Los Angeles – Immigration officials have been spotted on several occasions to a shelter for homeless Hollywood since May, leading staff to accompany residents of countries torn apart by the war at work, races and courts.
A framework of the refuge which serves people aged 18 to 24 said that she had seen two Venezuelan men handcuffed and arrested by ice agents after their return to the work refuge.
“There was no conversation,” said the employee, Lailanie, who asked that her last name was not used because she feared the reprisals of immigration and the application of customs.
She said that around half a dozen immigration agents approached residents “and put her hands behind their back immediately.”
The homeless shelters seem to be another target in the Trump administration Immigration repressionThis led to nearly 3,000 arrests in the Los Angeles region. They join now Home deposits7-Elevens and cannabis farms Like locations where the federal government makes its mass deportation effort.
In addition to the Hollywood refuge, service providers reported having seen the application of immigration in shelters in shelters North of Hollywood And San DiegoAccording to local media.
Immigration officials did not respond to an e-mail asking if sheltered shelters are targeted in the context of application efforts.
With more than 72,300 people without housing, the County of Los Angeles is the epicenter of the nation Homeless crisis. How many of them are immigrants are unknown because the annual statement mandated by the federal government do not include questions of citizenship.
The meeting with the Hollywood refuge took place a few weeks before President Donald Trump orders the National guard And the American navies in the region in response to large -scale demonstrations against its expulsion efforts.
The service providers in Los Angeles said that the effort to apply the prohibited law had made their work more difficult because their customers are consumed by fears of expulsion.
Donald Whitehead Jr., Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said that the aggressive operation “puts a target” on the back of homeless immigrants.
“It badly said,” he said.
In another refuge, people concern downtown Los Angeles, fewer customers stop to use showers and other public facilities because they are afraid that ice agents will arise, said CEO John Maceri.
He said that even American citizens in his permanent housing in the San Fernando valley hesitate to go out because they are afraid of being arrested and questioned by ice.
“Frankly, anyone who has dark skin, black and brown, but especially brown people with dark skin, do not want to go out,” said Maceri. “They don’t want to go to the grocery store. Some of them are lacking in work. They are really afraid. This factor of fear really takes effect.”
The highest concentrations of ice arrests in Los Angeles occurred in the Latin predominance districts of the San Fernando Valley, according to the non -profit coalition for human immigrants, or Chirla.
American senator Alex Padilla, who is from the San Fernando valley and was himself handcuffed by federal agents last month at a press conference by the Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, said the figures reflected a strategy of the Trump administration to target vulnerable communities, not only the violent criminals he had promised to arrest during his campaign.
“This is an administration that has proudly changed policy to pursue these measures to apply the workplaces, in schools, including elementary schools and worship homes,” he said. “If they only focused on dangerous and violent criminals, you will not find them in schools and churches and homeless camps.”
A card published Tuesday by Chirla showed that 471 of the 2,800 arrests carried out by the Ministry of Internal Security from July 6 to 20 occurred in Latin predominance districts in the San Fernando valley. He did not specify how many fingerprints which were homeless.
Chirla president Angelica Salas said the data has highlighted “Racial profile” by federal officials, who have denied having targeted people according to their skin color.
“What makes someone an ice target is if it is illegally in the United States – not on skin color, race or ethnic origin,” DHS said in a recent statement.
Trump signed a decree that encourages cities to withdraw the homeless from their streets on Thursday. Whitehead said the order could trigger more homeless arrests and further increase their fears.
At the shelter for homeless where the two Venezuelan men were arrested, the residents remain on alert, said Lailanie. Immigrants are now accompanied by work, races and judicial appointments by non -marked car staff without the organization’s logo.
Refuge officials asked that his name be used for fear of reprisals by the Trump administration.
The Venezuelans, aged 20 and 22, barely speak English and have been living in the refuge for a few weeks before being arrested, she said.
They had not been there long enough to be twinned with immigration lawyers, she said. The 22-year-old man was expelled and the employees could not locate the younger man, she said.
Since the arrests, staff have attended at least three immigration actors in the establishment, two shelters said.
On an occasion, a uniform officer asked to use a bathroom inside the center. A maintenance worker allowed him to come in because he did not know what else to do, said the two employees.
Staff members have also seen unmarked black SUV parked near the center and the parking lot.
More recently, an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo who lived in the refuge was arrested after reporting the immigration court, according to two people working in the refuge.
The employees said that before his arrest, he had trouble applying for jobs because he wore an ankle instructor, which was given to him when he presented himself to immigration officials.
Confused, he went to the immigration court and asked officials to withdraw the instructor, said the two employees, but he was arrested in place. He was taken to the High Detention Center in Adelanto, California, while his lawyer pleaded his case of asylum, which is still pending, according to Lailanie.
He fears to be returned to Central Africa, where his father was killed, she said.
“People are afraid and people hurt, but people are also forced to continue doing the job and doing the right thing and trying to fight for the right thing,” she said.