5X5 DOCKET
Immigrant Rights & Defense
Summer 2025
Defending Immigrant Rights, Supporting Families, and Advancing Justice
Immigrant Rights & Defense
Defending Immigrant Rights, Supporting Families, and Advancing Justice
One in three residents of L.A. County is an immigrant, and nearly 50% of our population is Latine. ICE’s racial profiling and militarized immigration enforcement across Southern California has inflicted disappearances, terror, and disruption. This compounds the displacement, health hazards, and work interruptions for many immigrant workers set off by the January wildfires.
Liberty Hill stands in unwavering solidarity with our immigrant communities and supports a wide range of organizations that are tackling these issues head on speaking out, organizing, and protesting the inhumane and violent apprehension and detention of immigrants, strengthening their worker protections, and challenging the unlawful violations of their civil rights.
This 5x5 docket is one in a series of 5 brief dockets, each profiling a selection of 5 organizations on a specific issue. The five organizations here are deeply rooted, trusted, and agile. Each is playing a vital role in advancing immigrant rights through legal defense, mutual aid, organizing and protest, policy advocacy, and cross-movement solidarity.
In addition to the groups featured here, we staunchly recognize additional organizations such as CHIRLA, LA Voice, CLUE, CARECEN, NDLON, ORALE, Clean Carwash Worker Center, Hand in Hand, among others which can be found in Liberty Hill’s full rapid response docket issued in June. Together, these groups represent a broader ecosystem mobilizing from rapid response to long-term structural change to uphold the dignity, safety, and power of immigrant communities.
IDEPSCA | Maegan Ortiz | Instagram | Southern California
IDEPSCA organizes day laborers, household workers, and kitchen staff, runs multiple day labor worker centers, and is coordinating daily community defense and food deliveries to households. In particular, San Fernando Valley has been the site of 471 immigration enforcement operations between June 6 and July 20, which then renewed dramatically on August 6 and targeted IDEPSCA centers, in apparent violation of the Temporary Restraining Order that ordered a stop to indiscriminate sweeps. One reason they are targeted is their effectiveness and experience during a crisis, showing up and standing up. In January, IDEPSCA reactivated their Wildfire Rapid Response Model developed during the 2017 Woolsey Fire when workers were stranded in Malibu, and responded to the Palisades and Altadena fires immediately: translating alerts, mapping evacuation routes, advising re shelter-inplace, coordinating transportation, distributing PPE, and helping 100+ members confront toxic air, unsafe worksites, and job loss (60% who worked in the fire zones became unemployed). They have trained 122 day laborers for safe wildfire clean-up, provided hazmat suits, helped move stranded vehicles of detained workers, and are distributing $200K in assistance to 300 undocumented workers affected by the ongoing ICE terror and disappearances.
TODEC | Luz Gallegos | Instagram | Inland Empire / Riverside County
TODEC is a trusted organization working to ensure equitable access to immigration legal services, community education, advocacy, and civic engagement for limited- and non- English speaking residents across Riverside, San Bernardino, Inyo, and Imperial counties. Their focus on immigrant and migrant worker communities of the Inland Empire fills a critical gap in California’s organizing landscape. As immigrant workers have left Los Angeles for affordability and opportunity in the Inland Empire, TODEC has become an anchor organization there and provides the communities with critical advocacy and support, including a 24-hour hotline to ensure access to urgent information at any time. Their youth program, Monarcas Luchadoras (Fighting Butterflies), has mobilized more than 150 youth citizens age 4 and up, collecting and organizing food deliveries, pre-registering 16 and 17 yearolds to vote, even traveling to Sacramento to demand safety for family and community members from the indiscriminate raids. Liberty Hill issued TODEC a recent grant to install bullet-proof glass at its office, as its rising profile makes it a target in this more right-wing region. TODEC continues to lead ‘know your rights’ education, provide no-cost and low-cost legal services, voter engagement campaigns, and legislative advocacy in a region significantly overlooked by traditional funders.
SALVA | Instagram | Antelope Valley
SALVA seeks to provide direct support and services to the immigrant, migrant and farmworker population residing in the Antelope Valley, one of the most under-resourced regions of L.A. county.
SALVA has been working to protect immigrant populations during this time by providing direct mutual aid, organizing a community defense network of watch patrols in Palmdale, operating a weekly food bank and a Spanish-language radio station (Radio Jornalera) for day laborers to provide timely and important information. For several years, their programming has included “Know Your Rights”
workshops, computer literacy courses, mobile Salvadoran consulate services, and roundtables with local elected officials, as a trusted messenger and key resource for immigrants and refugees in Lancaster and Palmdale. Mobilizing their local ICE rapid response network, SALVA deploys staff and volunteers to reported incidents of ICE activity. On August 2 they organized a vigil outside of ICE offices, mourning each individual who has died in immigration detention and calling for an end to deportations. SALVA has been serving as a hub for immigration support services, providing legal referrals and visa and immigration applicant support services in a region with minimal support service infrastructure.
Warehouse Worker Resource Center (WWRC) | Sheheryar Kaoosji | Instagram | Inland Empire / Los Angeles
More than 200,000 community members in the Inland Empire work inside large warehouses for companies like Amazon, Home Depot, Target and Walmart. A leading force in worker-led justice at warehouses across Southern California, WWRC is also the fiscal sponsor of the LA Worker Center Network, a coalition of eight worker organizations including the WWRC, which filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for abducting and disappearing community members using unlawful stop and arrest practices and confining individuals at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to attorneys. LAWCN joined statewide partners ACLU SoCal, Public Counsel, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, CHIRLA and UFW to stand up and fight back, winning a temporary restraining order.
Having taken legal action against federal enforcement, WWRC is now preparing for reta liation –including workplace raids and surveillance. WWRC has expanded mutual aid, free legal aid clinics, and digital security while exploring new protections as a 501(c)(5) worker organization (union). They are securing their building and increasing digital security through utilizing database tools to track their member base. WWRC has helped win indoor heat regulations for workers, and compliance with California’s Warehouse Worker Protection Act.
KIWA | Alexandra Suh | Koreatown, Los Angeles | Instagram
Koreatown Immigrant Worker Alliance, or KIWA is a multi-racial worker center combining organizing, leadership development, direct services, and policy advocacy to improve conditions for immigrant workers in low-wage industries across Koreatown. A long-time Liberty Hill partner, KIWA has been central to recent coordinated actions like “Reclaim Our Streets” and “ICE Out of LA”; In coalition with 8 AAPI organizations, they mobilized Koreatown’s Reclaim Our Streets action on July 10. KIWA is the fiscal sponsor of Clean Carwash Worker Center, and uplifts worker voices and continues to build bridges between labor, housing, and immigrant rights movements. Part of citywide coalitions advancing housing justice and anti-displacement, their work lays the foundation and solidarity for long-term structural change in Los Angeles.