinite hold have been detained after showing up for routine check-ins at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices, according to immigration attorneys and advocacy groups.

In recent months, a number of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese immigrants whose deportation orders had been stayed — in some cases for decades — have been told that those orders will now be enforced.

The Asian immigrants being targeted are generally people who were convicted of a crime after arriving in the U.S., making them subject to deportation after their release from jail or prison. In most cases, ICE never followed through because the immigrants had lived in the U.S. long enough that their home countries no longer recognized them as citizens.

“Our community is much more silent, but we are being detained in really high numbers,” said Connie Chung Joe, chief executive of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California. “There’s such a stigma and fear that, unlike the Latinx community that wants to fight and speak out about the injustices, our community’s first reaction is to go down and get more and more hidden.”

On Thursday, more than a half-dozen leaders representing Thai, Japanese and South Asian communities held a news conference in Little Tokyo urging community members to stand together and denounce the federal action as an overreach.

President Trump came into office in January vowing to target violent criminals for deportation. But amid pressure to raise deportation numbers, administration officials in recent months have shifted their focus to farmworkers, landscapers, street vendors and other day laborers, many of whom have been working in the country for decades.

While an estimated 79% of undocumented residents in L.A. County are natives of Mexico and Central America, Asian immigrants make up the second-largest group, constituting 16% of people in the county without legal authorization, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Across the U.S., Indians make up the third-largest group of undocumented residents, behind Mexicans and Salvadorans.

According to the Pew Research Center, the L.A. metropolitan area is home to the largest populations of Cambodian, Korean, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese people in the U.S.

So far, the highest-profile raids in Southern California have centered on Latino neighborhoods, targeting car washes, restaurants, home improvement stores, churches and other locales where undocumented residents gather and work.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and Peter Gee of the Little Tokyo Service Center were among the speakers who denounced ICE raids during a news conference Thursday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

But Asian businesses have not been immune. A raid outside a Home Depot in Hollywood happened near Thai Town, where organizers have seen ICE agents patrolling the streets. In late May, Department of Homeland Security agents raided a Los Angeles-area nightclub, arresting 36 people they said were Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants in the country without authorization.

In Little Bangladesh, immigration agents recently detained 16 people outside a grocery store, said Manjusha P. Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, a coalition of more than 50 community-based organizations.

“They will come for us even more in the coming days and weeks,” Kulkarni said. “So we are only protected when we’re in solidarity with our fellow Angelenos.”

From June 1 to 10, at the start of the federal sweeps, ICE data show that 722 people were arrested in the Los Angeles region. The figures were obtained by the Deportation Data Project, a repository of enforcement data at UC Berkeley Law.

A Times analysis found that 69% of those arrested during that period had no criminal convictions. Nearly 48% were Mexican, 16% were from Guatemala and 8% from El Salvador.

Forty-seven of the 722 individuals detained — or about 6% — were from Asian countries.

“We know the fear is widespread and it is deep,” said Assemblymember Mike Fong, a Democrat whose district takes in Monterey Park and west San Gabriel Valley, areas with large Asian immigrant populations.

Los Angeles City Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Ysabel Jurado spoke of the repercussions the raids were having on immigrant communities. Raman is Indian American, and Jurado is Filipino American.

Jurado said undocumented Filipinos make up a sizable portion of the region’s caregivers, tending to elderly people and young children.

“Their work reflects the deepest values of our communities: compassion, service and interdependence,” Jurado said. “Their labor is essential, and their humanity must be honored.”

Jurado and Raman called on the federal government to end the raids.

“This is such an important moment to speak out and to ensure that the Latino community does not feel alone,” Raman said. “I also want to make it clear to every single person who is Asian American, these aren’t just raids on others. They’re raids on us.”

Staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.

This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.

Sports offer an escape, an oasis, a relief from the anxiety and troubles of day-to-day living. There’s the competition, of course. There’s also a reassuring certainty.

Clear-cut winners and losers. Scores meticulously kept. Rules and boundaries that are officiated and maintained as firmly and precisely as a chalked third base line.

In short, none of the compromise or messy ambiguities of daily life, which is part of the appeal and also part of the fantasy.

And it is fantasy to try to divorce sports from the times we live in and the events that unfold, sometimes frightfully, beyond the comfortable confines of the stadium and arena.

Take the Los Angeles Dodgers and the team’s fitful response to the immigration raids terrorizing large swaths of its fan base.

The team, one of Southern California’s most revered (and lucrative) institutions, caved last week amid a growing public outcry and committed $1 million to help families affected by the Trump administration’s heavy-handed immigration policies. Further initiatives, the organization promised, are on the way.

Escapism only goes so far.

“Sports are political through and through,” said Jules Boykoff, a former pro soccer player-turned-political scientist. “and to deny it is to deny reality.”

Amy Bass, a professor of sport studies at Manhattanville University and the author of numerous works on the subject, agreed.

“Sport is part of our cultural, political, social and economic landscape,” Bass said. “It is an industry that pays people. It is an industry that entertains people. It is an industry that expresses some of our greatest moments and our most tragic moments.

“There is nothing,” she said, “that you can’t talk about through the lens of sport.”

Or shout about and argue over, as the case may be.

The Dodgers’ gesture struck many as too little, too late; an unforced error, if you will.

“That’s the best way to describe how the Boys in Blue have acted,” my columnizing colleague Gustavo Arellano wrote, “as the city emblazoned on their hats and road jerseys battles Donald Trump’s toxic alphabet soup of federal agencies that have conducted immigration sweeps across Los Angeles over the past two weeks.”

The Dodgers were studiously vague in last week’s capitulation, er, announcement of $1 million in good will payments. No mention, much less condemnation, of the brutality that ICE has employed in some of its enforcement actions. No reference to the parents separated from their children. No acknowledgment of the innocents — including U.S. citizens — swept up in some of the Trump administration’s indiscriminate raids.

“What’s happening in Los Angeles has reverberated among thousands upon thousands of people,” said Stan Kasten, the team president, in a masterwork of opacity and euphemism. “We believe that by committing resources and taking action, we will continue to support and uplift the communities of Greater Los Angeles.”

But, really, is it any surprise the team would first duck, then seek cover in such platitudes?

Lest we forget, the Dodgers are first and foremost a business, just like every other professional sports franchise. Michael Jordan may or may not have uttered the quote famously attributed to him — “Republicans buy sneakers, too” — as a reason for pro athletes and their teams to steer clear of politics. But it speaks resoundingly to a bottom-line truism of the sporting world.

Put another way, yes, the Dodgers have a substantial and remunerative following in the Latino community, which is very much under siege. But Trump devotees also fill a lot of seats and buy a lot of Dodger Dogs.

If we’re being honest, how many of those who root for the Dodgers — or any sports franchise, for that matter — would be more than willing to yield the moral high ground if it means a winning season and championship? Righteousness, after all, isn’t reflected in the standings.

So what’s a cross-pressured, community-grounded, profit-seeking sports organization to do?

Events, spiraling downward by the day, may have left the Dodgers little choice.

“The more people are affected, maybe I shouldn’t say affected but traumatized, by what’s happening on the streets of L.A. and the neighborhoods of L.A. … this left the Dodgers with much less room in which to try to shimmy through without saying anything,” said Boykoff, who teaches political science at Oregon’s Pacific University. “The circumstances in a lot of ways forced their hand.”

So the organization weighed in — belatedly, tepidly — leaving very few people happy or satisfied.

Little surprise there.

If we’re looking for a bright side, perhaps it’s this: Maybe instead of pretending sports exist in a pristine, politics-free vacuum, we can acknowledge their centrality to our daily lives and find, if not commonality, at least a common ground for discussion and debate.

“We can talk about history, we can talk about economics, we can talk about social change,” Bass said. “We can talk about how sport actually move political needles.”

Not, of course, on the playing field. But in the stands, in sports bars, at tailgate parties, on talk radio, wherever fans of various cloth gather.

“The more we recognize it,” Bass said, “the more that we can see that sport can actually provide this landscape for having very difficult conversations through a place that brings a lot of different kinds of people into the same space.”

It may seem far-fetched at a time of such deep and abiding divisions. But what are sports about if not hope and aspiration?