Non-Profit Help Families Afraid To Leave Their Homes With Food Deliveries

Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, June 18, 2025…

• Many immigrant families in Los Angeles are frightened to leave their homes, as federal immigration agents continue to make daily arrests in public places. So two local non-profit executives decided to do something about it. Deliver meals. 
• A group of Democratic congress members, led by Representative Judy Chu of Pasadena, visited the Adelanto Detention Facility in San Bernardino County on Tuesday. They were denied entry there last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
• US Senator Alex Padilla says that President Trump’s actions in California are meant to test the boundaries of his power. On Tuesday, he delivered his first speech on the Senate floor since he was handcuffed and detained at a Homeland Security news conference last week in Los Angeles.

Afraid To Leave Home Amid ICE Raids? YMCA Delivers Meals To You

Jimmy Ozaeta stuffs his Jeep Wrangler with 340 frozen meals: beef kabobs, spaghetti and meatballs, canned soup. He’s about to drive this food from the Ketchum-Downtown YMCA to Bell Gardens, where seven immigrant families too frightened to leave home are waiting for him. “It really has been an Underground Railroad kind of deal,” says Ozaeta, senior vice president of mission advancement at the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles. “The word is spreading amongst the community.”

On June 9, days after federal immigration agents began daily arrests in public places in LA, the local YMCA posted on Instagram that they had a new hotline for immigrant families to call if they needed free food. They also requested community donations — and got them. The very next day, Ozaeta and his colleagues started bringing people supplies. They’ve received dozens of calls, and every day connect with more families through word of mouth. To protect the families’ identities, only a few senior leaders are responsible for deliveries.

Mario Valenzuela, the senior vice president of social impact, came up with the meal delivery idea — a first for the YMCA of Metropolitan LA. Valenzuela’s heard from people who are no longer going to work, or running quick errands for things like water or cooking oil. “The fact that they’re just so afraid that they won’t even walk down to the corner to get that stuff just really shows the level of fear that we’re experiencing,” he said.

Democratic Lawmakers Call For Transparency After Touring Adelanto Detention Facility

A group of Democratic congressmembers visited the Adelanto Detention Facility Tuesday and are urging federal immigration officials to be more transparent about conditions inside the center. The lawmakers spoke to several people who were arrested in recent immigration raids across Southern California and are now detained at the facility.

On June 8, ICE denied Congresswoman Judy Chu entry to Adelanto, despite a federal law that allows unannounced visits by members of Congress. But on Tuesday, Chu and fellow Reps. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Luz Rivas and Mark Takano were granted access for a tour.

Chu’s office says the detention center is now holding around 1,100 people, up from about 300 people a month ago. The increase follows a recent legal settlement allowing the private prison operator contracting with ICE — GEO Group — to hold more people at the site. Chu said some detainees told her they went without clean clothes for over a week and had no way to contact attorneys or family members because they hadn’t been issued phone PINs required to make calls from inside.

“They are very upset, anxious and fearful,” said Chu. “They don’t know what the future holds for them, and in the meanwhile, the conditions that they’re facing in there are not good.”

Alex Padilla Recounts His Removal From DHS News Conference In Emotional Senate Speech

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to emotionally describe the moments that led to him being forcefully removed from a news conference last week focused on the Trump administration’s response to the immigration protests in Los Angeles.

Padilla was in the same Los Angeles federal building last Thursday where Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was outlining President Trump’s decision to send in National Guard troops and U.S. Marines in response to the protests. Padilla said that a meeting he had scheduled with a separate official down the hall was delayed by the Noem event, so he decided to attend.

Padilla said he asked to attend and was escorted into the press conference by FBI and National Guard officials. As he tried to question Noem, another set of officials grabbed him and removed him from the room. “You’ve seen the video. I was pushed and pulled, struggled to maintain my balance. I was forced to the ground. First on my knees and then flat on my chest, and was handcuffed and marched down a hallway repeatedly asking, ‘Why am I being detained?'” Padilla recalled. “Not once did they tell me why. I pray you never have a moment like this.”

In his remarks Tuesday — his first on the Senate floor since the incident — Padilla said his detainment marked a turning point in what he described as the Trump administration’s “undemocratic crackdown” on protest.