{"id":113171,"date":"2025-08-02T14:22:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T14:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/113171\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T14:22:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T14:22:12","slug":"the-aftershocks-of-l-a-s-summer-of-ice-will-live-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/113171\/","title":{"rendered":"The aftershocks of L.A.’s summer of ICE will live on"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, parks across the San Fernando Valley filled with families left homeless by the destruction or simply<\/a> too afraid that an aftershock might pancake their home.<\/p>\n

An estimated 14,000-20,000 people lived in those tent cities,<\/a> and many were Latino immigrants who had nowhere else to go.<\/p>\n

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Noel Mendoza, a migrant from Nicaragua who spent two weeks camping at one park because she didn\u2019t feel safe in her crack-filled Canoga Park apartment, told The<\/a> Times back then: \u201cI was a refugee there and now I\u2019m a refugee here.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to seek safety in public spaces, as one tent city dweller said, to have nothing between oneself and the stars. <\/p>\n

But what if being out in public is the thing that places you at risk?<\/p>\n

This forgotten piece of seismic history came to mind as I listened this week to experts talking about how L.A.\u2019s summer of ICE has brought waves of emotional struggles to immigrant families. There are so many facets to the raids \u2014 the legal issues, questionable tactics, protests, economic impacts, political fallout \u2014 that the emotional fallout easily gets lost. <\/p>\n

\" <\/p>\n

Juadulupe Flores and her four-year-old daughter Yijan share breakfast at a park in the San Fernando Valley after 1994 quake<\/p>\n

(TIMOTHY CLARY\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Immigration raids take a complex toll<\/p>\n

We are now nearly two months into President Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown, which has led to more than 3,000 arrests in Southern California<\/a> alone. The raids have upended countless lives. <\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve reached that inevitable moment in the story when some begin to turn away. What shocked in June seems like just part of the new normal in August. It\u2019s summer. Vacations. Jeffrey Epstein, the tsunami that wasn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

Parts of Los Angeles are moving on, as we do no matter the calamity. But for those in the middle of the story, there is no escape. Just ask someone who lost their home in January. Or someone who lost a job, who had to go underground or whose loved one was deported after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid.<\/p>\n

I attended a forum this week on mental health and the raids put together by Boyle Heights Beat<\/a>, the community news site that has been aggressively<\/a> covering the ICE operations<\/a> with news <\/a>and resource guides. Experts offered a sober window into how the raids have impacted the mental health, individually and collectively, of immigrants and their communities. Some quotes that stayed with me:<\/p>\n