How will recent California ICE surge affect the midterm elections?

Earlier this month, the Washington Examiner reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a 45-day enforcement surge in the state called “Operation Safe California,” which was set to kick off in San Diego.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has not gone on record to confirm or deny reports of the alleged plan.

But their lack of comment aside, it’s hard to ignore that there has been an uptick in ICE activity reported across the state, from San Diego to the Central Valley.

My colleagues Brittny Mejia and Ruben Vives recently reported on how ICE agents in the Central Valley have disrupted agricultural communities, sparked confrontations and left families scrambling to locate detained relatives.

Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias said the enforcement operations led to a drop in school attendance and sparked student protests.

Siblings Noelia Bautista and Cipriano Lopez launched a GoFundMe page after their parents were detained in Fresno. Central Valley resident Prudencio Rivera was detained by ICE despite having all his legal residency papers in order.

The proximity of these enforcement operations to the midterm elections, in which Latinos are projected to play a pivotal role across California and the country is no accident, claims Cal State Long Beach professor Luis Carlos Rodriguez.

“Many of these raids are happening to this particular community that most political observers see as leaning toward Democratic candidates this cycle,” said Rodriguez, who previously worked as an immigration reform advocate at the L.A. County Federation of Labor’s Coalition for Immigration Reform. “I think it’s an attempt at intimidation against Latinos in particular. ... I don’t see [the timing] as a coincidence.”

Though ICE officials maintain that raids and arrests are strictly targeting undocumented people and those with expired residence statuses, Rodriguez noted that these enforcement tactics have a ripple effect throughout the Latino community due to the discriminatory practices deployed — which were permitted by a to a 2025 Supreme Court’ decision.

A recent incident in Long Beach highlighted his point about how even citizens can get caught up in raid.

On Oct. 17, U.S. citizen Ricardo Gonzalez was detained by ICE in Long Beach. A Ring camera recording showed Gonzalez rounding a street corner on a bike as an unmarked black SUV drove toward him in the wrong direction on a one-way street. The SUV stopped as it reached Gonzalez, who disappeared behind the SUV and was heard screaming loudly as an agent exited the vehicle with a weapon drawn. An ICE spokesperson later characterized him as a “rioter,” though Gonzalez and his family have rejected that description.

Alejandra Marchevsky, a professor at Cal State L.A., equated the ICE surges to the long history of voter intimidation in Black communities dating back to Reconstruction. Her research focuses on Latino immigration in L.A., and she serves on the executive board of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles.

“It’s part of a broader strategy of the Republican Party to disenfranchise Latino voters and other voters of color,” she said. “There’s an ongoing war on voting rights that we’ve seen for several decades now, and particularly in Trump’s second term. Immigration raids are making everyone in the community, including citizens, afraid to leave their homes and to exercise their civil rights.”

Marchevsky and Rodriguez also pointed to several other maneuvers by the federal government to undermine voting rights, including the Trump administration’s bid to stop California from counting 20,000 ballots flagged over questioned citizenship. Another was the president offering a $1-million reward to citizens for voter fraud tips that lead to convictions.

But hell hath no fury like a Latino voter scorned and all this intimidation, in addition to a lack of follow-through on promises by Republican lawmakers since 2024, might have a boomerang effect by agitating Latinos into action.

“People are tired of seeing the federal government harass and intimidate their neighbors,” Marchevsky said. “They’re also tired of high gas prices and that a bag of groceries today costs over $100.”

Rodriguez mentioned he’s seen firsthand young Latino voters in his classrooms energized to vote against those condoning the raids.

Several recent decisions made by courts and lawmakers have also paved the way for more security for Latino voters this election cycle.

To combat any potential physical intimidation near voting centers, tens of thousands of volunteers organized by Democrats and voting rights groups plan to watch polling places.

On Wednesday, a federal judge denied the Trump administration’s request to immediately block California elections officials from counting the ballots of 20,000 voters whose citizenship were questioned.

Thursday morning, a separate federal judge barred ICE agents across Southern California from detaining people solely because they appear Latino or Latino and working class, requiring individualized reasonable suspicion.

“These federal judges’ decisions are really important in helping people feel empowered … because the point of all these attacks is to taint naturalized citizens, as well as U.S.-born Latinos and other U.S.-born [people] of color, ” Marchevsky said.

“I’m hopeful that the impact of these raids are going to further embolden and motivate voters to cast their ballots and put an end to this terrorizing of communities across the state.”

(Jackie Rivera / For The Times; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)

Rest in peace, Dolores Huerta

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Trailblazing Latina labor and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta, who rose to prominence in the 1960s as a founding member of the United Farm Workers union, died of cancer Wednesday morning. She was 96.

“It’s a tough time,” a Huerta family spokesperson told The Times. “She was incredibly beloved, and not only was she beloved, but she was an icon to so many people around the country and around the world, really. If anything, her family is clinging to memories and clinging to each other as they mourn.”

Huerta was known for her passionate enthusiasm in fighting for equality for dispossessed Latino workers and notably coined the popular activist rally cry: Sí se puede.

After the UFW had firmly established itself, Huerta devoted much of her time to women’s rights, Democratic Party politics and community organizing. She was also a vocal champion of LGBTQ+ rights and an early supporter of the legalization of same-sex marriage.

This year, Huerta forever recontextualized her legacy when she revealed she was raped twice by her fellow UFW co-founder and labor icon César Chávez. Her disclosure came after Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas told the New York Times they were sexually assaulted by Chávez in the 1970s when they were underage teenagers.

Huerta said she had remained silent for six decades to protect the farmworker movement. But she added: “I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.”

Rest in peace to a true icon.

Read more of The Times’ coverage of Huerta’s death:

• Dolores Huerta, the fiery and resolute activist who helped launch the nation’s first enduring union for poor farmworkers, dies
• The Dolores Huerta I’ll remember
• Dolores Huerta was fearless about everything except her own flaws

Stories we read this week that we think you should read

Unless otherwise noted, stories below were published by the Los Angeles Times.

Politics and immigration

• Federal judge blocks ICE from making racially discriminatory stops in Southern California
• Judge denies feds’ request to block 20,000 California ballots in blistering opinion
• Many Latinos are done with Trump. The shift is especially striking in Texas
• Support dwindles for wealth tax, voter ID ballot measures, new poll shows
• Immigrant detainee dies at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego
• ICE agents tackle and injure U.S. citizen student with disabilities, local officials say
• Lawsuit seeks to block ICE from hiding locations of detainees with final removal orders (AP)
• Defeated presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family land in Miami after fleeing Brazil (AP)

Arts and entertainment

• At the Hollywood Forever Día de los Muertos, families carry on an L.A. tradition of more than 50 years
• Puerto Rican band Chuwi wooed Bad Bunny fans on his world tour. They go mask off in ‘Libertad’
• Latina Gothic: How anti-colonial struggle informed our signature dark glamour
• ‘The De Los Podcast’: Cyberpunk filmmaker Alex Rivera predicted our dystopian future with ‘Sleep Dealer’
• ‘Klara and the Sun’ star Jenna Ortega: ‘Artificial intelligence isn’t creative’
• Latina DJs reflect on 10 years of neoperreo: ‘The weirder, the better’

Southern California

• SoCal coast braces for more flooding as El Niño’s high tides break records
• Bass and Raman skirmish over treatment of small business. The Valley is a battleground
• How the Bass campaign channels one of L.A.’s most infamous mayoral races
• LAX people mover launch postponed again; city officials duck questions on the delay
• Ethics complaint filed over ads falsely portraying Raman promoting homeless camps
• Inside Marissa Roy’s Bollywood-bumping, group-project bid to become L.A.’s city attorney