Anne Marie Molina, Program Supervisor of Housing Counselling at East LA Community Corporation (ELACC), grew up keenly aware of the imprint oppressive immigration policy had on her family. “My mother was born in 1954. In 1954, Operation Wetback happened,” she said. “So I don’t feel like there’s ever been a time in my community where immigration or immigration raids haven’t been a factor,” she said.

Operation Wetback was a repatriation project spearheaded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to remove undocumented Mexican immigrants from the Southwest. The operation is often referred to as the biggest mass deportation of undocumented workers in United States history, with as many as 1.3 million people having been expelled from the U.S. 

More than half a century later, Donald Trump expressed his admiration of the operation at a Republican presidential debate. The remark was not out of the ordinary during his 2016 campaign, which relied heavily on promises to build a wall along the southern border and carry out the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. Unsurprisingly, when he entered office in 2017, the expansion of detention and deportation practices was a top priority.

His second administration’s approach has only become more intense. The expansion of his first-term initiatives has been met with a pervasive fear that has reshaped daily life for immigrant families nationwide. Molina works in Boyle Heights, where 93% of the population identifies as Latino. In East Los Angeles neighborhoods like these, deportation statistics translate to absences at Sunday church services, empty local supermarkets, and neighbors afraid to leave their homes. 

Molina says that the psychological toll of Trump’s current immigration policies feels different from past crises her community has endured. “What is different now,” she says, “having gone through the pandemic, having gone through the mortgage crisis, the recession… people have lost their hope, and people have lost their joy.” The constant cycle of social media and the news means “you can’t take a break from it… there’s never a moment where you’re not exposed to the hatred.”

The silence is all the more poignant for a culture that revolves around celebration and family gatherings. “In the community right now,” she says, “there is nothing. […] Our population is giving up. People are self-deporting, communities are breaking apart.” 

Trump’s policy agenda has sparked a fear that has upended the daily lives of Latino families, whether they are undocumented, mixed-status, or U.S. citizens. As immigration policy has become increasingly draconian, a little-discussed crisis has unfolded in Boyle Heights and elsewhere: intensified food insecurity for immigrant families who feel unsafe leaving their homes to get groceries or enrolling in public benefit programs to receive assistance. 

How Trump Shaped Immigration Policy

On Trump’s first day back in office, he set the stage for a presidency marked by aggressive immigration policy. He began by declaring a national emergency at the southern border of the United States, clearing the way for an unprecedented military presence to combat the “border emergency.” The declaration was accompanied by Executive Order 14167, titled “Clarifying The Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States.” The order allowed the Armed Forces to obtain “full operational control of the southern border,” effectively militarizing immigration enforcement. 

The same day, Trump signed Executive Order 14159, titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” The directive had a multitude of effects, including the removal of Biden-era enforcement priorities targeting those who commit violent crimes. Under Trump’s directive, “all inadmissible and removable aliens” would be targeted. In other words, the administration prioritized the removal of any and all undocumented immigrants, violent or otherwise. The order also expanded expedited removal, which allows the government to deport someone it simply believes to be undocumented without seeing an immigration judge. 

In the days and weeks after the orders were signed, more than 10,000 service members were deployed to the southern border. In his first 100 days in office alone, more than $376 million was spent to protect the border from “unlawful entry.”

On July 4, Trump signed into law H.R.1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which provides $170.7 billion in additional funding for immigration and border enforcement initiatives. Much of the money was earmarked for the construction or improvement of barriers at the U.S. border ($46 billion), the expansion of capacity of immigration detention centers ($45 billion), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation operations ($29 billion). As a result of H.R.1, ICE became the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in the U.S., solidifying aggressive immigration policy as a crucial component of the Trump agenda.

Latinos have outnumbered the white population in California for a decade, and as of 2024, they make up roughly 41% of the state’s population. That demographic, along with the state’s reliably Democratic lean in national elections, has made California an early and consistent target of the Trump administration. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the frequent, terrifying raids by ICE.

Physical Threat of ICE Disrupts Immigrants’ Access to Food

In the summer of 2025, the physical presence of ICE agents began transforming daily life in East Los Angeles. Families who once ate out at restaurants and filled the aisles of grocery stores began staying indoors, weighing every outing against the risk of being stopped or questioned by immigration enforcement. Vibrant, predominantly Latino communities were effectively shuttered, leaving many neighborhoods resembling ghost towns similar to early-pandemic lockdowns. 

Nina Rocca, a 39-year-old sociology student at Cal State LA, recalled watching the shift unfold in real time. “I remember going out and seeing no one on the streets,” she said. “I live in a predominantly Latino community, so it was very visible that people were shaken up.”

Friends urged their parents to stay home, and took on additional responsibilities to ensure their safety. Rocca recalled a friend who lives in Long Beach, but would come to Boyle Heights to grocery shop for her parents when ICE raids were particularly bad over the summer. She shared that even relatives with legal status worried they would be stopped or harassed. 

Stephanie Rodriguez, former co-executive director of Raíces con Voz, had similar observations. “It felt like COVID all over again, the streets [in Boyle Heights] were empty, the stores were empty,” she said. “When I went to buy food to donate, there was so many people on FaceTime with their parents buying groceries for them, which was kind of dystopian. It was really weird to see that. Basically, people were virtually shopping because they were in danger.”

Raíces con Voz emerged out of a desire to help these very families. As raids overtook the community, founder Miguel Montes realized that many immigrant families who needed food could not risk leaving their homes to get it. The organization began coordinating monthly deliveries, fundraising, and partnering with local businesses to get the supplies they needed.

For non-profits without the capacity to adapt to a delivery model, however, fear continues to determine whether people feel safe accessing their services. Xochitl Zendejas, Regional Director of the San Gabriel Region of Catholic Charities LA, said that when the raids started in June, she saw a “huge drop right away” in the number of people seeking assistance. “There was a lot of [ICE] activity off of Cesar Chavez [Ave.] so people were not coming,” she said. “A lot of them were very afraid to leave their home.”

Molina, who works predominantly with street vendors and the elderly, experienced the same reduction in requests. She said the number of individuals seeking assistance declined because “people are afraid to be out.” 

“Their fear is even leaving the house, that they’re gonna get picked up. No one’s going to come look for them,” Molina said. She recounted one woman, a U.S.-born citizen in her 80s, sharing that she wouldn’t survive three days without her medication if detained. Terrified of the possibility, she refused to leave her home. 

Her client’s age exposed her to a kaleidoscope of vulnerability. Beyond her inability to go days without her medication, if agents were to use force and push her to the ground, she feared she would break, said Molina. “She doesn’t have any family. She doesn’t have any children; nobody would come look for her if she were in detention,” she explained.

Her fears are not unfounded. Though the count is almost certainly incomplete, ProPublica found 170 cases of immigration agents unlawfully detaining U.S. citizens during ICE raids or protests. The number itself is shocking, but the stories of the arrests illustrate the magnitude of this obstruction of justice. 

George Retes, an Iraq War veteran, was pulled out of his car and pepper-sprayed on his way to work. Without checking his ID, he was held for three days and three nights at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, denied access to an attorney, and put in isolation. He missed his daughter’s third birthday. Rafie Shouhed, a 79-year-old business owner, was bodyslammed by ICE agents in Van Nuys, only a short drive from Boyle Heights, despite being a U.S. citizen. The incident broke his ribs and came after a recent heart surgery, yet he was denied medical attention in custody. Cary López Alvarado was nine months pregnant when three ICE agents grabbed her, put her in handcuffs, and arrested her, despite being born and raised in Los Angeles. 

Molina explained that it’s stories like these that have intimidated many of her clients, regardless of their citizenship status, to stay home, restricting their access to food. “Anybody who feels that they would be perceived to be of Hispanic ethnicity, if they even consider themselves not white passing, there’s the fear that they would be detained as well,” said Molina. “There’s no rule of law.” 

The Chilling Effect of Aggressive Immigration Policy

Undocumented immigrants in California can access only a small number of public benefit programs. CalFresh, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), provides food benefits to eligible low-income individuals to purchase groceries. Undocumented immigrants do not qualify for the program, but each household member’s eligibility is determined individually, thus allowing mixed-status households to access benefits. For example, if parents do not have a qualifying status but children do, parents may apply for food assistance on their behalf. 

Benyamin Chao, a policy manager at the California Immigrant Policy Center, explained that there are also programs available to any Californian, regardless of their immigration status. Among them are Women with Infants and Children (WIC) and free and reduced-price school meals. But they’re far less significant than SNAP. “CalFresh is the main way of delivering benefits directly to households so they can afford groceries, and that is the program where we’re seeing those significant exclusions,” said Chao. 

For those with qualifying status, federal SNAP data still shows that take-up rates among immigrant households are lower than those of U.S.-born households. Much of the foreign-born under-enrollment in public benefit programs can be attributed to two sources: the public charge rule and an increase in data sharing with ICE. 

Public charge is a test used by immigration officials to determine whether a visa or green-card applicant might become dependent on government aid for support. The rule has existed since 1882, but reentered the national vernacular during the first Trump presidency. In 2019, the administration dramatically expanded the rule to consider noncash benefits, including SNAP, Medicaid, and public housing, in determining whether an applicant may become a public charge. “It’s a regulation that the Trump administration tried to weaponize during the first Trump presidency, basically to discourage people from accessing public benefits,” said Chao.

Jackie Mendelson, a policy advocate at Nourish California, explained that during the first Trump administration, the public charge rule sent a “really loud and clear message that immigrants are taking our resources, and they need to prove that they will not drain our system.” 

Zendejas witnessed the impact the 2019 expansion had on immigrant families firsthand. “The community was very much afraid of the public charge,” she said. “We were running programs of CalFresh enrollment, and the community just did not want to participate in any of those programs because they were really afraid [of] affecting their immigration process.”

The expansion faced various legal challenges and was overturned by the Biden administration, which implemented a new public charge test that increased protections for immigrant households in 2022. As the Biden rule remains in place, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services do not consider receiving health, food, and housing benefits as a public charge. Within that, CalFresh and the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) are not considered public charge programs, and the use of benefits and services by family members is not considered in the public charge test. 

But the fear did not disappear. Only 22% of immigrant families were aware that Trump’s public charge rule had been overturned. 

Since Trump was reelected, misinformation about public charge has only worsened. “As soon as Trump entered office, people who were concerned about public charge, with valid reasoning, imagined maybe he’s going to do this [again],” said Chao. “So even before public charge has been changed, people are preemptively complying with his agenda.”

The mistrust runs deep, even when people are shown official information. Molina explained that she often brings flyers from the LA County Office of Immigrant Affairs to prove which programs are exempt from public charge, yet her clients still refuse to enroll.

To survive without public programs, Molina said that many of her elderly clients eat “cabbage soup, where they do the broth for three days, and then they eat the cabbage for three days.” Seniors in her community have long struggled with choosing between expensive medication and essential bills. Now that familiar hardship is compounded by fear, shutting them off from resources they are fully eligible to use.

Trump’s convoluted messaging surrounding public charge has ultimately succeeded in creating fear of public benefit programs within immigrant communities. “Even when we’re successful in making public charge less impactful, or less weaponized against our immigrants, that message doesn’t come across, said Chao. “The message they hear is, ‘If I use benefits and I’m an immigrant, that’s going to be held against me.’ That kind of just stays with them throughout the entire process.”

In addition to public charge, Trump’s renewed push to collect personal data from people who rely on government services, including SNAP, Medicaid, and the IRS, has intensified this chilling effect.

Chao explained that to apply for SNAP, you have to share personal, identifying information, including your address. “Based on what we’ve seen with this Trump administration, people are concerned about volunteering to share their data with a government agency,” he said. “Reading that in the news is probably concerning for folks. Even if you are a green card holder who may have been eligible, but you’re on the fence, that might be that one piece of information that discourages you.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom has tried to counteract this chilling effect by signing Assembly Bill 593, which forbids state and local departments from sharing sensitive personal data gathered from CalFresh participants with federal authorities. Still, advocates worry about its effect on immigrant family enrollment.

“What they’re really hearing and seeing is the anti-immigrant rhetoric,” said Chao. “They’re hearing people in power saying that they don’t deserve this or that the government’s coming after you. So it’s really been upon us as folks working with immigrant communities to kind of provide the most clear forms of information, telling people what the potential risks are, what measures the state is doing to protect their data.” 

A Moment of Resilience & Resistance

In the face of aggressive and invasive policies, small acts of resistance continue to surface, often in the homes of the very people under threat. 

Molina shared that many immigrant families living in affordable housing units have begun gathering behind closed doors, in apartments or community rooms, for games of Lotería, a traditional Mexican game of chance similar to Bingo. A caller draws from a deck of 54 illustrated cards, and players mark the matching images on their tablas with pinto beans until someone calls out “Lotería!” 

These pockets of joy in the face of persecution help families reconnect with their culture and with each other. And it’s not the only example. ELACC’s tenant services department typically hosts Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas potlucks in times when ICE raids are not a concern. Now, they’ve shifted to host more frequent gatherings focused on improving mental health, reducing anxiety, and empowering women. Where turnout was once sparse, Molina says community members have started showing up for events and for each other. The potlucks lighten the burden of food insecurity, while also offering people an opportunity to experience joy together amid fear and uncertainty.

The community has also poured its energy into the Lorena Terrace Community Garden, created with support from ELACC and other local organizations. The garden provides access to nutritious, fresh food and serves as an outlet for meaningful social interaction. It was inspired by the Latinx value of “convivir,” a word that means “to live together,” but reflects the Latinx value of shared experiences and collective care. 

“Most of the people who are volunteering [at Lorena Terrace Community Garden] are undocumented,” said Molina. “I’m always amazed at how undocumented groups will still, in the face of their own challenges, be the first to volunteer.”

Sometimes, resistance can be as small and as simple as a cup of coffee. “In our apartment buildings, people normally would have gone out to get a coffee. Now they’re having coffee in one unit,” said Molina. In Mexican culture, coffee is more than a way to start the day—it has long served as an opportunity to connect with family and neighbors. In a time of fear and isolation, the act is tender and defiant all at once. 

These gatherings, large and small, are working to uplift the very spirit that the administration is seeking to break. “Specifically in the immigrant rights movement, when there are these times of high attack and fear building, it is a time when immigrant rights leaders, and communities really come together to push back and create moments of joy and activation,” said Mendelson. “So there is a lot of harm, and there’s also a lot of resilience and resistance in this moment.”