Asian American leaders urge communities to stand on Latino, condemning ice attacks
As federal immigration raids continue to prolong their lives in Los Angeles, Asian American leaders are gathering communities to raise voices to support Latinos, who have been the primary target of law enforcement scans, warning that the communities frequented by Asian immigrants may be the next.
Organizers say many Asian immigrants have been affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants without documents. According to immigration lawyers and advocacy groups, dozens of Southeast Asian immigrants in Los Angeles and Orange counties have detained deportation orders indefinitely.
Deportation orders for many Cambodian, Laos and Vietnamese immigrants have been retained for decades in recent months and they have been told they will now be enforced.
Targeted Asian immigrants are usually people convicted upon arrival in the United States, causing them to be deported after being released from prison or jail. In most cases, ice never follows because immigrants lived in the United States for long enough that their home country no longer recognizes it as a citizen.
“Our community is more silent, but the number of detentions we are in is very high,” said Connie Chung Joe, CEO of Asian Americans promoted to Southern California judge. “There is a stigma and fear that unlike the Latino community who wants to fight and speak out for injustice, our community’s first reaction is to fall and become increasingly hidden.”
On Thursday, more than six leaders representing communities in Thailand, Japan and South Asia held a press conference in Little Tokyo, urging community members to stand together and denounce federal action as an over-litigation.
President Trump took office in January and declared the targeted violent criminals deported. But under pressure to increase the number of deportations, administrative officials in recent months have shifted their focus to farm workers, garden gardens, street vendors and other day workers, many of whom have worked in the country for decades.
Although an estimated 79% of undocumented residents in Los Angeles County are natives in Mexico and Central America, Asian immigrants form the second largest group, accounting for 16% of the county without legal authorization, According to the Institute of Immigration Policy. In the United States, Indians constitute the third largest undocumented resident after Mexicans and El Salvadors.
According to the Pew Research Center, the Los Angeles metropolitan area is the largest population of Cambodia, South Korea, Indonesia, Filipinos, Thais, Thais and Vietnamese.
The highest offensive raids in Southern California have so far focused on the Latino community, with the goal of car washes, restaurants, home improvement shops, churches and elsewhere, where undocumented residents gather and work.
Los Angeles City Councilman Ysabel Jurado and Peter Gee of the Little Tokyo Service Center were spokesmen who condemned Ice Raids during a press conference Thursday.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
But Asian companies are not immune yet. A raid outside the home warehouse in Hollywood near the Thai town, where organizers saw ice agents patrolling the streets. In late May, DHS agents raided a Los Angeles-area nightclub and arrested 36 people they said were unauthorized immigrants from China and Taiwan.
In Bangladesh, Bangladesh, Immigration agents recently detained 16 people, said Manjusha P. Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance.
“They will provide us with more in the coming days and weeks,” Kulkani said. “So we are only protected only when we are united with our fellow countryman Angelenos.”
From June 1 to 10, at the beginning of the federal scan, ICE data showed 722 people were arrested in the Los Angeles area. The figures were obtained through UC Berkeley Law’s Law Enforcement Data Repository Deportation Data Project.
One analysis found that 69% of those arrested during this period had no criminal convictions. Nearly 48% of Mexicans, 16% are from Guatemala, El Salvador 8%.
47 of the 722 people detained (about 6%) are from Asian countries.
“We know fear is universal, and deep.” Democratic MP Mike Fong said his area occupied Monterey Park and the West San Gabriel Valley, which has a large population of immigrants in Asia.
Los Angeles City Councilmen Nithya Raman and Ysabel Jurado talked about the impact of the raid on immigrant communities. Raman is an Indian, and Jurado is Filipino-American.
Jurado said undocumented Filipinos form a considerable part of the caregivers in the region, tending toward older and young children.
“Their work reflects the deepest value of our community: compassion, service and interdependence,” Yulado said. “Their labor is essential and they must respect their humanity.”
Jurado and Raman called on the federal government to end the raid.
“It's such a big time to make sure Latinos aren't alone,” Raman said. “I also want to make it clear to every Asian American that these are not just raids on others. They are raids on us.”
Staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to the report.
This article is part of the Times Equity Reporting Plan,,,,, Depend on James Irving FoundationExplore the challenges faced by low-income workers and their efforts to solve them California's economic divide.
