When news spread of an immigration raid in East LA last month, many street vendors along Cesar Chavez Avenue packed up and left. But not Alejandro Cortez.
A tow truck driver who also sells shoes and clothes told vendors, “If you don’t feel safe being here, don’t risk it.”
Cortez feels some level of security as a naturalized U.S. citizen amid ongoing raids, but these days, he doesn’t leave the house without his U.S. passport book.
“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said, as armed and masked federal agents continue to snatch car washers and street vendors — often roughing them up in raids. Many are targeted for their brown skin and for speaking Spanish.
Carrying proof, just in case
With the U.S. Supreme Court recently clearing the way for racial profiling in immigration raids, many Latinos — regardless of whether they are U.S. citizens or undocumented — are grappling with what kind of documents they should carry for protection.
This scene is playing out across Los Angeles, in areas like East LA, where on one stretch of Cesar Chavez Avenue, street vendors are carrying their U.S. passport books, Real ID cards and their green cards. Even longtime citizens are doing it — not because they want to but because they see no other choice.
These vendors defy stereotypes. Many are U.S. citizens and green card holders, not undocumented immigrants as the narrative often assumes. Some secured legal status through Reagan’s amnesty or through petitions from family members. Others remain undocumented without any form of immigration relief in sight. On this block, they scrape and sell nopales, and in Spanish, promote their Sinaloan-style burritos, Nike sneakers, and other merchandise.
“People believe that, because you’re undocumented, you’re a street vendor,” said Lesly Mendoza, an attorney with the nonprofit law firm Bet Tzedek.
“This is why we fight against racial profiling, because people who are outside Home Depot may have documents, may be legal residents, may be U.S. citizens, and they just can’t find any other job,” Mendoza said.
To carry or to challenge the norm
The law does not require U.S. citizens to carry proof of citizenship, but legal guides from Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Bet Tzedek note that some are opting to do so — bringing U.S. passport books, copies of naturalization certificates, or birth certificates with them.
The legal organizations advise “not to take pictures of your proof of citizenship on your mobile device and show them to an ICE agent, as you may be giving them consent to search your phone.” U.S. legal permanent residents, however, are legally required to carry their green cards with them at all times.
Choosing what documents U.S. citizens will carry is a personal decision, and people are weighing whether they want to assert their rights, remain silent, and risk “being treated unfairly” by immigration agents, or simply show their papers to prove they’re citizens, Mendoza said.
Cynthia Santiago, an immigration attorney in LA, says it’s dangerous for U.S. citizens to normalize carrying proof of citizenship.
“It basically boils down to whether, as a society, we’re going to stand up for our rights and say, ‘I don’t need to be carrying and proving myself to masked men running around our community, stopping people based on their profile,” she said.
To Santiago, it’s important to stand in solidarity with people who don’t have proof of status. “If we’re able to show that individuals are being detained without just cause, including U.S. citizens, then I think the Supreme Court and the higher courts will start to recognize that these rights are being infringed upon,” she said.
Santiago acknowledges the fear but says even proof of citizenship isn’t always enough. For those U.S. citizens who have been detained, “we’re seeing people released after a brief detention,” she said.
“We have to walk like little dogs”
Maria, a naturalized U.S. citizen and street vendor who has been living in this country for 50 years, carries a photocopy of her U.S. passport tucked into her cell phone case while she’s outside selling her merchandise.
“We have to walk like little dogs with badges,” said Maria, who did not want her last name published due to fear of retribution. “They’re saying we should carry our actual passports, but as street vendors, we can lose it or get it stolen.”
Before Trump took office this year, Maria says, she would visit Tijuana while only carrying her Real ID card.
A native of Mexico City, Maria came to this country as an 18-year-old. “Ever since my sisters and I set foot into this country, we have had papers,” said Maria, whose four adult children and eight grandchildren are all U.S. citizens.
Now, she’s left wondering why federal immigration agents are free to violate the U.S. Constitution. “It’s not a question of having your passport glued to you. Immigration agents or police officers must believe what you tell them, because our word has to count for something.”
Along Cesar Chavez Avenue, Mercedes Beltran sells burritos to early risers on their way to work.
“I’m a legal permanent resident, and I’m still scared. Imagine a person who doesn’t have papers, the fear they must feel. But, we have to go out and work and pay our bills, rent, and other necessities,” she said.
Beltran, a single mother of three U.S. citizen daughters, also sells baked goods that her oldest makes to help pay for costs associated with her youngest’s high school basketball team.
“Look at where we’re at, walking around with papers. This is supposed to be a free country. Here, we’re no longer a free country. We’re almost like Colombia, Venezuela, now,” she said.
“We’re in East Los Angeles, where it’s all Latino. Here in East LA, we’re children of immigrant parents who came here many years ago, grandparents, two, three generations, and we’re all dark-skinned. I mean, how are you going to ask someone [for their papers] just because they have Latino features?” Beltran said.