PHOTO ESSAY: Life in LA swings between courage and caution for thousands after immigration raids

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three months after aggressive immigration raids began in Southern California, everyday life has shifted. Masked agents pull up, and neighbors mount quick protests. Priests bring Communion to homes. Children log on to class instead of walking to school. Still, people step out — the rent is due. Work doesn’t pause.

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.

Day laborers still gather at a Home Depot lot in Los Angeles’ Van Nuys neighborhood, despite several raids there by immigration agents. A new sign outside a day labor center warns law enforcement not to enter the building without a warrant. Antonio from Guatemala — who, like other migrants interviewed for this article, didn’t want to reveal his full name because he doesn’t want to identify himself to the authorities — shows up in his pickup truck and with a whistle, ready to warn if agents from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement are coming. He said he is vigilant all the time but refuses to live a life in hiding.

Street vendor Carmen, an immigrant from Guatemala, glances both ways as she fills a cup with fruit juice on a Los Angeles sidewalk. Juan Manuel runs his clothing subcontracting shop with its folding metal shutter shut and locked from the inside. Another contractor couple works at a sewing machine with their three daughters beside them, instead of sending the girls to summer programs. They work at night instead of during the day to avoid detection.

The smell of tear gas has long since faded outside the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center, where National Guard troops and Marines stood guard in response to protests. The armored vehicles are gone, but a lone American flag still hangs upside down from a pole placed nearby.

On Olvera Street, a popular Mexican marketplace, young server Diego Garcia smiles as he takes an order. Elsewhere, vendors glance up whenever helicopters fly by. Missing person signs are posted by families searching for loved ones they believe have been arrested by immigration officers.

For these communities, life swings between courage and caution. Making ends meet comes first for many. Fear is just an inconvenience.

This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.

An upside-down American flag, a signal of distress and protest, hangs outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, Saturday, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Flower vendor Jose, an immigrant from Mexico, sits for a photo with his face covered by flowers outside a gas station in Los Angeles, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

People play soccer during sunset in MacArthur Park, an area that was recently targeted in ICE raids, in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Guillermo Trejo, center, plays cards with friends at a park in Oxnard, Calif., Friday, July 18, 2025, as demonstrators gather to protest a recent ICE raid. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Anaise, 3, clings to her mother, Veronica, an immigrant from Guatemala, as she works at a sewing machine in Los Angeles, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025, amid ongoing ICE raids. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Flowers are placed outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A man rides his bike past signs protesting ICE, displayed on a fence across the street from a Home Depot in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025, amid ongoing ICE raids. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Surveillance cameras hang above the entrance to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility known as "B-18," where immigration hearings take place, in Los Angeles, Friday, July 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Street vendor Hector, an immigrant from Guatemala, waits for customers at his food cart in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Day laborer Antonio, an immigrant from Guatemala, stands outside a day labor center in the parking lot of a Home Depot where a sign warns that law enforcement needs a warrant to enter, in Los Angeles, Friday, July 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A day laborer talks to a potential client in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Los Angeles, which was targeted in ICE raids, Friday, July 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Diego Garcia, center right, who said he worries about his parents amid ICE raids, takes an order from diners at a restaurant on Olvera Street in Los Angeles, Saturday, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Street vendor Francisca, an immigrant from Guatemala, prepares an order at her cart in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025, where her son accompanies her to help monitor their surroundings amid ongoing ICE raids. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Agustin Gonzalez, left, and Carmen Beltran dance to mariachi music at Los Angeles Plaza Park in Los Angeles, Saturday, July 19, 2025, amid ongoing ICE raids. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A street vendor carries cotton candy and inflatable toys near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, an area targeted in recent ICE raids, Saturday, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Brandon Gomez, 10, who said his classmate's parents were detained by ICE, joins other demonstrators protesting a recent raid, covering his face out of fear of being identified, in Oxnard, Calif., Friday, July 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

An art installation, which displays black and white images of people detained or deported as a result of ICE raids in Southern California, stands outside the federal building in Los Angeles, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Participants take part in a human art installation depicting immigrants in detention during a demonstration outside the federal building in Los Angeles, Thursday, July 17, 2025, amid ongoing ICE raids. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A torn missing person flyer, for an immigrant believed to be detained by ICE, is posted on a pole in Los Angeles, Saturday, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV will inaugurate the soaring central tower of Barcelona’s famed Sagrada Familia basilica when he visits Spain next month in a weeklong trip that will also take him to a migrant reception center in the Canary Islands, the Vatican said Wednesday.

The June 6-12 visit will first bring Leo to Madrid for meetings with the government, parliament and King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. He will also preside over a prayer vigil with young people that will recall the last time a pope visited Spain: 2011, when Madrid hosted World Youth Day with Pope Benedict XVI.

In Barcelona, Leo will be on hand to mark the 100th anniversary, on June 10, of the death of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, who designed Sagrada Familia, the world’s tallest church. Leo will celebrate an evening Mass in the basilica and inaugurate its Tower of Jesus Christ, the soaring central piece that was moved into place in February.

The tower brought Sagrada Familia to its maximum height, 172½ meters (around 566 feet) above Barcelona, but the building is still far from complete. When Benedict visited in 2010, he consecrated the basilica, and there will still be unfinished related business when Leo visits: Gaudí is on the path to possible sainthood, but he won't be canonized during the pope's trip, Spain's bishops said Wednesday.

The head of the Spanish Catholic bishops conference, Archbishop Luis Argüello of Valladolid, highlighted Leo’s planned address to parliament while in Spain as particularly significant. Only on rare occasions do popes address foreign legislatures, and the speeches often end up among the most noteworthy of a pontificate.

“I believe it’s of great importance,” said Argüello, because parliament “as the embodiment of national sovereignty, needs to reflect on what an ethical and spiritual reference means at a time of the undoubtedly necessary renewal of our democratic life.”

Leo is in many ways carrying out an intention of his immediate predecessor, Pope Francis, by visiting the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago off northwest Africa which is the main gateway for migrants from Africa to enter Spain.

Francis had made reaching out to migrants and refugees a hallmark of his papacy, and Leo has followed suit by demanding dignified treatment of migrants, especially in his native United States. Francis had planned to visit the Canary Islands, even while staying away from the Spanish mainland for his entire 12-year pontificate, as he prioritized smaller destinations far from the centers of traditional Catholicism.

Spain’s government under Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has championed legal immigration at a time when many governments in Europe are trying to decrease migrant arrivals and step up deportations.

Underway in the Iberian nation of 50 million is a migrant amnesty measure that aims to legalize the status of an estimated 500,000 people the government says are living in Spain without authorization.

Conservative opposition parties have criticized the approach, especially the far-right Vox party, which has described the legalization push as an “attack on our identity.”

But Spain’s leftist government has said that the measure has the support of a broad coalition that includes the Catholic Church and many Spanish business leaders. Spain's population is aging, and Sánchez has repeatedly said that the country needs more workers to maintain its growing economy and contribute to social security.

Spain’s population now includes around 10 million foreign-born residents — or one in every five people. Many are from Latin America and Africa.

Leo will meet with organizations working with migrants in Las Palmas, Canary Islands. The following day he will meet with migrants at a reception center in Tenerife and separately with Spanish groups that work with them.

The Canary Islands are roughly 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the closest point in Africa, but to avoid security forces, many migrants attempt longer journeys that can take days or weeks.

The islands have been a steppingstone for migrants trying to reach Europe from West Africa and Morocco for decades. Arrivals peaked in 2024 with nearly 47,000 arrivals, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry statistics. Following pressure and deals between the European Union, Spain and the governments of Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia, arrivals have fallen dramatically, with just over 2,000 migrants landing in the Canaries in the first four months of 2026.

A few weeks after Leo visits the Canary Islands, history's first U.S.-born pope will travel to the main migrant entry point to Europe, the Italian island of Lampedusa, Sicily, on July 4, to meet with migrants there. That's the same day the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence.

Suman Naishadham reported from Madrid, and Renata Brito from Barcelona, Spain.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV blesses a child as he arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV arrives as he holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)