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People holding signs and flags during a protest against the immigration raids conducted by ICE and Federal police, Los Angeles, California, June 2025
Over 1.25 million LGBTQ+ adult immigrants live in the U.S., with an estimated 10 percent living in Los Angeles County.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement increases its raids in Los Angeles, a large swath of the LGBTQ+ immigrants who live in the United States are at "most immediate risks of detention and deportation."
There are approximately 49,000 LGBTQ+ adult immigrants living in Los Angeles County who do not have U.S. citizenship, according to a new report from the Williams Institute, including 26,000 who hold lawful residency and 23,000 who are undocumented. Of these groups, 5,200 are transgender or nonbinary, just under 1,000 of whom are undocumented.
Over 1.25 million LGBTQ+ adult immigrants live in the U.S., with an estimated 10 percent — 122,000 people — living in Los Angeles County. About 60 percent of LGBTQ+ non-citizens in the county have origins in Latin America.
Immigration enforcement could most severely impact Los Angeles County Supervisorial Districts 1 and 2, which contain several historically Black, Latine, Asian, and Pacific Islander neighborhoods. These districts are home to nearly 29,000 LGBTQ+ non-citizens — nearly 60 percent of all LGBTQ+ non-citizens in the county — who are at heightened risk as the president deploys more law enforcement in response to ongoing anti-ICE protests.
At least 118 immigrants were arrested in Los Angeles between Friday and Saturday last week, ICE said in a Saturday post on X, sparking massive protests outside several government buildings in the city's downtown area. Donald Trump then usurped California's sovereignty by deploying the National Guard without Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's request — the first time since 1965 that a president has bypassed a governor's authority to deploy the troops.
“LA’s LGBT undocumented immigrants face the most immediate risks of detention and deportation, but LGBT people who hold legal status and even naturalized citizens may face collateral consequences of the increased immigration enforcement,” lead author Laurel Sprague, Research Director at the Williams Institute, said in a statement. “These policies and practices erode trust in community institutions, increase fear and psychological distress, and lead to poorer economic opportunities and overall health outcomes, especially among those who know someone who was detained or deported.”
One high-profile case of an LGBTQ+ immigrant wrongly being detained by ICE in California is Andry Hernández Romero, a 32-year-old gay Venezuelan makeup artist who was secretly deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s CECOT prison earlier this year.
Hernández Romero had been awaiting an asylum hearing at Otay Mesa Detention Center when he was deported without warning in March, his attorney Lindsay Toczylowski told The Advocate in April. His lawyers located him only after identifying him in footage posted by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, showing shackled Venezuelan men being marched off a U.S.military plane. A Time photographer said he cried out, “I’m gay! I’m a stylist!” before being taken away.
Hernández Romero is presumed to be inside CECOT, a supermax prison described as a modern-day gulag, where inmates are held often without charges and are denied communication with the outside world. His legal team has received no confirmation of his condition or whereabouts.
