As federal immigration raids swept through Los Angeles in recent weeks, many immigrants didn’t just go into hiding—they went “further underground,” community groups said, so afraid of being targeted that even victims of discrimination and harassment are staying silent.

The Los Angeles Civil Rights Department said hate discrimination claims have dropped by nearly a third since the raids began—not because harassment has stopped, but because fear is keeping people from reporting. Advocates warned the chilling effect is silencing some of LA’s most vulnerable residents, even as civil rights groups band together to help.

The Civil Rights Department, founded in 2020, enforces the city’s Civil and Human Rights Law, which prohibits discrimination in private sector areas such as commerce, education, employment and housing. While it doesn’t provide individual legal representation, the department investigates complaints and can hold businesses and landlords accountable for civil rights violations.

Complaints had been surging before the raids but dropped sharply once enforcement ramped up in early June, said Capri Maddox, the department’s founding executive director.

“Our claims have been on the rise, but now that ICE is actively working our city, our claims are going down,” she said. “People are afraid.”

Maddox estimated complaints have fallen by “ probably close to one-third,” in just one week.

Communities retreat “further underground”

But community leaders working directly with immigrants said those numbers only hint at a much deeper fear on the ground.

“We know that they always try to stay under the radar, and not be detected, but now of course, they’ve gone even further, further underground,” said Chanchanit (Chancee) Martorell, founder and executive director of Thai Community Development Center.

She said about half of the organization’s clients are undocumented immigrants, and the raids have amplified long-standing anxieties about being detected. Even people who once cautiously sought help are now pulling back.

“They’re going to avoid at all costs, even more than ever, of basically getting any aid or help from government agencies,” Martorell said. “We’ve already had a hard time for the past 30 years trying to help them trust that the county service or the city service will be okay, (there) won’t be a public charge, and that we’re a sanctuary state, a sanctuary county, a sanctuary city … but now, no, not at all.”

She said some immigrants are even avoiding mandatory immigration court check-ins out of fear of being detained.

“They’re still working, doing everything they can to adjust their status,” she said. “But now all of these people are being apprehended at the courthouses.”

That pattern of fear and silence isn’t unique to the Thai community.

Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, said many people in the Asian American communities are wary of reporting discrimination to government agencies at all, even as hate incidents continue.

“What we have seen since January is more individuals reporting and saying that they have experienced hate in really a new and different way,” she said. “People have come up to them, total strangers, and said the most awful things, including ‘Trump is president now, he will deport you.’”

She said many people fear interacting with government agencies but feel safer going to local nonprofits for help.

“That I think explains and sheds light on the value of our community-based organizations, because they can help people report and they can help provide services that address the racial trauma that people are feeling,” Kulkarni said.

While she said they haven’t yet seen a clear spike in reported hate incidents specifically tied to the latest ICE raids, the mood in many ethnic neighborhoods is unmistakably tense.

“People in our community are scared. They are nervous,” Kulkarni said. “You can just see (it) in some of the ethnic enclaves, they’re so quiet. Like Little India in Artesia, like parts of Chinatown, even Koreatown … they’re worried that they could get picked up, that their family members could get picked up by these masked agents who don’t carry identification.”

That same pattern of fear and silence is playing out across immigrant communities far beyond Los Angeles’s Asian enclaves.

“The recent ICE raids have created widespread fear and panic among Southern California’s immigrant communities,” said Amr Shabaik, legal director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Greater Los Angeles office. “Even before these raids, many community members were wary of reporting to law enforcement or government agencies due to a well-founded mistrust rooted in historical inequities, over-policing, and undue surveillance.”

He said the raids have deepened those fears, leaving lasting trauma and discouraging people from basic daily activities, such as “grocery shopping, attending community events, or even appearing at their legal court hearings.”

Despite this climate of fear, Shabaik said the organization continues to receive many requests for help.

“We urge community members to continue seeking legal support and assistance from groups like CAIR-LA so we can help those facing discrimination or challenges related to their immigration status,” he said.

Legal aid groups see surging demand

Even as formal discrimination complaints drop, legal aid organizations are scrambling to respond to a flood of urgent requests tied to immigration enforcement.

Gina Amato Lough, directing attorney of Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said the recent ICE raids have triggered a dramatic spike in calls for help.

“There’s always been a huge need for immigration legal services, but now more than ever, it seems as if somebody is connected to somebody who has been detained in the recent raid,” she said. “We’re getting multiple requests a day to respond to a new detention, and that is very new. I’ve been doing this work at Public Counsel for more than 17 years, and that was never the case.”

She described being inundated with pleas for help through every channel imaginable, work email, cellphone, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Some of the cases are urgent and personal. Just today, she said, a colleague discovered her cousin had been detained for over a month, while another coworker was preparing to accompany a young boy delivering medicine and a sweater to his grandfather in detention.

Advocate groups call for solidarity, protections

The fear sparked by the ICE raids has also drawn immigrant advocacy groups together in shared resistance. At a press conference in Little Tokyo on Thursday, Asian American advocacy groups denounced recent ICE raids in a show of solidarity with the Latino community.

The event also drew state Assemblymember Mike Fong, Los Angeles Councilmembers Ysabel Jurado and Nithya Raman, as well as Oscar Zarate, director of external affairs for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.

“We know what it means to be ignored as contributors to society, as members of families and communities, to be ignored as whole human beings, until we’re not,” said John Kim, the president and CEO of Catalyst California. “We are familiar, tragically, very familiar, with that moment when the spotlight and heat turns on us, when all of a sudden we are the enemy.”

Even as fear keeps many from coming forward, community organizations say they’re determined to keep helping—offering legal aid, documenting ICE activity, and building mutual aid networks to deliver food, cash assistance, and other support for those too afraid to leave home.

Maddox, at the LA Civil Rights Department, urged immigrants not to stay silent.

“When they come for one of us, they are coming for all of us,” she said. “We want the immigrant community to feel empowered to speak up and to know the LA Civil Rights Department is still here to fight with and for them, regardless of their immigration status.”

SCNG summer intern Alex Crosnoe contributed to this story