LA Immigrant Street Vendors Work Through ICE Raids, Protests

The normally bustling streets of Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles were quiet except for the commotion of sirens and gusty helicopters. Loud bangs punctuated the night, but LA’s street vendors were still slinging tacos and crêpes to the few pedestrians who had ventured out.

It was the evening of Monday, June 9, the week that the LA Times reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained several hundred immigrants in Southern California. In response, the streets of downtown had been embroiled in four consecutive days of uproar.

From the taco stand where Celeste Sughey works as a cashier, we could hear protesters and law enforcement clashing. Sughey and her co-workers have continued to sell food despite the risk of being undocumented because their families depend on the paychecks.

“This is our only job, this is how we get to survive,” Sughey said. She asked that the business not be named out of fear that it could be targeted by federal law enforcement.

Two other vendors I spoke to said they had work authorization in the US but aren’t citizens. They feared being swept up in what they see as indiscriminate arrests targeting Latino workers.

“If you are present in the United States illegally, you will be deported,” Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, wrote in an email to Business Insider. “This is the promise President Trump made to the American people that the administration is committed to keeping it.”

The White House and ICE did not confirm with Business Insider the number of people detained or whether warrants had been issued in all instances.

All the street vendors I spoke to said they’ve lost money, estimating that business has dropped by 75% because customers were avoiding ICE raids and the protests. The city hadn’t announced the 8 p.m. curfew yet, but with all the ruckus, Sughey’s taco stand would be closing that evening before 9 p.m. instead of the usual 2 a.m.

At the time, she was hopeful that the raids and protests would die down. “Hopefully, this is just for a little bit and then it goes away,” she said. A week later, the curfew in downtown had ended, but a sense of unease still lingers in the atypically quiet district.

Business is slow, tensions are high, and vendors’ families need the paychecks

Less than 5 miles away, another immigrant neighborhood had slowed down as well. Benny Moreno, 52, operates El Patrón, a family-owned business that makes Mexican favorites like tacos, tortas, sopes, and burritos in Koreatown. The area is one of LA’s most densely populated neighborhoods, known for its Korean American and Oaxacan communities.

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Since the ICE arrests ramped up in LA County, Moreno said he’s noticed a dramatic drop in foot traffic, unlike anything he’s witnessed in his 12 years of running his business.

“Most of my people, they’re Latinos, we don’t have papers,” Moreno said of his undocumented customers on the evening of Wednesday, June 11.

“My support comes from them,” he said. “They come to my taco truck and they buy my food, and now they don’t want to spend money because they are not even working right now because they are scared.”

Denise, a regular at Moreno’s truck who works in a dental office downtown, said there’s usually a long line. From 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. I saw two paying customers stop by.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen,” said the 33-year-old US citizen. Denise was ordering steak fries and tacos for her family, including her parents, who are undocumented and have been too afraid to leave the house.

Denise, whose mom emigrated from Vera Cruz, Mexico, like Moreno, came out to support his business. Members of Moreno’s indigenous Zapotec community were detained during ICE sweeps in the fashion district the previous Friday, Denise said.

“We were just getting back up from COVID,” Denise said of the street vendors. “It feels like we’re getting shut down all over again. It’s very hard.”

The slowdown is hurting Moreno’s bottom line. He said he pays around $2,000 a month to rent his truck and maintain a permit to park on the streets.

“I’m worried because my bill is too high,” Moreno said, adding that he has no choice but to continue his late-night operation from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. to support his wife and two kids. “I’m working hard to support my family to pay my bills and my rent.”

Claudia Antonio and Abel Pacheco are in a similar position. They started selling $12 crêpes last fall to set themselves apart from street vendors who serve traditional Mexican food. The couple said their business, La Chinantla, used to pull in about $200 a night; recently, it’s been as low as $60 a night in Koreatown.

“We get prepared, we have to throw it away because it won’t be good for the next day,” Antonio said of having to dispose of fresh fruit because of low sales.

The Oaxacan immigrants, who have three children, live in subsidized housing in downtown Los Angeles, paying a little over $1,000 a month for a three-bedroom apartment.

“We’re barely surviving,” Antonio said. Selling on the street, she said, varies so much day to day, it’s hard to make a consistent income. “Now the rent is coming up. That’s why we’re outside right now. Otherwise, we stay home.”

Work authorization is not enough for immigrant vendors to feel secure

Antonio and Moreno both said they have work authorization to operate their food businesses, but since they aren’t citizens, they’ve been feeling more anxious than ever. ICE officials have been tracking down non-citizens who pay taxes at their places of business and home addresses using records from the Internal Revenue Service, according to reporting in the New York Times.

While ICE needs a judicial warrant to enter private areas of a workplace, the same protections don’t extend to street vendors who work on public sidewalks. Publications including the Los Angeles Times and LA Taco have published videos showing street vendors and their employees detained by federal officers.

“I’m worried,” said Moreno. “ICE, they take people, even if they’re citizens, they do not even ask for the papers. They just take people.” A viral video of a US citizen being detained, published by The New York Times, stoked outrage that ICE may be racially profiling Latinos.

Antonio and Pacheco are also applying for adjustment of status to become lawful permanent residents with green cards. “It’s very stressful,” Pacheco said of the expensive legal process. “Every time we have to go see the lawyer or they call you, they expect you to come out with some more money every single time.”

Antonio said her immigration lawyer charges her $1,200 every time they update documents in their application for a green card.

It hasn’t been cheap for Antonio and Pacheco to realize their American dream. Antonio has been building up her business for over 14 years, buying new appliances and slowly saving up for her fridges, which cost $250 each, and a customized illuminated business sign, which cost $400.

“We want our business to grow,” said Antonio, who hopes one day to open up a brick-and-mortar location with her husband. “That’s our dream, why we’re still working hard, and that’s why we’re still here, even though it’s not been easy.”