LA running club monitors for immigration agents

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Iris Delgado started a running club in her largely Latino, Los Angeles suburb two years ago to connect runners and advocate for safety measures like crosswalks and designated bike lanes.

Now, with the Trump administration’s immigration raids rocking Huntington Park, the group’s motto of keeping each other safe has taken on even greater meaning.

The Huntington Park Run Club’s Instagram carries posts warning of federal immigration agent sightings. A bike marshal accompanies every meet-up, zipping past the runners on his electric bike to ensure everyone is accounted for and feeling good. Since the raids ramped up this summer, Delgado also brings flyers and cards to each run informing people and local businesses of their rights.

Less than a mile north of her route is a Home Depot whose parking lot has been hit multiple times by immigration raids, causing the next door high school to go into lockdown during its graduation ceremony in June. A few blocks south is the home where a woman and her two children were sleeping when federal agents used explosives that blasted the door off and shattered windows. They were looking for a man who was wanted for allegedly ramming his car into a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vehicle during a protest. The case has since been dismissed.

Amidst it all, the Huntington Park Run Club runs on, trying to protect and reclaim the streets the runners call home.

Evelyn Romo, 25, who joined the club after she returned home from college, said just going out to run now makes a statement in the community.

“Continuing to take up space even in the form of running in these streets is a form of protest, is a form of resistance,” she said.

The club has never canceled a run. It’s important to maintain a space for people to come and decompress, and feel safe, Delgado said.

Delgado runs twice a week with her group. On a recent Wednesday, she led around 30 runners in warm-up stretches, and then they were off, streaming ahead of and behind her, their feet striking the pavement in quick succession. The group’s members range from as young as 11 to people in their 60s and 70s.

Delgado said her club’s members reflect the larger community and that they do not share the immigration status of participants.

The Trump administration’s focus on arresting people suspected of living in the country illegally has transformed life for tens of thousands of people in Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous county. About a third of the county’s 10 million residents are foreign-born, and an untold number of people are now trying to live without being seen.

Huntington Park, along with several other cities in the region, canceled its Fourth of July celebration and summer movie nights as families stayed home due to safety concerns.

U.S. citizens and other legal residents have been swept up in raids. The Supreme Court recently lifted temporary restrictions from a judge who found that roving patrols were conducting indiscriminate stops in and around LA. The order had barred immigration agents from stopping people solely based on their race, language, job or location.

Marco Padilla, 18, joined the club a week after it began two years ago.

Padilla, who was born and raised in Huntington Park, said everyone in the community has felt the effects of the raids, regardless of their immigration status. Some of his friends’ parents have been worried about letting them hang out in public places like the park, and others have told him it’s too dangerous to be running by immigration “hot spots.”

He recalled the morning of his high school senior breakfast, when he and his friends heard yelling and screaming as armed immigration officers ran past just beyond the school’s gates.

“Some people have chosen to be hidden … but ironically for our group, we have actually decided to do the opposite,” he said.

The club has held several fundraisers for a community fund, raising about $8,000 to date to support day laborers at Home Depot stores, which have long been informal job-seeking hubs for workers in the country both legally and illegally. Now the locations have become a prime target for immigration agents.

Being part of the community, the runners have a responsibility to alert people to the raids and document them with their phones, Delgado said. The club has hosted trainings on how to do that safely and informs runners who to call if they see something. Some club members said they’ve witnessed raids while running on their own, and quickly let Delgado know or messaged their group chat.

“Our main community value is to keep each other safe and look out for each other,” Delgado said. “That agreement is part of our culture at this point.”