D.J. Eddie One, host of La Mega 96.3’s morning show La Mega Mezcla became a civic figure and trusted voice when he announced where ICE raids were happening live in the Summer of 2025. (Michael Nelson/L.A. Material)
IT WAS THROWBACK THURSDAY on La Mega 96.3, L.A.'s top reggaeton music station. On the live broadcast, morning host DJ Eddie One was serving up a medley of Don Omar, Ivy Queen and Daddy Yankee, laying an occasional air horn blast over the music. Then he got an alert on his phone about an ICE raid happening in Huntington Park.
"Por lo que veo en la foto [from what I see in the photo], it looks like they're in In-N-Out," DJ Eddie said in his colloquial Spanglish. It was July 3, 2025. For nearly a month, L.A. had been overwhelmed by ICE raids ordered by the Trump administration. Federal immigration officials arrested more than 14,000 people — a majority of whom had no criminal record — in the greater Los Angeles area. They were taken from places like Home Depot, downtown’s fashion district, even church grounds.
The events impacted the Latino community so directly that "L.A.'s number one party station," as La Mega dubs itself, found itself regularly putting the party on hold — and becoming both a community lifeline and a forum for processing ICE’s activity in the city. Eddie One, whose real name is Eddie Mendoza, announced raids on the air as he learned of them, and opened the phone lines for listeners to share what they were experiencing. Mendoza had been a DJ at La Mega for almost two decades. His experience spinning the latest Bad Bunny or Shakira track made him a beloved voice in many Latino households. But when the raids began, he developed a new connection with his audience — a direct line to a community in crisis, in the epicenter of Latino life in the U.S.
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