Like many undocumented immigrants living in LA, Antonio has had to weigh fears of deportation against leaving his home to work and support his family.
The 26-year-old, whom The LA Local is not naming because of his immigration status, moved from Guatemala to the U.S. seven years ago to pursue the American Dream. For years, he worked at a local company unloading cargo containers, but since being laid off, he’s been reselling items he collects from Facebook Marketplace on the street — a risk he said has no choice but to take.
“Before, I lived without fear. Now, I don’t know if I am going to make it home. I am afraid every day,” he said.
And though he worries about getting picked up by federal immigration agents, he’s also being squeezed by more than Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. His family and other immigrants like them across California are encountering a growing, coordinated web of federal policy changes under the Trump administration. These shifts are tightening lending, shrinking social safety nets and enforcing harsher rules on housing, loans, food assistance and healthcare. The result, community advocates, researchers and healthcare providers warn, is lasting impact on families in the state’s poorest neighborhoods and to California’s economic fabric as a whole that could be felt for generations.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. But in documents to lawmakers, immigration officials have framed the agency’s operational goals as a matter of fiscal necessity and statutory obligation, allowing frontline personnel to carry out law enforcement missions explicitly mandated by Congress. Immigration agency directors defended their strategy toward rigid compliance, during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, publicly testifying that their fiscal allocations and tightening guidelines are built to maintain system integrity and national security.
But Jyotswaroop Bawa, chief of organizing and campaigns at economic justice group Rise Economy, said the federal policy changes are not about fiscal responsibility, but calculated to put emotional and financial strain on immigrant families.
“This is very much about the emotional impact on the immigrant community about, ‘We’re going to do this against you. We’re going to come out and get you.” And on the other side, for their coalition to be like ‘Oh, yes, see, they are going after the undocumented,’” she said. “Are they actually going to achieve something? Hardly matters.”
Housing
In February 2026, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) proposed a rule targeting mixed-status immigrant families by prohibiting households from receiving federal housing assistance if any member is undocumented.
Right now, undocumented family members can simply choose not to claim legal status, allowing the rest of the eligible household (like U.S. citizen children) to receive a partial, reduced housing subsidy. The rule would end this practice by requiring every household member to prove citizenship or legal status. If even one family member cannot do so, the entire household would lose housing assistance, forcing thousands of families to either separate or face eviction together.
It’s unclear if or when the rule will take effect, upping the uncertainty. The formal public comment window closed on April 21, which HUD officials must review before determining whether to publish a finalized, enforceable version.
“It’s cruelty, you know. It’s another version of separating families that we are seeing and [in a] way, it’s destabilizing communities,” Bawa said.
Taxes
For Antonio, the instability weighs on him every day. He lives with his wife, who is currently navigating an asylum claim, and their two U.S. citizen children, ages 4 and 2. Because of his undocumented status, the simple act of filing taxes this year became a source of anxiety due to rumors of federal data-sharing.
“I heard that the IRS was going to collaborate with ICE and share our information,” Antonio said.
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, said that fears are grounded in an unprecedented federal push to gather data from traditionally neutral government entities.
“The data collection piece of it, kind of on the enforcement end, is the one thing that this administration is doing, [which] is seeking out data from places that have typically not played a role in immigration enforcement,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said.
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The LA Local has compiled resources for our immigrant neighbors, including free or low-cost legal aid, health clinics and food distribution sites.
The Korean American Federation of Los Angeles and the Jewish Free Loan Association have partnered to offer immigrant small business owners interest-free loans of up to $50,000 for startup costs, rent, payroll, inventory, equipment and other business expenses.
In April 2025, ICE and the IRS entered into an agreement allowingIRS officials to share tax records, like names and addresses, to help find and eventually remove undocumented immigrants, including those who use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) to file taxes. ITINs allow undocumented immigrants, as well as legal immigrants who don’t qualify for a Social Security number, to file taxes.
It was a major shift from standard practice, where tax information was kept strictly private. By early 2026, federal courts stepped in and blocked the data sharing, ruling that it was likely illegal. Even with the program on hold, the situation has sparked massive fear among immigrant communities.
So far, the IRS has not published data or official reports showing a loss in tax revenue from ITIN holders who didn’t file due to data-sharing policies or deportation fears. An independent study by Yale University’s Budget Lab predicted that using tax records for immigration enforcement could cost the country between $147 billion and $479 billion in lost tax revenue over the next decade.
Ultimately, Antonio decided not to file taxes this year.
That could complicate future immigration proceedings for his family in the future. Putzel-Kavanaugh said tax records can be advantageous to people who try to legalize their status.
But the risks are real. Though the Trump administration has pulled back on large-scale immigration raids in hubs like Los Angeles and Minneapolis following public backlash, Putzel-Kavanaugh access to immigrants’ personal data can allow federal authorities to optimize their operations and push them behind closed doors.
“I think that the goal is likely still high numbers of people removed, as it has been the ongoing goal of the administration, but how they do it and how they carry out may have shifted, in part, because of the public outcry following what happened in Minneapolis and elsewhere,” she said.
Healthcare
The chilling effect of targeted database enforcement has also fundamentally altered how families interact with healthcare.
Despite California’s historical efforts to expand healthcare access, state budget rollbacks have put a stop to new sign-ups for its full-coverage Medi-Cal program for low-income, undocumented adults.
This freeze, combined with upcoming federal rollbacks that eliminate premium tax credits for low-income, lawfully present immigrants and slash federal matching rates for emergency services, is projected to dramatically spike the region’s uninsured rate and drive a profound “chilling effect” where even eligible families avoid seeking care out of fear.
At St. John’s Community Health, one of the largest nonprofit providers in Los Angeles with clinics throughout South LA, providers have had to reshape how they deliver medicine to immigrant communities.
Bukola Olusanya, a nurse practitioner and the regional medical director at St. John’s, said they created the “Healthcare Without Fear” mobile program to meet patients who were too terrified to leave their apartments.
“We [realized] that most of our patients were not able to come into the clinic because of the fear that they might get taken by ICE, we decided to go see them at home,” she explained.
At its peak, the mobile teams treated roughly 80 patients a week.
While the home visits are currently on standby, Olusanya said the clinic remains on high alert with protocols specifically designed to shield patients from federal agents.
“The reception area is like a public area, so if at some point they insist that they want to come, we’ll move our patients into the examination room, which is considered to be private. So that’s how we’re going to protect our patients. If we are able to lock the gate before they come in, then we will lock the gate,” she said.
Olusanya said when patients avoid primary care due to fear, chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure go unmanaged, forcing a massive, expensive wave of patients into local emergency rooms.
“So this ER is going to be overwhelmed, and people that will need, like an urgent visit to the ER, probably will have to wait a longer time,” Olusanya said, adding, “Things that can be handled in primary care will be handled in the ER. So there’s gonna be, like, a ripple effect for everyone.”
Economic ladders
Beyond housing and health, federal policy changes are actively dismantling the economic ladders that allow families to transition from work like street vending to stable entrepreneurship.
New restrictions on Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, which make capital harder to access, along with tighter limits on specialty visas, could threaten to hollow out local infrastructure.
Bawa from Rise Economy warns that when ethnic grocery stores, jewelry makers and specialty restaurants disappear, communities lose more than businesses — they are left with an “erasure of culture” that only benefits corporate chains.
“The challenge is,” Bawa said, “can we get our [local] government to do the right thing at this moment?”
