Clean Air Coalition Statement on ICE Raids
At the Clean Air Coalition, we fight for every community’s right to breathe clean air, drink safe water, and shape the decisions that affect their lives. Today, those rights are threatened not only by polluting industries but also by ICE’s criminalization and destabilization of the very neighborhoods we represent and serve. The recent raids across the San Gabriel Valley demand both our attention and our action.
From the fruit vendor on Valley & 6th to the corn seller who nourishes our streets, ICE operations have already torn more than 100 of our neighbors from their families. Forty people vanished from the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet—just blocks from toxic sites like Phibro-Tech. These are not statistics; they are parents, coworkers, and friends in cities such as La Puente (39.7% foreign-born) and Hacienda Heights (40.9% foreign-born) who already shoulder the twin burdens of environmental contamination and state violence.
ICE injustice is environmental injustice.
Detention centers often sit near Superfund sites; tear-gas and flash-bang residue pollute soil and water.
The federal government diverts $8.4 billion to immigration enforcement—money that could remediate lead-tainted yards or secure clean drinking water.
Trauma from raids is linked to PTSD, low-birth-weight infants, and chronic disease—compounding the illnesses caused by lead, air toxics, and contaminated groundwater.
Climate refugees fleeing disasters—some driven by U.S. industrial dumping like Quemetco’s 1993 violations—now face cages in hazardous facilities or raids in neighborhoods already overburdened by pollution.
We cannot condemn the City of Industry’s toxic legacy while staying silent as ICE industrializes fear. Lead plumes, poisoned aquifers, and the chemical fallout of raids are facets of the same struggle for health and dignity.
Therefore, we state unequivocally: defending our environment means defending all who call it home. We denounce the actions of DHS and ICE as antithetical to public health and environmental justice, and we call on allies across labor, faith, climate, and health movements to join us in demanding an end to these raids.
In solidarity,
Clean Air Coalition