Fear of ICE hinders the rebuilding of California’s fire-ravaged zones

The sound of hammers, drills and Mexican music herald the rising from the ashes of Altadena. Just over a year ago, only the charred remains of homes blasted by the Eaton wildfires were in evidence. Now, the wooden skeletons of houses are multiplying and gradually recovering their shape. As one of the most devastating wildfires in California’s recent history, it claimed 19 lives, leveled thousands of homes and reduced an entire neighborhood to rubble. But on one construction site, manager Ian Hernández has a task that goes beyond supervising the workers. Before he arrives, he checks social media to make sure there are no Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the vicinity. That morning, he says, he checked that the coast was clear.

According to Hernández, ICE raids keep crews on alert and scare away those with irregular immigration status. This fear is not unfounded: ICE has shown up at various construction sites in Altadena and arrested several workers. Others have been detained on their way to work. According to organizations that defend migrants, ICE has been seeking undocumented migrants since reconstruction began.

“In February, a car on Mendocina Street let us know that ICE was just around the corner. Some workers hid and others stayed. Nothing happened. It was Friday. On Saturday, no one came to work,” says Hernández, an Oaxacan foreman who supervises the construction of 10 houses. Mendocina Street was one of the last to be engulfed by the Eaton fire in January 2025. It is now part of an area of vacant lots where a middle-class neighborhood once sprawled across the foothills of the Angeles National Forest. Previous fires had never reached so far south.

Almost all the houses being rebuilt in Altadena have chained and padlocked the two-meter-high fences that surround them, even during the working day. “It’s so that ICE doesn’t have access,” explains another foreman. “God willing, they will never come here, and nothing will happen.”

Billboards warn: Do not enter without authorization. Private property. Other factors accounting for the slow progress of reconstruction include bottlenecks in processing permits from the local government, a process that can take up to 125 business days; indemnities from insurers that fail to cover the total cost of construction; and the increase in the cost of materials and labor.

“ICE agents were in Altadena and Pasadena [a neighboring city] for five consecutive days,” says José Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Labor Center, an organization that functions as a safe meeting point for employers and day laborers, as well as cleaners. “The owners of the houses have told us that the builders no longer want to come to work. That affects families because they cannot return to their homes.”

But the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) maintains that ICE raids on workplaces are “a fundamental pillar” of its strategy to protect the public and the country’s economy. The agency also claims it seeks to rescue possible victims of labor trafficking and exploitation. “These operations aim to dismantle illegal employment networks that harm U.S. workers, destabilize labor markets, and threaten communities,” DHS said in a written statement to EL PAÍS.

“I pray they leave them alone”

The new home of African American Damon Blount is half-built. The work began in April and now a crew of construction workers is putting on the roof. It will take eight to 10 months to complete, but Blount is confident his family can settle there before Christmas — that is, if ICE doesn’t show up.

“There are a lot of Hispanic workers in the community right now, and I just pray they leave people alone, that they allow them to rebuild, and that they let us go home,” Blount says. Some of his neighbors have been unlucky. “They said that ICE agents have taken three or four workers, and that has caused delays.”

Immigrant advocacy organizations, media, and politicians have reported ICE raids at construction sites, bus stops, area coffee shops, and at traffic lights. Last January, the day that Altadena commemorated the first anniversary of the Eaton Fire, ICE returned to the streets of the city. “These chaotic raids are never justified, but they are especially cruel when they target our friends and loved ones, including the people who do the physical and specialized work needed to help us recover from this disaster,” said state Senator Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democrat who represents the area.

Volunteers patrol the streets in a bid to detect ICE vehicles, but their efforts have not been enough. “The migra [ICE] comes here often. The agents ride in private cars and it is difficult to identify them,” explains Andrés Rivas, a 70-year-old Salvadoran who is looking to be hired by one of the properties in Altadena. Rivas is a U.S. citizen, but he still fears he could be detained and spend some time in immigration custody. “They come very early. The risk exists,” he says.

A slow business

The resurgence of Altadena, where the Eaton fire destroyed 6,746 homes, has been, above all, lacking in funds. As of June 19, the Los Angeles County government had issued 2,845 building permits, but only 89 homes were habitable. More than 1,600 houses were still under construction, from laying the foundations to the final finishes.

Marialyce Pedersen hopes her home will be ready soon. Right now, there’s just a plot of land. For two decades, she lived in a house in Altadena that she bought from a friend and that, over the years, she filled with memories. Among the most precious were her grandmother’s piano and dozens of children’s books that she dreamed of reading to her grandchildren. Everything went. “It was horrible, it’s the worst thing that has happened to me,” said Pedersen, 62, who has worked as an environmental consultant and adviser to the Walt Disney Company.

Pedersen has already reached out to her trusted builder, a Salvadoran migrant who has been in the U.S. for 25 years. But she fears that he or one of his workers could be detained by ICE, either on her property or at one of the Home Depot stores where they buy materials.

“Some believe that white construction workers are going to come and rebuild their house. Well, good luck with that. It is not going to happen. Hispanic migrants are the ones who are working reconstruction and the ones who are here in our community,” Pedersen says. “They are willing to work, even in this heat.”

The day laborers who never made it to Altadena

Out of nowhere, four pickup trucks screeched to a stop in front of a bus stop next to a coffee shop in Pasadena. Several masked officers got out. It was the morning of June 18, 2025, amid the intensification of raids in the LA metropolitan area — part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation offensive. Among those arrested were three day laborers who were on their way to work on a house in Altadena: Pedro Vázquez Perdomo, Isaac Antonio Villegas Molina, and Carlos Alexander Osorto. The three were handcuffed. One of them, who tried to escape on foot, had a taser pressed to his head. “Stop or I’m going to use it,” the officer shouted, according to court documents.

Instead of arriving in Altadena, the three day laborers ended up in the parking lot of a CVS pharmacy. There, they had their immigration status verified. They were then transferred to the ICE detention center in Adelanto, about 60 miles from L.A. However, these three men have refused to go quietly and have filed a lawsuit against the federal government flagging up alleged racist language used by the ICE agents during their arrest.

Pablo Alvarado, leader of the National Day Laborer Network (NDLON), says that this is one of the clearest examples of how ICE operations are affecting a city that is trying to get back on its feet. “Contractors can’t find enough labor. Although it was said they would not carry out raids here, the migra has been in the vicinity and has detained workers,” Alvarado says. “It’s clear that, in the literal sense, migrants are rebuilding communities and ICE is disrupting this through immoral, inhumane, cruel and illegal operations.”

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