LOS ANGELES – The Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) hosted a panel discussion focused on the raids and the lessons learned from the collective response to those actions.

Thursday’s event marked six months of immigration raids in Greater Los Angeles, a region where immigrants comprise more than a third of the population.

CILP’s Faculty Co-Director and Distinguished Professor of Law Hiroshi Motomura moderated a conversation about the impact of roving raids, the community response and the media’s role in documenting the ongoing enforcement as well as evolving resistance to the raids, locally and nationally.

“Each of our guests brought an essential and unique perspective—from courtrooms, in the media, and on the ground—to the raids and the responses to them. Together, these three voices joined to portray and analyze the complexities of these troubling developments and their lessons, not just for Los Angeles, but also for many communities around the country,” said Hiroshi Motomura, Faculty Co-Director of CILP.

The panel included ACLU of Southern California’s Immigrants’ Rights Project Deputy Director, Mayra Joachín. She co-leads Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, a class action federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s unconstitutional stops and arrests. In June, a federal court issued a temporary restraining order barring immigration agents from conducting roving patrols that lead to arrests based on an individual’s race, spoken language, or place of employment alone. The federal government then sought an emergency stay of the ruling, and in September the U.S. Supreme Court granted the government’s request, pausing a lower court’s injunction while the case moves forward in a district court.

The panel also featured MSNBC’s Senior Political and National Correspondent, Jacob Soboroff, who reports extensively on immigration for a national audience. His work includes a story from Guatemala on a mother and daughter arrested and deported after a routine check-in in Los Angeles. He recently provided coverage of immigration raids in Chicago, including an operation at the South Shore neighborhood, where federal enforcement rappelled from helicopters and used flashbang grenades on residents.

The event also featured the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center’s Economic Justice Manager, Carlos Amador. Mr. Amador leads the economic justice component of the worker center, a space that seeks to end exploitative practices in the carwash industry. These workers have been among the most vulnerable workers during the ongoing raids. More than 80 carwash businesses have been targeted by immigration enforcement since June, according to reports. Videos documenting these raids have captured masked agents using excessive force to detain workers and business owners.

The event opened with remarks from Talia Inlender, Deputy Director of CILP. “Los Angeles has been ground zero for the federal government’s so-called ‘mass deportation’ agenda. This interdisciplinary panel highlighted the ways that Angelenos have fought back through litigation, organizing, and storytelling. As raids continue across the country, we hope the lessons learned in Los Angeles will serve those in other cities seeking to defend their immigrant communities against this wave of federal repression.”

A video of the livestream is available HERE.

About UCLA CILP:

Founded in 2020, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law expands the law school's role as a national leader in immigration law and policy, generating innovative ideas at the intersection of immigration scholarship and practice and serving as a hub for transforming those ideas into meaningful changes in immigration policy. 

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