Before July 10, 2025, Diego described life in the simplest words.
“I felt like life was good," he says. "It was good. Until that day. Until all that shit happened.”
Diego, a 16-year-old high school student, spoke with L.A TACO about his experience with the ongoing raids that ICE and Border Patrol have been conducting in Southern California.
Diego’s mother, Yolanda, was taken during the Glasshouse Farms raid in July. Four months later ICE agents returned, this time kidnapping his father, Antonio, and his uncle, Armando, just outside of their Oxnard home.
It was summer break, a quiet early morning in July. A Thursday like any other. Diego woke up to his mom’s phone call, reminding him that he needed to drop off his younger sister at summer school later.