Leticia Jimenez expects to graduate from Cal State San Bernardino this spring with a degree in business administration.
She came to the country without authorization when she was 2 years old and grew up working the fields of the Coachella Valley with her parents when school was out.
She would be excited about the new opportunities her degree might present, but instead feels anxious every time she leaves the house. “I make sure that I say a good ‘goodbye’ to my parents,” she said. “I go out with more fear— anything can happen.”
Jimenez, 21, is like millions of undocumented immigrants living in California whose lives have become deeply woven into the state’s economy and social fabric — and who are rattled by the flurry of executive orders that President Trump has signed targeting immigrants.
When Jimenez does leave home, she said she always carries a red card detailing her rights under the U.S. Constitution — one in her wallet, one in her car and another in the back of her phone case.
“There’s a big chilling factor that’s going to emerge from this,” said Manuel Pastor, director of the Equity Research Institute at USC, who studies immigrants in the state. About 1 and 8 Californians are in the U.S. illegally or live with a family member who is. Most immigrants without legal status in the state, about 2.4 million people, have resided here for more than a decade, a factor that distinguishes California from other parts of the country.
A dramatic change in enforcement wouldn’t just affect undocumented people, Pastor said, but their family members who are “citizens or documented immigrant relatives.”
Those in California’s most immigrant-reliant industries — manufacturing, agriculture, hospitality, construction — are limiting their trips or staying home.
“People are scared to go to the grocery store,” said a farm labor contractor in Ventura County who works with many undocumented workers and did not want his name used out of fear of reprisal. “There are migrants who are scared to even go to the hospital to give birth at this point.”
Mario Cervantes, a gardener from Mexico who has lived in Los Angeles for the last two decades, said he supported Trump’s plan to deport criminals who are here illegally.
But now Cervantes, 50, is worried that anyone without authorization will be rounded up. He entered the country illegally two decades ago, and said he has been working hard and following the law ever since. He said he assumed Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric wasn’t directed at people like him— until he learned of the president’s new executive order targeting birthright citizenship.
As he travels around Southern California cutting lawns and blowing leaves, he said he intends to be “a little more alert,” especially in certain neighborhoods.
“If I get deported, there’s not much I can do about it at that point,” he said Tuesday, as he and a friend chatted on a corner in Wilmington. Still, he added: “I do hope he only goes after people who come here to cause problems.”
Trump signed a series of sweeping executive orders — some which are likely to face legal challenges — that could radically shift immigration enforcement in the country. The orders aim to end the refugee system, make it more difficult for some to become naturalized citizens, declare a national emergency at the border and enable local police to carry out some immigration officer functions, a role California has banned.
Many of California’s elected officials vowed to do what they can to protect immigrants. Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Tuesday morning that, along with officials in 17 other states, his office had filed suit over the attempt to do away with birthright citizenship.
Masih Fouladi, the executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, said advocates were braced for radical changes.
But many likely to be affected still felt the orders like an emotional punch. Fouladi said he had heard that more than 1,000 Afghans who had supported the American effort in that country and who had been cleared to come to the United States — many to Sacramento — had suddenly had their travel plans thrown into chaos.
People are “freaked out to say the least,” said Jenny Seon, legal services director for Ahri Center, a nonprofit community organization in Buena Park that works with Korean immigrants and others. “Very scary times.”
There are about 560,000 Korean immigrants in California, about 55,000 of whom are undocumented. Her organization has been working with people without legal status to prepare for potential deportation including by helping them set up guardianships for their U.S.-born children.
“The community is hearing the message and preparing for the worst,” she said. “The immigrant community as a whole is really suffering.”
In Koreatown on Tuesday night, immigrants and their supporters packed the Immanuel Presbyterian Church for a vigil and legal workshop, one of many informational sessions being held across the state. Organizers provided cards that advised not talking or signing anything when stopped by immigration authorities.
“We don’t know what timeline ICE” — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — “is working with, but we do know that we need to prepare now,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, or CHIRLA.
Advocates have been building out a statewide clearinghouse for information about potential immigration enforcement actions. CHIRLA and other advocates are readying a hotline for Southern California residents to report raids or other anti-immigration activity.
Enforcement actions in Kern County in the final weeks of the Biden administration put groups on high alert. Customs and Border Patrol pulled over motorists on Highway 99, in and around Bakersfield, in what they called a “targeted” action against transnational criminal organizations. One border official said that 78 people had been detained and that several suspected criminals were captured. Advocates say about 200 people were detained, many of them farmworkers.
People in the largely immigrant area of the San Joaquin Valley were already reeling from the Border Patrol raids earlier in the month when Trump’s orders came out, said Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers union.
The executive actions, she said in a statement, “will only add to the stress, anxiety and fear.”
Still, she and others said, undocumented farmworkers have continued to report for work.
In South Los Angeles on Tuesday, several immigrants said they had no choice but to continue to work.
“It’s hard right now,” said a woman who would give only her first name, Leticia, as she and her husband sold power drills and other construction tools out of their blue van. The sidewalk business barely pays their rent, she said.
“Worrying about deportations will only make things worse for us,” said her husband, Manuel.
“We have to leave it to God,” Leticia said.
The longer immigrants stay in the U.S. — working jobs, having children, building networks of friends and family — the more terrifying the threat of deportation gets.
Sitting by the van talking to friends, Juan, who also gave only his first name, said the fear is always with him.
“That’s something that never really goes away,” he said.
But the anxiety escalated with Trump’s inauguration and Juan’s neighbors telling him over the weekend that they had spotted immigration agents driving around the neighborhood. Rumors have been swirling about such sightings, many unconfirmed or mistaken, since the roundups in Kern County.
The fear depresses the neighborhood economy, as people work less and spend less.
Jose Ruiz, 46, said that even though he has a green card, many of the customers who hire him to re-glaze their bathroom fixtures do not. As they take on fewer jobs, they have less money to hire him.
“I normally have two re-glazing jobs a day,” he said. “And now I’m down to one a day.
“They don’t want to leave their homes. Not even for work sometimes.”
