Now that we’ve sobered up from our celebratory shots and pre-rolls, it’s time to cast a sharp eye on our local and national governments.
As a nation, the tremendous feat of tipping the scales in favor of progressives, the working class, and immigrants may have been the easier part of establishing the possibilities of change. Now we need to hold our elected officials to keeping the promises they’ve made to us, the ones that influenced us to mark their names on our ballots.
Tuesday’s election resulted in a deep blue-shaded shift across the country. We saw historically red states flip, and a progressive candidate was elected as L.A.’s first Asian mayor. This week’s elections also brought the country’s first Black and Native women governors into office. This is the same optimism that New Yorkers probably tasted when they elected Mamdani.
If these politicians are truly working in the best interests of their constituents, we’ll see the quick defunding and absolute abolishment of ICE, as well as better support for small businesses, working families, and improved resources for the homeless community.
In other news, ICE’s abuses continue.
Looking northward, last Friday, a 23-year-old Berkeley student and asylum seeker from Colombia named Paula Valentina Albornoz Hernandez was detained by ICE at San Francisco International Airport.
The young woman, who escaped “severe gender-based violence” in her home country, was about to visit Portland with her boyfriend when an ICE agent in plain clothes began interrogating her. AP reports that Hernandez’s asylum application is pending and that she currently has a valid work permit.
In August, we highlighted the Turkish chef behind Ararat Kebab in Culver City in our street kebabs guide. Sadly, he was recently detained by ICE. West Los Respuesta Rapida, a West L.A. rapid response group, helped get the truck towed to a “safe place,” and says they’re in touch with the only support systems he has in the U.S.
L.A. cannot keep suffering like this, lest we lose everything that makes L.A. the city we love: its people. Even though it has now been revealed that ICE was quietly ordered not to conduct any raids on Election Day, Aisha Wallace-Palomares was out in the streets ready to document any potential ICE activity at the polls.
Here’s to collective hope, a feeling that many of us have forgotten since Trump’s second term began. Here is to the encouraging development that a lot of younger, newer leaders are being given a chance to run things. Here’s to the collective pressure we need to put on our elected officials.
L.A. TACO will be here beside our city, observing and reporting on whether change is truly on the horizon.
IN OTHER ICE-RELATED NEWS
- ICE Was Secretly Ordered to Stop All Immigration Raids on Election Day
- ICE arrests 23-year-old UC Berkeley student and asylum seeker at San Francisco airport
- Unmasking the Paramilitary Agents Behind Trump’s Violent Immigration Crackdown
- Leaks Target Stephen Miller After Republican Wipeout This Election
- ICE Announces Third Detained Death in 8 Days, 60 Under the Trump II Administration
- CoreCivic CEO said she doesn't think ICE will change anything about their operations following midterms
- Searches of cellphones, laptops by U.S. customs up more than 32% so far this year
- Outcry after ICE violently detains US citizen walking to high school: ‘I thought they were going to kill me’
- Teen soccer player’s ICE detention rattles rural Noel, Missouri
