Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the recent ICE raids violate Angelenos’ civil rights

Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa denounced the hundreds of ICE raids and deportations that have occurred in Los Angeles and neighboring areas in the last few days.  

In a press conference held last Friday morning, Villaraigosa, who served as the city’s  41st mayor from 2005 to 2013, called the raids “ un-American” and “military style.”

“I have never seen military-style deportations. People coming in military fatigues, masked up from head to shoulders [and] in unmarked cars,” he said. “They are terrorizing our communities. They are stopping people who are citizens. They are going into schools and churches and courthouses and places of work and places of shopping. They're doing so in an indiscriminate way and in a way that violates the civil rights of Angelenos.”

Villaraigosa openly talked about the raids in a conference held in the Alliance for a Better Community offices in downtown L.A., where civic leaders, business leaders, nonprofit organizations and community partners condemned the escalating federal actions that they described as “disruptive” and “terrorizing” for the people of L.A., both documented and undocumented. 

Michael S. Carrillo, attorney at the Law Carrillo Firm, announced Friday afternoon that Cary Lopez Alvarado, a nine-month pregnant woman who, as a United States citizen, was unlawfully detained by United States Border Patrol officers earlier this week, gave birth prematurely due to stress caused by her detention.

According to the firm, the 23-year-old was a victim of officers who were patrolling in Hawthorne, 137 miles from the U.S./Mexico border. "It is outrageous and heartbreaking for Border Patrol officers to handcuff and mistreat a young woman who was nine months pregnant. This escalation of force by federal officers was totally unnecessary and could have caused a miscarriage with our client due to the stress of the event. We are grateful that the child was born healthy and there seem to be no further complications,” Carillo said. 

Villaraigosa called these arrests “unlawful.” He also denounced the hundreds of other detainees.

“They said they were going to go after serious felons, violent felons; they're going after working people. They're separating children from their parents, and it's unacceptable,” he said.

Vanessa Aramayo, executive director of Alliance for a Better Community, said the voices, dignity, and rights of all immigrants need to be recognized and respected. 

“It is not okay that our rights are being trampled. And the message that is being sent loud and clear is that if you are an immigrant, if you look like an immigrant, you are disposable,” she said. “That means that what we need to do is deepen our cross-sector collaboration with business leaders and educators, legal experts, health providers, civic and faith leaders and broaden our multiethnic and our multiracial coalitions, because this fight cannot be done by one alone; it must be rooted in the solidarity across the communities that are under.”