“We don’t have a political agenda. Our agenda is community.”

That’s how Luz Gallegos describes the work of TODEC, the organization her parents created four decades ago to support immigrant workers and their families in California’s Inland Empire. As recent executive actions bring new harms and trauma on her community located just 100 miles from the U.S-Mexico border, Gallegos spoke with the Irvine Foundation about how workers and their families are hurting, what TODEC is doing to respond, and how funders can step up in this moment. Gallegos has served as executive director of TODEC since 2020.

TODEC is a true-to-life family affair. What is the story of this organization?

LG: My parents started TODEC as a grassroots organization to elevate the stories and the struggles of farmworkers and undocumented immigrants in our border region. We were part of the struggle for the amnesty under President Reagan, when millions of undocumented people got their green cards and found a path to citizenship. My parents helped thousands of immigrants on the journey to legal permanent residency and integration into the community.

After that, we moved to providing pro bono legal services to our community, and now we consider ourselves a resource hub for education and awareness for immigrants and workers so they know their rights and can connect to programs they need to support themselves and their families. We now serve the entire region of San Bernardino and Riverside counties and the rural communities around them.

Tell us a little more about the community. Who are the workers and immigrants you represent and serve?

LG: Today there are more than 1 million immigrants in our region. This was traditionally an agricultural area, and we serve many immigrant farmworkers, including undocumented workers. But the economy has changed, and the community now includes large numbers of warehouse, construction, and service workers. Our focus at TODEC is on the most vulnerable populations and the hardest to reach in our region, including Indigenous communities that don’t have access to language services.

What are some of the biggest challenges facing your community right now?

LG: The biggest challenge is the impact of what is happening at the federal level on immigration. It is the fear of the unknown. In our region, we are used to seeing the Border Patrol and sharing spaces with them at the gas station and at coffee shops and stores. They live in our communities and have jurisdiction over our streets. We have always dealt with the threat of ICE arrests, too. But the difference today is the messaging from the White House and the constant drumbeat of criminalization and deportation. That creates deep fear and insecurity for workers and their families.

There’s constant talk about ICE coming into our communities to audit employers and arrest workers. As a result, companies are laying off people who have worked for them loyally for years or decades even. They don’t want them anymore.  And then those same companies say they want to hire to fill those jobs, but they won’t hire our people.

There’s a real sense of desperation right now. We see families who have given the best years of their life to their work and their employers, and now they are laid off and they don’t have money for rent or food.

It’s hard to imagine what will happen for the next year or two; these are very turbulent times. We have families who left the country already. And for those who have stayed, they don’t qualify for unemployment insurance or other government support. There is no legalization process for them. And if they can’t work and contribute to the success of our region, our state and the country, then they and their families can’t put food on the table.

It goes beyond just the human impact; businesses are suffering too. People are not shopping or buying food in the community. They want to save money or else they won’t have any.

Are there any other programs or initiatives that are having a unique impact right now?

LG: We started the El Centavito (“penny” or “small coin”) program after NAFTA resulted in a loss of jobs in our region—that’s a time when we realized the only way many of our community will survive is by becoming self-employed.

El Centavito is an entrepreneurship program where we train people and give them seed funds to pay for business permits and inventory and other costs. Those who have gone through the program have gone on to be contractors, restaurant and shop owners, and more. And now they are hiring their own people so it’s really having an impact in showing the community how we can support ourselves.

How has the current political context changed your work?

LG: We are working seven days a week. We are hearing from school districts where kids are not showing up at school because of fear, and that means school budgets will get cut and jobs will go. We are hearing from clinics that people are canceling their healthcare appointments. Our offices are packed with families and kids going through trauma, and we are trying to work with them and protect them and help them see the power of staying united and informed and knowing their rights and resisting without violence. We are telling our community we have to create our own miracles during this era.

And the good news is people are responding. We have 600 volunteers, including community members and parents, stepping up and wanting to join in our work. We are providing urgently needed legal resources and we are training volunteers to be first responders when there is a problem in the community.

For example, we have a hotline where people can reach out if they hear about an immigration raid. We tell the community that before they share anything in social media they should report it to us and we can have our first responders document if it is really happening. There are so many false alarms, and a lot of them are ill intentioned. When a rumor or a story spreads, workers end up not going to work, and they lose a paycheck and they can lose their jobs.

We also are disbursing double-sided red cards people can put in their wallet that remind them of their basic rights. And they can use as a tool when confronted with immigration agents if they get stopped to show they know their rights. So far, we have distributed half a million red cards, and they are literally saving people’s lives.

What’s your message for funders in current moment?

LG: At TODEC we sustained ourselves for three decades without funding. It was literally the power of the people that kept us going. We are thankful to the Irvine Foundation and other funders who are supporting our work today. But with all the problems our community is facing, we still need more resources to grow and sustain our programs. We need more attorneys to provide people with legal help. We need more advocacy to pass policies like expansion of unemployment benefits for undocumented workers in California. We need resources to expand our entrepreneurship training. And we need rapid-response funds to address the daily trauma and injustice facing workers in the region.

History tells us you need to suffer to see justice, so we tell our communities to prepare for the worst and stay united and informed and educated.

The name of our education program says it all. Infórmate, prepárate y resiste. Get informed, prepare, and resist.