LOS ANGELES — An abandoned ice cream cart has become a symbol of resistance to residents of a west Los Angeles neighborhood who oppose President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies.
The cart belonged to a beloved ice cream vendor who was arrested by federal agents Monday afternoon while walking his usual route through Culver City.
The sudden disappearance of Ambrocio “Enrique” Lozano stunned residents who said the vendor was a welcome fixture in their neighborhood for more than 20 years.
“There was always a bright light around him,” said Patricia Pande, a Culver City resident who spent countless days enjoying Lozano’s ice cream with her granddaughter. “The happiest times I know with her are from the ice cream man.”
A photo of Lozano’s lone ice cream cart spread quickly across social media, triggering a tidal wave of responses from immigration advocates, residents and lawmakers.
Hyperlocal grassroots organizations like Siempre Unidos LA began sharing the image, and soon a crowdfunding campaign for Lozano and his family hit its goal of $6,000 to cover their legal fees and living expenses. The campaign topped $57,000 after the photo drew national attention.
The response to Lozano’s arrest highlights a new strategy emerging after large-scale protests overtook downtown Los Angeles earlier this month. Instead of focusing on marches outside federal buildings, residents of sprawling L.A. County are zeroing in on their own blocks and neighborhoods to show their opposition to Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
A loose coalition of dozens of grassroots organizations whose cellphone-toting members are broadcasting immigration arrests in real time over social media to millions of followers has taken shape across the region.
These groups post and repost the locations of arrests, organize spontaneous protests, help families find information about relatives who have been detained and set up donation drives when needed.
It’s difficult to measure the direct effect these actions have had since Trump’s immigration crackdown, but affected families say the outpouring of support is immeasurable.
“I’m in disbelief,” said Kimberly Noriega, Lozano’s niece. “We felt so hopeless, and then suddenly there was this whole community of Culver City and now an even bigger community behind him.”
His relatives will host an event in support of Lozano on Sunday in Culver City, where they hope to sell his remaining ice cream and popsicles before they turn stale.
Lozano is among more than 1,618 people in Los Angeles who have been arrested by the federal government since it began clamping down on residents without citizenship earlier this month, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The detentions have spread fear across Southern California, where some 1.4 million people are estimated to live without full legal authorization, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Many Home Depot parking lots, where day laborers congregate to find work, now sit empty. Familiar taco trucks have vanished from street corners. Fresh produce is left to rot in fields because employees are too afraid to report to work.
At one multilingual church whose members hail from Iran and Spanish-speaking countries, parishioners with tenuous legal status have been advised to stay home rather than attend service.
A pastor from the Los Angeles church posted a video last week of an Iranian husband and wife being arrested by federal agents on a west L.A. street. The woman suffered a medical emergency during the encounter, which was filmed by the pastor and shared widely on social media.
Activists who saw the video rushed to the hospital where the woman was being treated and recorded interactions with federal officials inside and outside the medical facility.
The woman was released from the hospital into federal custody, and the viral video has helped to warn the Iranian community that immigration officials are working in the area, the pastor told NBC News.
Liz Ramirez, founder of Siempre Unidos LA, which first reposted the image of Lozano’s ice cream truck, said the proliferation of videos developed organically and the trend shows no signs of slowing down.
“Everyone has a vision for what message you’re trying to get across and to whom,” she said of activists. “For Siempre Unidos, our main focus is to mobilize folks from the comfort of their own home.”
Another group, Union del Barrio, posted a video to Instagram that appears to show four federal officers detaining a U.S. citizen. The family of Andrea Velez said she was wrongfully detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and falsely accused of “forcefully obstructing” them during an immigration raid in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday morning.
She was charged Thursday with assaulting a federal officer while he was attempting to arrest a suspect and was released on $5,000 bail. She did not enter a plea and is due back in court on July 17.
The group also posted a video this week appearing to show Los Angeles police officers working with immigration officials, which drew widespread criticism from activists.
The Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement that officers had responded to reports of a kidnapping and encountered an aggressive crowd when they arrived to the scene. The department has a longstanding policy dating back to 1979 of not voluntarily participating in immigration enforcement.
Ron Gochez, a member of Union del Barrio, said dozens of volunteers patrol the streets every day and sift through hundreds of videos submitted each week. Not all content is posted — only what the group can verify through lawyers or firsthand accounts.
“We’re here and we’re here to stay,” he said Wednesday at a rally in downtown Los Angeles.
Centro CSO, a grassroots organization based in the Boyle Heights neighborhood in east Los Angeles, said its social media audience has more than doubled since the raids started this spring.
Like Siempre Unidos, Centro CSO shares videos submitted by residents who witness immigration arrests, and it organizes protests to draw attention to specific cases.
Organizer Gabriel Quiroz Jr. said the group depends on community members to text with information about immigration actions, which it can use to alert vulnerable residents.
“People trust us, rightfully, because we’re out there doing the work,” he said.
