ICE Raids Are ‘Causing Fear and Widespread Disruption’ in the Coachella Valley: a Study Shows AI Is Making People Lazier and Dumber–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: June 19, 2025

Indy Digest: June 19, 2025

Local media outlets received a press release from the Desert Recreation District yesterday. It had nothing to do with parks, or recreation facilities, or fun family events.

“At approximately 9 a.m. this morning, Desert Recreation District staff were made aware of federal law enforcement agencies staging in our Oasis del Desierto Park parking lot,” the press release said. “The district was not provided advance notice, nor did it coordinate with any law enforcement agency for their use of this location. All federal personnel departed the property from 10:45 a.m.”

Oasis del Desierto Park was just one of numerous places in the Coachella Valley where heavily militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up on that day—and on many other June days. Thankfully, some local elected officials are speaking out.

“ICE raids that occurred on June 18 are causing fear and widespread disruption in communities in the Coachella Valley,” said Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez in a statement. “Reports recount aggressive migrant operations, including a raid at a Food 4 Less in Indio, targeting the most vulnerable communities like farm workers. These actions, carried out by masked agents with paramilitary tactics, are completely unnecessary in communities filled with working people. These raids are inhumane and destabilizing.

“There is no plan, no organization, no respect for due process guarantees,” Perez continued. “We urgently call on our federal leaders to stand up for our community in the face of the Trump administration, for transparency and accountability, and to put an immediate end to these traumatic operations that separate families and sow discord.”

Earlier today, we published a story—by local journalist, musician and activist Esther Sanchez—that looks at how the immigrant-rights community reacted on June 6, when ICE started significantly ramping up local raids. In the piece, Esther makes an interesting point: While some people have been surprised by these ICE actions, others saw them coming.

“A common narrative was shared by multiple representatives at the (June 6) press conference was: They had been expecting this for some time,” Esther writes. “‘President Trump said he was going to do it, and we took him at his word,’ one speaker stated. ‘That’s why we’ve been preparing for this.’”

Perez is absolutely right when he calls these raids inhumane, destabilizing and traumatic. How is America being made “great again” by raiding grocery stores, restaurants, U-Haul locations and even people’s yards (to “catch” gardeners)?

These actions don’t make America greater. They make it a punitive state inching disturbingly close to authoritarianism.

To those of you support these raids in the name of legality, or dismiss them as not affecting you, here’s a warning: In a nation without due process, where people can be snatched up by masked, unidentified paramilitary agents without charges or warrants, nobody is safe.

What happened to America being the land of the free and the home of the brave?

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Los Angeles has become the epicenter of the ICE raids—and the resistance—and some truly strange things are happening there. Today—after the Los Angeles Dodgers announced they would be making a statement regarding assisting immigrant communities—federal agents showed up at Dodger Stadium. The Los Angeles Times reports: “A line of unmarked white vans and SUVs at Dodger Stadium sparked a wave of speculation online about immigration enforcement at the stadium Thursday, but team officials say the agents were denied entry. In photos posted on social media Thursday morning, the vehicles appeared to be staging near the downtown parking lot entrance to the stadium, which drew several dozen protesters to the area. … Five agents—several covering their faces with gaiters and armed with pistols—stood between the vehicles. They did not wear identifying items or badges. When asked by a Times reporter which agency they were with, they said ‘DHS’ and declined to comment further. … According to a statement by the team, the agents were denied entry to the Dodger Stadium grounds when they attempted to enter the parking lots. … But both the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials took to social media to address Thursday’s events. Responding to the team’s post on social media, ICE posted on X: ‘False. We were never there.’”

• Also in L.A.: The Los Angeles Press Club is suing the L.A. Police Department following apparent attacks on journalists during the recent protests. The Washington Post, via MSN, reports: “The Los Angeles Press Club sued the city of Los Angeles and its police chief, Jim McDonnell, over alleged police violence toward journalists covering the ongoing protests of immigration raids in L.A. The press club, which advocates for journalists in Southern California, filed its lawsuit Monday in federal district court in Los Angeles, saying that the defendants violated journalists’ First Amendment rights by using ‘excessive force’ against them. ‘Being a journalist in Los Angeles is now a dangerous profession,’ the group wrote in its complaint. ‘LAPD actions during the June 2025 protests in downtown Los Angeles reveal a brazen refusal to abide by the Constitution and state law and repeats the same conduct by the Defendant City repeatedly held to be unconstitutional by the federal courts for the past 25 years.’”

• Our partners at Calmatters report that restaurants and food businesses statewide are feeling the effects of these ICE raids: The lede: “Brandon Mejia usually spends his weekends conducting a symphony of vendors serving pupusas, huaraches and an array of tacos at his two weekly 909Tacolandia pop-up events. Half food festival, half swap meet, the events draw 100-plus vendors a week in Pomona and San Bernardino. They offer a way to ‘legalize’ street food—vendors get a reliable location, cities collect taxes and enforce health codes—while patrons enjoy delicacies from all over Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Spanglish music plays, people dance and kids flock to facepainting and pony rides. But in the past week, that’s all come to a screeching halt. As the Trump administration ramps up immigration raids in California, some restaurants, worried about their workers or finding that customers are staying home more, are closing temporarily. Many street vendors are going into hiding, and some food festivals and farmers markets have been canceled.“

• A vaccine expert who left the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the anti-science reign of Robert F. Kennedy put things bluntly in an interview with The New York Times: “Americans Are Going to Die.” Details: “Dr. (Fiona) Havers, 49, cited an escalating series of attacks on federal vaccine policy by Mr. Kennedy. Three weeks ago, the health secretary announced in a minute-long video on X that the agency would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women. Last week, he fired all 17 members of the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, saying without evidence that the group was beset with conflicts of interest and that a clean sweep was needed to restore public trust. Mr. Kennedy went on to name eight new members, at least half of whom appear to share his antipathy to vaccines. Two have testified against vaccine makers in trials. … ‘It’s a very transparent, rigorous process, and they have just taken a sledgehammer to it in the last several weeks,’ Dr. Havers said.”

• Cruelty is the norm these days, it seems, whenever the presidential administration makes a decision. It’s leading to headlines like these: “Trump administration to shut down LGBTQ youth suicide hotlines.” NBC News says: “The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced Tuesday that the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will no longer use its LGBTQ youth services, also known as the ‘Press 3 option,’ effective July 17. The agency said it will ‘no longer silo LGB+ youth services’—notably removing the ‘T’ representing the trans community in the initialism—to ‘focus on serving all help seekers, including those previously served through the Press 3 option.’ The Press 3 option rolled out as a pilot program in 2022 in a government contract with the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ people. … SAMHSA insisted that affected youths can still receive help, but from the general hotline number.”

• And finally … an new study by MIT of the effects of AI shows that, well, the technology may be making users dumber. Time magazine reports: “The study divided 54 subjects—18 to 39 year-olds from the Boston area—into three groups, and asked them to write several SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Researchers used an EEG to record the writers’ brain activity across 32 regions, and found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and ‘consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.’ Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.” Ugh.

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