L.A. County tenant groups rally to demand stronger eviction safeguards amid ICE fears

Los Angeles — A coalition of immigrant tenants and housing advocates rallied outside the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, urging officials to enact sweeping eviction protections before the Board adjourns for the holiday recess. 

Operating under the banner ‘Evict ICE, Not Us’, the coalition has been calling for an eviction moratorium since federal immigration raids intensified in June, in addition to immediate eviction protections. Organizers say the operations have destabilized workplaces, slashed incomes and placed thousands of immigrant families at risk of losing their homes. Supervisors, they argue, have not responded with sufficient urgency. 

The coalition’s demands are supported by dozens of organizations, including the L.A. Tenants Union, Rent Brigade, NDLON, DSA-LA, CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, Ground Game LA, the Garment Workers Center and Community Power Collective, as well as several local elected officials from Cudahy, Maywood, Huntington Park and Bell Gardens. 

Lexie Nguyen, an organizer for the South Bay local with the Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU), spoke with CALÓ News. She shared that leading up to the subsequent disruption at the Board of Supervisors meeting this week, community members had made numerous requests for an eviction moratorium and stronger tenant protections. 

“Folks were already experiencing pre-existing affordability issues, illegal evictions, rampant landlord harassment…things that are going to push people out of their homes” she said, “then ICE raids only exacerbated it further”. 

Key findings from a 2025 report released by The Rent Brigade, titled “Disappeared and Displaced”, indicated immigrant renters’ average weekly earnings dropped 62% since the start of the raids. Approximately 28% of respondents owe their landlord more than one month’s rent, placing them in significant rental debt and at risk of eviction for unpaid balances. 

Nguyen emphasized that eviction has not only had “devastating” effects on local economies and people's individual incomes, but that many landlords are threatening their immigrant tenants with ICE to force them out.  “[Once tenants leave] they're able to raise the rent on the unit higher, and these are typically below-market tenants that they're trying to get out,” she stated.

During the rally on Tuesday, Jose Hernandez, a member of Somos Los Callejones, a collective of commercial tenants in Santee Alley supported by the L.A. Tenants Union, said the economic fallout had been swift.

“We may look like a small group, but we represent thousands of tenants,” he said. “Somos Los Callejones represents about 5,000 families who depend on our business in Santee Alley. We are fighting for a moratorium and also rental assistance — not just for landlords but for tenants.”

Housing advocates had spent months attempting to meet with members of the Board of Supervisors, a period marked by repeated delays and stalled conversations. The coalition mobilized for an initial action on July 22, during another board session, and this week’s rally was a continuation of that effort. In the interim, tenants engaged with their elected officials in hopes that they could fast-track efforts before the holiday recess. 

Nguyen said that one supervisor was “very intentional about ignoring” the coalition and not responding to meeting requests. According to Nguyen’s account of events, LATU organizers have repeatedly tried to schedule a meeting with Supervisor Janice Hahn, who represents the 4th District of Los Angeles County. Their requests went largely unanswered until November, when a staffer from Hahn’s office scheduled a meeting with members of the coalition.

In September, after sustained pressure from housing rights groups, the Board approved a motion to explore an eviction moratorium. A month later, supervisors declared a countywide state of emergency, a move that gave them authority to impose broader protections across Los Angeles County’s 88 cities and unincorporated areas. 

However, organizers claim that little has changed and that the county's new rental assistance program has yet to begin distributing funds to tenants impacted by January’s wildfires or victims of the ICE raids. In the meantime, countless tenants have lost their housing or remain displaced. 

Furthermore, once the program opens, only landlords–not tenants–will be allowed to apply. Landlords can refuse to accept rental assistance, and often do so in order to force tenants with below-market rents out of their homes to re-rent apartments at higher prices. 

An eviction survey conducted by the National Housing Law Project in 2021 reported that 86% of respondents have seen landlords collect Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) and still proceed with evictions. In many cases, landlords purposely delayed ERA applications to accumulate late fees or used ERA money to pay their own legal fees while continuing to pursue evictions in court.

Nguyen said Tuesday’s meeting was not the end. Housing advocates contend that if the county hopes to shield immigrant tenants from displacement, rent relief must be accompanied by swift and enforceable eviction protections.

“The fight doesn't stop there,” she told CALÓ News, “our demand is that by December 9, they introduce a motion that contains meaningful, actionable, real eviction protections.”