July 4th celebrations in LA County are being canceled due to ICE raid concerns
What would've been a fireworks-filled Friday night at Gloria Molina Grand Park in downtown L.A. has been put on hold. Organizers of the beloved Summer Block Party announced they're postponing the event 'out of an abundance of caution,' citing safety concerns tied to recent ICE enforcement activity across the city. The park's Instagram assured Angelenos the party will return later this summer, just not with red, white and blue confetti this week.
The ripple effect doesn't stop there. East LA's Rockin' 4th of July bash is canceled, the Summer Movies & Concerts series at Schabarum Park is postponed and the annual Independence Day parade in El Sereno has been shelved, despite historically drawing more than 1,200 marchers.
In cities like Bell Gardens, Huntington Park and Cudahy—where Latino communities make up the overwhelming majority—concerts, fireworks and family movie nights have all been called off. 'Events in public spaces feel dangerous for our constituents,' Los Angeles city councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, who represents District 14, told ABC7. 'This is not the time to host large public gatherings because people are afraid.'
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Those fears aren't unfounded. In recent weeks, ICE activity has intensified under President Trump's reinstated hardline immigration policy, with raids reported across California's urban centers. Critics say the crackdown is sowing panic in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, prompting many residents to avoid any public space, let alone large celebrations.
'I have family members who are being affected by this, and I have other friends that I know who are being affected by these injustices right now,' Jordan Escobar, who lives in East Los Angeles, told KTLA. 'So I get why people are refraining [from celebrating].'
For now, the few public events still on include the Rose Bowl's alternative celebration in Pasadena—complete with drone show, no explosives. But for many Angelenos, this year's Fourth won't feel like much of a party.
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29 minutes ago
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The Guardian
6 hours ago
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Trump conceded in a post on his Truth Social account this month that Ice raids on farm workers – and also hotel workers – were 'taking very good, longtime workers away' from those sectors, 'with those jobs being almost impossible to replace'. Trump later told reporters: 'Our farmers are being hurt badly. They have very good workers.' He added: 'They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be great.' He pledged to issue an order to address the impact, but no policy change has yet been enacted. Trump had always stood up for farmers, said a White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, in response to a request for comment on the impact of the Ice raids to farms. 'He will continue to strengthen our agricultural industry and boost exports while keeping his promise to enforce our immigration laws,' she said. Bernard Yaros, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, a non-partisan global economics advisory firm, said in a report published on 26 June that native-born workers tend not to fill the void left by immigrant workers who have left. 'Unauthorized immigrants tend to work in different occupations than those who are native-born,' he said. Ice operations in California's farmland were scaring even those who are authorized, said Greg Tesch, who runs a farm in central California. 'Nobody feels safe when they hear the word Ice, even the documented people. We know that the neighborhood is full of a combination of those with and without documents,' Tesch said. 'If things are ripe, such as our neighbors have bell peppers here, [if] they don't harvest within two or three days, the crop is sunburned or over mature,' said Tesch. 'We need the labor.'
