# Three families in Los Angeles on the devastating aftermath of ICE detentions and deportations that overwhelmed their city last summer

Last summer, Angelenos began to vanish.

Armed, masked immigration agents plucked people off street corners and out of their workplaces, in parking lots and department stores. Partners and primary breadwinners, grandparents and children, *carwasheros* and coffee shop regulars were arrested, detained and deported – disappearing from their neighborhoods.

The [raids](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles-ice-protests) in [LA](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles) were a turning point in Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign – not long after, the administration militarized immigration operations in Chicago, Washington DC, Portland and Minneapolis.

Families are still [living under the shadows](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/14/one-year-later-los-angeles-ice-raids) of those raids, sorting through the emotional and administrative aftermath. They are filing paperwork to bring deported relatives back to the US, suppressing flashbacks to the chaos they witnessed last year, figuring out school pickups with one parent missing, rebuilding daily routines without a loved one.

These are their stories.

# Noémi, whose husband was deported to Mexico: ‘The future is all just a blank’

Noémi’s husband, Jesús, still wakes her up every morning – no longer with a gentle nudge and a kiss, but with a phone call: “Wake up, love.”

He calls the kids next: Dhelainy (16), Esther (15), Angel (11) and little Gabriel (6). He dismisses their whines and pleas for 10 more minutes of sleep, saying: “It’s time for school!”

Before immigration agents swarmed the Westchester Hand Wash in Westchester, where he had worked for 10 years, before he was detained in El Paso and deported to Mexico, he would have kept some breakfast ready for them, and coffee.

But now he’s in Kiní, Mexico – where he used to live, before he moved to [Los Angeles](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles) in 1992, before he met the love of his life and made a family with her.

As the husband and father of US citizens, he could have applied to become a legal resident. But he didn’t have his glasses when the immigration agents who detained him pressured him to sign a document; he didn’t realize he had signed away his right to remain in the US.

# Christopher, whose uncle disappeared in ICE custody: ‘He had no idea his family was searching for him’

One year ago, Christopher knew next to nothing about immigration policy. Then his uncle Daniel was taken. “And I basically had to learn,” he said.

It was about 10am on 17 June when Christopher got the call.

Daniel had been strolling around their neighborhood in east Los Angeles – as he often did, collecting recyclables, greeting some of the neighbors and their dogs – when immigration agents in an unmarked vehicle pulled over, and cornered him.

Daniel – who has significant mental and intellectual disability, and very limited speech – didn’t know how to respond. For decades, he had been under the conservatorship of his siblings. He understands Spanish, but not much English. He can’t cope with loud noises or disruptions to routine.

a friend connected him to a trusted local attorney, who referred him to the legal aid group ImmDef. They found his uncle at the Adelanto detention center in the high desert east of LA, and one of the family’s lawyers was able to briefly meet with him.

“He was scared. He was confused,” Christopher said.

Days later, he got another call at work: his uncle had disappeared from the system. 

# Mario, who was arrested at a carwash: ‘The cold was so intense we had to huddle like little chicks’

He’d leave his house in the San Fernando valley, all the way north-west, at 6.30am, to commute to the carwash in Santa Ana – 80 miles (130km) to the south-east – and wouldn’t get home till about 8.30 in the evening. For three decades, he didn’t really have much of a life outside of work, but he didn’t mind.

On 19 August, he reported to the carwash as usual. He was working at the computer in the back, when he heard yelling and saw his co-workers running. He rushed into the restroom, and could hear officers questioning one of his co-workers and then detaining him. “Then there was a pause,” he said. An officer swung open the bathroom door. Not long afterwards, Mario was in handcuffs.

The rest of it still loops in his mind. Six nights sleeping on the floor of a holding cell, which he calls the “ice box”. “The cold was so intense, so awful, that we had to huddle like little chicks next to each other to keep each other warm,” he recalled. Two months at the Adelanto detention center, where he was knocked out by some powerful contagion – maybe the flu or Covid – which spread through the detention center in waves. He was released on 24 October, after his lawyers filed a petition of habeas corpus, challenging the legality of his detention.

His wife Alejandra remembers that during his first few weeks back, Mario refused to even leave the house. She had never seen him like that – barely eating, no energy to even take a shower.

ICE raided their city, taking parents, spouses and friends. That’s not where it ends