During a time when fear of immigration raids looms over the streets of Los Angeles, many street vendors face a difficult choice: staying indoors, losing income and risking eviction, or working outside and risking deportation.
This is the reality for Alberto, a street vendor from Paramount who sells tacos with his wife.
“We were really scared. Ever since the federal government started raids in Los Angeles, we stopped selling in the streets,” he said in Spanish.
Alberto declined to have his last name published for fear of deportation. He said his stress has grown along with his worry of the federal government potentially coming to tear apart the life he has worked so hard for.
Alberto’s anxiety has worsened with each month since immigrant enforcement raids in the L.A. area began earlier this summer, he said. In September, a vein ruptured in his right eye, partially blinding him with his own blood. He attributed it to “the stress that I have.”
Alberto came to the United States from Veracruz, Mexico nearly 30 years ago. Eventually he settled down and started a family. He and his wife began their small business selling artisanal Mexican street food roughly five years ago, starting right before the pandemic.
They prepare and sell cultural specialties like tacos de canasta, the flavorful “basket tacos” popular in central Mexico.
But earlier this year, they found themselves too afraid to continue working as they did.
Fear has prevented many immigrant vendors who are undocumented, like Alberto, from selling in the streets to avoid deportation. Yet if they stay home, they also lose their income to pay for basic necessities, like housing.
“We had to take out a loan to pay. We already owe two months rent,” he said, referring to his trailer home. “The company said if we don’t pay for the next month, then they’re gonna ask us to sell, so that I could pay what I owed them.”
Alberto pointed out that vendors like him face many risks, from being separated from their families to the loss of their businesses, their economic status and the ability to contribute to the economy.
“When I was in school, I had the opportunity to read one of the books at school of the second World War,” Alberto said. “We read about the Gestapo, the Nazis, and how they were controlling. Believe me, that’s how I feel right now.”
How a new state law might help
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has lately signed several bills into law that are intended to offer protection from federal immigration agents. These include SB 627 or the “No Secret Police Act,” which prohibits law enforcement officers, including U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), from concealing their identities with face coverings while performing their duties.
One other bill received the governor’s signature this month: SB 635, the “Street Vendor Business Protection Act.” The new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, aims to protect street vendors’ personal information from being accessed by federal immigration officials. Vendors’ personal data is collected by local agencies when they apply for street vending permits.
SB 635 prohibits the sharing of that information with federal officials. It also bans requirements in permit applications that could lead to discrimination, like fingerprinting or criminal background checks. The idea is to create an environment where immigrant vendors feel safe and supported.
“Once the bill becomes law next year, the cities and counties that require fingerprinting and background checks would be forced to amend their ordinances to remove that provision,” said Shannon Camacho, a senior associate of policy at Inclusive Action for the City, an organization that campaigned for legal street vending and now provides various support programs.
Camacho added that any information collected through past background checks would have to be deleted by March 2026.
Local street vendor rights groups such as Inclusive Action for the City and Community Power Collective began working with vendor leaders late last year to create and sponsor SB 635.
The coalition behind the bill continuously works with street vendors to obtain feedback and address any potential gaps that may interfere with their livelihood.
“That helps inform what we need to do to address the realities they’re facing …in addition to the racial profiling, which I think is much more pronounced this time around,” Camacho said.
Camacho referred to recent arrests by immigration agents as “kidnappings,” and said street vendors by the very nature of their work are vulnerable to this: “I think the violence is also something that is very scary, and something that is more new during this administration.”
Inclusive Action for the City started a cash assistance program to raise funds and distribute them to struggling street vendors who don’t feel it’s safe to work. This emergency fund effort began after the wildfires last January, and has been reintroduced in light of the immigration raids.
The organization also has a “Hire-A-Vendor” program that allows customers to contract vendors through Inclusive Action. Street vendors are trained to cater individual events, in settings they deem safe “to sell their food or merchandise and not face the same level of risk” as on the street, Camacho said.
‘We want to exist’
This is what Alberto is doing now. He and his wife signed up for the catering program and have since taken workshops to learn about catering and microbusiness management. Since the raids began, they have stayed away from selling on the street, selling at catering events once a week instead.
As Alberto takes time to allow his eye to recover, his wife has taken over the cooking for their mini-catering business.
The move has given both a chance to share unique flavors of their culture that they wouldn’t often see offered on L.A. streets. Alberto and his wife serve items like tamales wrapped in banana leaves, and tostadas and empanadas filled with slow-roasted marinated pork, a traditional Yucatán delicacy.
“Everyone collaborates with Inclusive Action because they offer an incredible opportunity,” Alberto said. He is grateful to have support from organizations like this one, which he describes as having come to feel like family, always just a phone call away.
Still, Alberto notes that the fight to protect undocumented street vendors is far from over. In a city celebrated for its diverse street food, he expressed his disappointment that the same community often overlooks the undocumented vendors who help give Los Angeles its flavor.
“We hope it is achieved because it really is a relief,” he said. “We are a majority minority in this state, and it’s incredible how we can’t unite to achieve what we want.”
Alberto hopes for a future where undocumented street vendors and all people are treated with dignity, free to enrich their vibrant cultural communities in a city that recognizes they belong here, too.
“We want to exist. We want to work. We want to be part of this country, of this state, and contribute,” he said. “Si se puede.”