For this community, a posada offers a moment of comfort

A week or so before Christmas, Sacramento police descended on a residential block in a Latino neighborhood in California’s capital city, closing it off on either end.

- ANITA CHABRIA COLUMNIST

LILA SWANSON CHILDREN look over an array of toys at a community celebration in Sacramento.

Then the party started.

Undocumented families filled the street for a posada, a Latin American Christmas tradition akin to a roving block party, with music, food and an increasingly rare sense of safety.

Volunteers handed out toys, a mariachi band played, officers passed out stickers of badges and greeted guests as they rounded the corners, politicians ate pozole.

"This brings out the community, brings a little bit of joy into their lives," organizer Ramona Landeros told me. "This street is like a safe haven for a lot of our folks."

Times have rarely been this tough for immigrants, as we all know. Legal status or not, many of America’s transplants are living in fear of President Trump's deportation drive.