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On Friday morning, shops in Los Angeles’ immigrant-heavy Westlake neighborhood were deserted. The location for computer repair was closed.
A check-cashing establishment has its gates down. There were no patients at one of the local health facilities, where locals frequently wait in line for medical attention.
Men without homes and drug addicts continued to agitate MacArthur Park, a block away. As the men gazed off into the distance, police arrested two and placed them in handcuffs.
In the Los Angeles area, car washes were closed, buses were only half full, and flower vendors that gather outside Forest Lawn were nowhere to be seen. Home Depot and garden store parking lots were suddenly conspicuously empty.
This is what occurs when the federal government uses its remote authority to enforce a solution that the people of Los Angeles don’t want, despite the preferences of the local population. The entrance of the National Guard and subsequently active-duty U.S. Marines intensified confrontations in a small section of downtown.
Additionally, the sizable, prosperous, and now terrified undocumented immigrant community in Los Angeles has faded into the background.
The most perplexing of the numerous myths about immigrants in Los Angeles is the one that is widely held by Trump administration officials: those immigrants who came to the city without documentation somehow live away from the rest of the city.
There are many misconceptions and intentional misrepresentations about the contribution of these immigrants to the local economy. Like all other facets of Californian life, undocumented immigrants are interwoven into the broader economy and do not operate outside of it.
Everyone is impacted when they are taken away or intimidated into remaining at home.
According to Saba Waheed, director of UCLA’s Labor Center, the effects on the economy are more extensive. Los Angeles residents are being uprooted and their daily lives are being disrupted by federal agents.
You’re removing some of our employees. That has a wider negative impact on LA.
The close integration of illegal immigrants into the larger economy, not just in Los Angeles, is partly to blame for that. Approximately 25% of all farm and construction workers in California are undocumented.
Up to 40% of Arizona’s illegal population may have gone when the state passed anti-immigrant legislation in the early 2000s. The economy was hurt. Additionally, low-skilled white men’s unemployment rose rather than fell.
To everyone but the narrow-minded or heartless, that makes perfect sense.On January 20, 2025, 53-year-old Saul Mu ez stands in front of a Home Depot in San Diego, waiting for any job openings. CalMatters photo by Adriana Heldiz
These are working men and women, whether they are here legally or not. When they get paid, they spend it on food, clothing, housing, toys for their kids, and other necessities. These expenditures support companies run and controlled by lawful citizens and contribute to the overall economy.
Alongside those illegal immigrants, businesses that rely on commerce from those in the nation also suffer.
Trump supporters, beginning with Stephen Miller, the president’s strident ambassador, prefer to use crocodile tears to defend illegal immigrants, whom they portray as a criminal menace and an exploited class of workers.
While it is undoubtedly true that some undocumented residents receive lesser earnings than citizens, many of them have been working nicely for years and are not victims. In fact, around 80 percent of people who are illegally in this nation have been employed here for more than ten years.
All of this, according to Miller and his fellow travelers, is a hefty expense and a drag on the economy. However, that is also untrue.
Undocumented workers pay taxes using taxpayer identification numbers, and many of them pay federal income taxes in addition to the economic activity they create. Others assist in paying property taxes and live together, frequently with family members who have legal status.
Since they are using fictitious Social Security numbers, many of these workers never receive the benefits that are deducted from their paychecks, which means they support the system for others.
Naturally, they also pay sales taxes, which are particularly important to municipal governments.
Undocumented workers in California pay $23 billion in federal, state, and local taxes annually. According to a recent research, their direct compensation alone accounts for 5% of the state’s GDP.
It harms more than just them to remove them from the workforce, whether it’s to send them abroad or to chase them inside to avoid detection. Los Angeles suffers as a result.
In actuality, the entire nation would suffer if deportation zealots were granted their greatest goal.
According to one estimate, if the government is successful in deporting everyone who is currently in the country illegally, the GDP would decline by 1.4% in the first year and then continue to decline.Over $5 trillion would be lost by the economy.
Those are research projects. Then there is the city and its life.
Like any other city, Los Angeles would be happy to see harmful people go. However, that person is not being seized. Compared to native-born Americans, illegal immigrants are more likely to follow the law once they are in the country.
Under Trump, many of the people apprehended in these disruptive raids had only minor traffic or other violations, and over 70% have no criminal history at all. Overall, 8% of people who have been apprehended by ICE in recent months have significant criminal records.
This indicates that over 90% of them did not exhibit any signs of being a threat. Removing them has no positive impact on the community’s safety and instead splits families, destroys companies, and hurts the overall economy.
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You don’t catch crooks by breaking into Home Depot parking lots and car washes. Washington might not care or understand that. Los Angeles, however, does.
Those responsible for the recent immigration raids made a grave mistake if they thought they were removing an undesirable, estranged group from the rest of Los Angeles. Instead, in the face of a challenge that is both cultural and economic, this region has shown cooperation and resolve.
Churches with sizable immigrant populations are recommending that their members stay at home instead of exposing themselves to ICE. Businesses and hotels are showing support for their employees by flying Mexican flags.
When masked agents, who themselves refuse to produce identity, demand it of others, frequently based only on skin color, activists and regular citizens refuse to participate.
Last weekend, Pasadena, which isn’t exactly a hub of radicalism, canceled its summer pool and park programs out of concern that ICE may use them to apprehend suspects.
These acts demonstrate a point: these immigrants are essential to the economy and feeling of identity of this area, regardless of how they got here or their legal status.
These are our coworkers, our friends, our neighbors, and our kids’ friends. Of course, it is not good for children to be taken away by force. It’s detrimental to the rest of us as well.
CalMatters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news company that holds our officials accountable while providing Californians with articles that examine, clarify, and consider solutions to problems affecting their quality of life.
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