I've watched hundreds of ICE raid videos. What the immigration algorithm tells us about L.A.

A screenshot from a video by a witness of an L.A. Home Depot raid.

Deputy Managing Editor

July 5, 2025 6:30 AM PT

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Nearly a month into the ICE sweeps that have upended immigrant life in Southern California, I found myself rummaging through some boxes in my garage, searching for understanding. I pulled out dusty copies of T.C. Boyle’s “Tortilla Curtain” and Luis J. Rodriguez’s “Always Running,” two classics I read years ago that left me with a lasting impression of the L.A. immigrant experience.

I placed them on my nightstand. But every time I reached for one of the books, I grabbed my phone instead and cycled through the latest videos of immigration raids — on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

At this moment, words just can’t compete with what I see in the images that course relentlessly through my feeds.

I am not talking about burning Waymos or TV chopper footage of violent clashes played over and over during the first few days of the siege. I am obsessed with the average Joes who see those white-and-green Border Patrol trucks and turn on their cameras. These videos are choppy, the action often out of frame, frequently taken by bystanders in cars or in the middle of shopping. But what they lack in professional flair they make up for in raw emotion.

Screenshot from a video of officers running a witness

An up-close view of immigration raids

Consider some scene from just the last few days:

“Bitches,” one woman whispers as she records agents making arrests at a La Puente Home Depot.
“What’s wrong with you?!” a woman screams while filming the ICE arrest of a street vendor selling tacos in Ladera Heights.
“You don’t have to talk! You don’t have to talk! Tell me your name and I will get you help,” someone tells an elderly man as he is escorted in handcuffs into an unmarked SUV.
“You can’t treat him like this,” a woman screams as agents surround and tackle a man in Cypress Park.
A symphony of horns rings out as a warning when Border Patrol trucks roll into a Pico Rivera parking lot.
A construction worker several stories above Figueroa Street calmly explains how many Mexican and Guatemalan members of his crew fled the job site when Border Patrol trucks drove by.
A Border Patrol truck, siren blaring, gives chase through a foggy strawberry farm in the city of Oxnard.

This looks familiar, but ...

These images hold such power because they are both familiar and foreign. I know that corner in Koreatown. I’ve bought groceries at that Walmart. I used to drive by that shopping center in Santa Ana every morning.

The locations are recognizable, even comforting, yet the vibes are anything but. A row of camouflage Humvees on the 105 Freeway. Abandoned work sites, food trucks, fruit vending carts, and even lawn mowers left running after the gardeners were arrested.

The images are so incongruous they bring to mind those early pandemic views of L.A.’s empty freeways. Or the CGI-generated destruction of the downtown skyline in the final act of a disaster movie. Or the disoriented expressions on the faces of people after the shaking of an earthquake finally subsides.

I know this place, but what has happened to it?

Videos show a new community forming

“Tortilla Curtain” was published in 1995 during one of California’s anti-immigrant waves. The year before, voters had approved Proposition 187, which barred undocumented immigrants in California from receiving many public services.

Boyle’s novel captured those times and won acclaim for its uncomfortably biting satire of white fear and brown exploitation in one of those “perfect” L.A. suburbs that those with means regard as an escape hatch. The undocumented workers in his book are treated with unrelenting, almost comic cruelty. They have no allies.

And that is where 2025 is different from 1995, at least according to my algorithm.

It’s remarkable how often strangers come to the defense of those swept up, even risking arrest by getting into it with agents. Consider:

I was scrolling my phone Monday night when I stopped on one reel. I know that intersection! That’s 7th Street right around Cal State Long Beach. A traffic nightmare. In the median, one man is selling fruit and another is selling flowers. The person holding the camera screams from across the street “La Migra!” and urges them to leave. After a bit of confusion, they take his advice and pack their things.

Another video starts with the sounds of a woman wailing behind a truck in West L.A. “My father was on his way to work. They must have pulled him out by force,” she is heard crying in Spanish. “Oh, Father, he’s an elderly man … He couldn’t do anything to them.” The camera finally reveals her on the ground. But she is not alone. Four seeming strangers are at her side, comforting her.

Here’s more from our coverage of the ICE raids and arrests:

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Have a great day, from the Essential California team

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I’ve watched hundreds of ICE raid videos. What the immigration algorithm tells us about L.A.