The LA chefs and shops delivering food to immigrants scared to go out: ‘I know how to feed people’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/25/los-angeles-immigrants-food-delivery

Version 1 of 2.

After Ice’s infiltration of LA, the community is rallying to provide essentials for survival for those forced to stay home

When Danielle Duran Zecca saw military-style immigration raids and people being snatched off the streets and put into unmarked vehicles in her native Los Angeles earlier this summer, she was in disbelief.

“It just felt unreal like this wasn’t a world that we could be living in right now,” said Duran Zecca, a James Beard Award nominated chef and co-owner of Amiga Amore in Highland Park, a historically Latino neighborhood in north-east LA. “I didn’t know what to do, but I knew how to feed people and love on people because that is exactly how I was brought up in my family.”

When several of Duran Zecca’s workers expressed fear about coming into the restaurant, the chef had a realization.

“If they didn’t want to leave their homes, how many others were like this and how many weren’t eating,” she said. Earlier in the year, Amiga Amore received donations that allowed the Mexican-Italian restaurant to give meals away to those affected by the LA wildfires, but this time she would need a different approach, one that made people feel safe.

So Duran Zecca began personally delivering free meals to 25 to 30 people every other Sunday in nearby Boyle Heights. “As soon as I get the food ready I send my messages out that I’m on my way,” said Duran Zecca, who has brought dishes such as steak tortas, chicken kebabs, shrimp spaghetti and breakfast burritos to people’s front doors. “[The meals] are things that I feel will comfort them.”

Since Ice began to infiltrate LA in June, once-bustling neighborhoods have become quiet. Vendors locked up stalls in the flower district. Popular taco stands and fruit carts are closed and some restaurants sit empty. Although it is unknown exactly how many people are staying home due to Ice’s aggressive arrests, immigration sweeps at restaurants, farms, Home Depots and even car washes have created a chilling effect on businesses that rely on immigrant labor. Restaurants such as Amiga Amore and other groups from the food and hospitality industry are stepping in to help people in their community who have nowhere to turn – even while their own businesses are suffering economically.

Immigrants make up a sizable share of the workforce in the restaurant industry. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, a non-profit, nonpartisan thinktank, restaurants in the golden state are staffed overwhelmingly by Latinos and immigrants – 79% and 66% respectively. Nationwide, at least 20% of restaurant workers are immigrants. “Latinos are not only the backbone to our industry, they are the industry,” said Duran Zecca. “Behind every chef are Latino line cooks ready to make magic happen. All they want to do is work, make a living and feed their families.”

To make her deliveries twice every month, Duran Zecca receives logistical support from her good friend Damián Diaz, the co-founder of No Us Without You, an LA-based non-profit that provides food security for undocumented people, including back of the house staff from bars and restaurants.

“The administration has been doubling down on making it much more difficult for the families in the community and also small grassroots organizations like us to really be impactful,” said Diaz. In the past, No Us Without You had drive-through lines for food distribution, but stepped-up enforcement made that impossible, so they pivoted to working with a coalition of restaurants to serve up to 40 families every fortnight so they can shelter at home.

“This environment of fear in light of increased enforcement, and really excessive enforcement, is causing folks to miss out on some very key necessities such as doctor’s appointments and going to the grocery store,” said Rita Fernández director of immigration policy project at UnidosUS, a Latino non-profit advocacy organization. “It’s leading to a point where people are withdrawing from public life.”

This summer, Congress allocated $170.7bn in additional funding for immigration and border enforcement through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law by Donald Trump. The shocking sum is fueling Ice’s operations and creating what some critics call a “deportation-industrial complex”.

“What we are seeing already is going to be turbocharged,” said Fernández.

That’s why many others in the restaurant and non-profit industry have also been mobilizing to bring groceries to immigrants who are in hiding. The Oaxacan-Mediterranean restaurant X’tiosu in Boyle Heights, one of the US’s most heavily Latino-populated neighborhoods, packed 150 bags of fresh produce, dried pasta and other goods that were delivered to people in need by local Oaxacan youth in June and they have continued to support undocumented families. The student-led group, Raíces Con Voz, coordinated food and care package deliveries to more than 200 families, and Aquí Para La Comunidad, which operates throughout southern California, has a growing waitlist.

Vanny Arias decided to host an impromptu food drive in front of the Offbeat Bar in Highland Park, where she’s a bartender, after realizing people staying home were likely in need of groceries. “We had signs, we were on social media and we got so much food it was crazy – we filled up half the bar with food,” she said of the July event. Arias organized with other community activists and volunteers to start dispensing basics.

Once she launched an Instagram account, she started hearing directly from desperate families. “People said: ‘My husband got arrested’ or ‘We’re afraid to leave the house and my kids haven’t eaten in days,’” said Arias. “When you’re on the ground you see the hurt and pain in their eyes and hear it in their voices.”

Since July, Arias’s Nela Food Distribution has grown to deliver free groceries to 150 people in and around Highland Park with the help of community donations, two local food warehouses, a bakery and a team of volunteers. “We’re a bunch of people who love their community,” said Arias. “I don’t care what color you are, we’re freaking humans and I’m here for you. You’re not alone.”

And it’s not just in and around Los Angeles. Efforts to help feed people staying home have stretched throughout the state.

When Mohamed Saeed, owner of Dinuba Food Center in the Central valley, saw that aggressive immigration enforcement was stoking fear in his community and keeping many of his regular customers away, he decided to launch a grocery delivery service in June. “People are really scared; Dinuba is slow, there’s no traffic and people aren’t going outside like before,” he said of the city, which is primarily populated by Latinos.

Today, he makes up to 55 deliveries each day in and around Dinuba and tells his customers to only open the door once they see his logo on his truck. “I feel like if I make 40 deliveries in a day I help save 40 families who are staying home,” said Saeed, who immigrated to the US from Yemen at age 13. “My job is to serve the people living here and if I don’t do that then I don’t deserve this job.”

UnidosUS’s Fernández said these grassroots efforts emphasize the resilience of the Latino community and broader community and that people coming together to help their neighbors offers hope and kindness at a critical time.

“My abuelita and my mom taught me hospitality at home; it’s always about helping people,” said No Us Without You’s Diaz. “The past years have been relentless for so many families and communities. I really want to create an impact. It’s not about changing the world, it’s about changing your community and the folks who live in it.”