CHINGA LA MIGRA

On the ground at a massive ICE raid in LA's MacArthur Park

I’m doing yoga on a sun-kissed Monday morning in Los Angeles when the radio blares that another ICE raid is going down. The target of this latest political theater is MacArthur Park—a 145-year-old public park in Westlake, a neighborhood home to a large Central American community that’s a stone’s throw from downtown. Abandoning my pigeon pose and hopping on X, I scroll through videos of federal officers charging through the park on horseback like unhinged calvary, flanked by gun-toting armed troops and military humvees—an increasingly familiar sight in a city besieged by Trump’s goons.

I start texting friends who live near the park, asking for eyewitness reports. “Choppers still hovering… It sounds like war from here,” reports a friend who runs an art gallery a few blocks from the park. Another homie texts: “A few min ago I saw a lady who looked Central American with her young daughter sprinting.” “Ooh sis, I’d be v careful,” warns a friend who has been organizing against ICE raids in his neighborhood. He tells me that ICE has been targeting Asians, and the local news confirms that even legal Asian immigrants are staying home. For a few minutes, I deliberate if it’s safe for me to venture outside—I am neither a US citizen or green card holder, and am working in this country on the Melania visa. It might sound insane to get deported for covering a protest on Substack, this has literally happened to foreign reporters unluckier than me.

A picture perfect view of MacArthur Park in the 1900s (Photo via Wikipedia)

Even if I did stay home, it’s impossible to avoid the emotional toll that compounding crises—first the fires, now ICE—are having on LA. For the last few weeks, the streets and public plazas have been ghostly quiet, all kinds of immigrant people taking cover from the masked men snatching up bodies in broad daylight. There’s a real boogeyman quality to these attacks; my reporter friend tells me horror tales of taco trucks getting raided, meat still sizzling on the grill but no one left to flip it. Over the weekend, at a rave called “Fuck the Fourth,” everyone knew that America was cancelled, and barely anyone was dancing. “I’ve been stuck in a psychic swamp,” said a friend who didn’t make it out. Even the smoky haze that drifted over the city from the fireworks felt lethargic.