California residents fearful amid immigration raids

Jackie Ramirez has always been aware of the colour of her skin. There was the school crossing guard who nicknamed her “morenita,” little brown girl. The uncle who affectionately called her “paisita,” a country girl. But never has skin colour felt so top of mind than this month, as immigration agents have descended on Southern California, conducting hundreds of arrests. Videos and stories have circulated of people arrested at car washes. Agents picking up street vendors without warrants. A Latino US citizen was asked what hospital he was born in. The heightened fear that kicks in for those “driving while Black” is widely known. But the recent immigration sweeps have underscored how much of an issue skin colour — and all the circumstances that attach to it — is for Latinos as well.

Ramirez was born and raised in East Los Angeles. Her mother was born in Mexico; her father is of Mexican descent. “You’re scared to be brown,” said Ramirez, a Los Angeles radio host for “The Cruz Show” on Real 92.3. “You’re scared to look a certain way right now.” The Department of Homeland Security has denied that agents are racially profiling. Agency spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has called claims of people being targeted because of skin colour “disgusting and categorically FALSE.” But that hasn’t quelled concerns that darker-skinned people will be more likely to be stopped by immigration enforcement agents.

Latino parents are warning their US citizen children to be careful when they leave the house. Some have taken to carrying their passports in their pockets. Workers at a coffee shop in Santa Ana tell customers, “Se cuiden” — take care of yourselves — and ask loved ones to text when they get home. Even light-skinned Latinos have expressed concerns. Franchesca Olivas, 24, recently drove two hours from Hemet, in Riverside County, for a protest in downtown LA. She said she drives her dad around “because he’s full Mexican, and I’m half-white,” and he’s fearful of getting stopped. “I’m a white-passing, third-generation Latina and I’m scared,” Taylor Tieman, a lawyer from Los Angeles’ South Bay area posted on Instagram Threads. “To my brothers and sisters — I’m so sorry. This country is failing you.” In another post that has since garnered more than 8,000 likes, Nico Blitz, Ramirez’s fiance, who is Filipino American, stressed the impact of the raids across racial and ethnic lines.

“Filipinos — your legal status doesn’t mean you’re not brown, especially in the eyes of ICE,” Blitz, a DJ host on “The Cruz Show,” posted. “This fight isn’t exclusive to Latinos and Black people.” Studies show that skin colour has long affected the lives of Latinos — and others — in the US. Among the disadvantages linked to having darker skin are less income, lower socioeconomic status and more health problems. A majority of US Latinos — 62% — surveyed by Pew Research Center in 2021 said they felt having a darker skin colour hurt their ability to get ahead. And 57% said skin colour shapes their daily life experiences a lot or some, with about half saying discrimination based on race or skin colour is a “very big problem” in the US. But amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, skin colour has added another layer of fear. In January, Native Americans alleged that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were harassing tribal members. A letter sent by nine congressional Democrats to Trump stated they had heard “several concerning reports” regarding the detention and harassment.

“Native American Tribal members are United States citizens. Stopping people because of what they look like — with dark skin, Asian, Latino or Native American characteristics is never acceptable,” the letter stated. “ICE’s dangerous behavior of harassing American citizens, seemingly only due to the way they look, is unconstitutional and un-American.” This year, ICE agents mistakenly detained a deputy US marshal in Tucson, Arizona, because he “fit the general description of a subject being sought by ICE,” according to a statement from a US Marshals Service spokesperson. The agency did not identify the deputy US marshal or what description he fit. The deputy US marshal’s identity was confirmed by other law enforcement officers “and he exited the building without incident,” the statement read.

As immigration agents increased the pace of arrests across Southern California in early June, LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis released a statement informing constituents that people were being targeted “based on their skin colour and the type of work they do.” Solis, whose mother immigrated from Nicaragua and her father from Mexico, said she’s “never felt so under siege.”

“It is an attack, not just on our immigrant community, but (on) people of colour,” Solis said in an interview. “I know there are many people, including folks I’m associated with, friends, colleagues, who have families who are mixed status, and people are petrified to even show up to work, to send their kids to school. And this is harming our economy.” Solis noted that during the height of the COVID pandemic, Asians were being targeted based on how they looked. “Now it’s Latinos,” she said.

On a recent weekday, Martin Chairez, a minister at a church in Santa Ana, was walking with his sons when he stopped to take photos of the National Guard troops posted outside the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Orange County. He had taken his sons there to pray for the community. Chairez was born in the Mexican state of Nayarit and came to the US when he was 9. He was a so-called Dreamer, one of millions of immigrants brought to this country before they turned 16. And he benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed such young people, who were undocumented, to work, travel and get higher education legally. Chairez has been married for 20 years, but he said his wife couldn’t petition for him to obtain legal status until their 11th wedding anniversary. He’s now a lawful permanent resident. While working as a director at a border programme in Tijuana, Chairez said, he saw asylum-seekers and refugees coming from Haiti, Ukraine, South America and Central America. “It’s quite revealing that no one from Ukraine, no one from Russia is being detained and deported — and they shouldn’t be. They also came here fleeing war and seeking opportunity,” Chairez said, his hands on his hips.

“I think it’s revealing that people from Central and South America are being targeted but people from Europe are not,” he said. “And again, they shouldn’t be, but neither should the people from South and Central America.” Chairez’s wife is Black and his 14- and 12-year-old sons are biracial. When they get older and learn how to drive, he said, he’ll have to have those conversations with them “of what it means to drive while being a Black man.”

“Now that has extended, not just to those situations, but it’s applying to almost every aspect of our lives,” he said. “When we go to the grocery store, when we go shopping, when we’re out here taking a walk, are we going to be targeted? It seems like we’re now in a permanent posture of vulnerability, and that shouldn’t be. That’s not just.”