An L.A. publication founded to cover tacos and weed is now a major source for ICE raid news
L.A. Taco has covered ICE raids every day for the last month, with no plans of slowing down
The publication that tells readers where to find the best tacos in Los Angeles is also the publication that tells them where the latest immigration raids are going down.
L.A. Taco, a site once dedicated to lifestyle reporting, is now working full-time to cover the raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the massive protests against U.S. President Donald Trump that have sprung up in response.
"We still find the best tacos in L.A.," editor in chief Javier Cabral told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksla. "But now we've become the most consistent site covering the daily onslaught and terrorism of ICE raids in L.A."
And it's paying off. Cabral says a surge of fundraising and new subscribers this summer has pulled the publication back from the brink of collapse.
The day everything changed
When L.A. Taco launched in 2006, it didn't have investigative news ambitions.
"I like to say that it was like a baby Vice, meaning that our beats were primarily tacos, cannabis and graffiti," Cabral said.
The publication began to rethink its editorial strategy in 2017, when the newspaper L.A. Weekly laid off nearly all of its staff, leaving a city and surrounding region of more than 10 million people "without any form of alternative independent news," Cabral said.
By the time Cabral joined in 2019, L.A. Taco had already restructured as a "news first" publication. So when the first major ICE raid went down in the city's fashion district a month ago, its small staff leapt to action.
"The first raid happened on a Friday afternoon. Imagine you're about to check out, you're going to pour yourself a nice cold beer or wine after a long week and then we hear of this very violent ICE raid," Cabral said.
"It was like fight or flight, but editorial mode."
Since then, Cabral says, they haven't stopped.
The publication has an entire section of its website dedicated to ICE news. Social media producer Memo Torres produces daily video updates about "the ICE siege of L.A.," posted on Instagram, with no paywall.
L.A. Taco has curated resources on Instagram, in both English and Spanish, including people's rights when being interrogated, and contact information for organizations that can help.
"Now in this moment when L.A. needs as many eyes on the streets as possible, L.A. Taco has become indispensable," Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano told the Washington Post, which recently profiled the publication's role in covering the raids.
Cabral says they're motivated by a love for their city and the people who call it home.
"So as long as ICE is going to keep on, you know, abducting people, L.A. Taco is going to keep on doing these stories."
'They are in the communities'
And ICE shows no sign of stopping. The agency has rounded up 1,600 people in Southern California for deportation in the last month alone, according to the L.A. Times. Most of them, the paper notes, have no criminal records.
Trump's massive tax and spending cuts bill, which passed in the U.S. Congress last week, includes a massive spending infusion to the tune of $170 billion US for immigration enforcement.
Julie Patel Liss, head of journalism at California State University, says L.A. has a massive immigrant community, and journalists have really stepped up meet the moment, from mainstream news to student newspapers and independent outlets like L.A. Taco.
But small, scrappy outlets offer a particular vantage point, she said, because their journalists don't have access to the same level of resources as those working comfortable, unionized jobs at legacy media outlets.
"That makes them more empathetic," she said. "They are in the communities, and so they're hearing about, you know, different situations perhaps more often than somebody who's not living in that neighbourhood."
L.A. Taco staff don't mince words when describing ICE. They call the raids "terrorism" and the arrests "abductions."
Cabral says people shouldn't confuse that bluntness with editorialization.
"We are an objective news platform, believe it or not," Cabral said. "All we do is just inform people of verified facts and information, and our readers can do whatever they want with that information."
ICE did not respond to a request for comment from CBC.
Growing subscriber base
One year ago, L.A. Taco had furloughed most of its staff and was on the brink of shutting down.
"I felt like I failed as an editor-in-chief," Cabral said.
But now, he says, it's close to hitting 5,000 paid subscribers, which he says is the "sweet number" it needs to be sustainable at its current staffing levels of four full-time and two part-time employees.
L.A. Taco has also been fundraising this summer, and L.A. actress Eva Longoria has agreed to match donations to the site up to $25,000 US.
Liss says it makes sense that people are willing to fund this work.
"People care about democracy, especially in a time like this when there are so many democratic conventions and standards that are being upended," she said.
ICE is currently holding 59,000 people in facilities across the country, according to figures obtained by CBS News. Of those, nearly half have no criminal charges and fewer than 30 per cent have been convicted of crimes.
The detained include dozens of Canadians. Last month, a Canadian died in an ICE facility in Florida. One Canadian, detained for several weeks in the spring, told CBC News she was kept in inhumane conditions.
Cabral says it's a crisis mainstream media isn't prepared to handle.
"If you're watching the local news, they go on to the sports report and the daily weather, and we're like, wait a minute, this is crazy unprecedented times, and our people are still suffering through this," he said.
"We just can't move on like life is OK."
Interview with Javier Cabral produced by Katie Geleff
