‘La migra!’: Day laborers recount ICE raid outside Los Angeles Home Depot
LOS ANGELES - Angel knew from the moment he raised his hand with a whistle and shouted “Labor!” at a white van pulling into the Home Depot parking lot full of workers last Friday that something felt wrong.
The Honduran immigrant caught a glimpse of the driver and a passenger wearing what looked like bulletproof vests. He followed the vehicle with his eyes as it parked toward the eastern entrance near downtown Los Angeles and the heart of the city’s Central American immigrant community.
His creeping suspicion exploded into full-blown fear just as the doors of the van opened and masked agents began pouring out.
“La migra!” Angel and another day laborer yelled. More than 100 men and women standing in the parking lot began to run. Six migrants who said they were present recounted how federal immigration authorities began handcuffing anyone they could grab in one of several raids in the city that would spark a wave of unrest and leave immigrant workers of all stripes jolted.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation was one of several Friday in Los Angeles that drew widespread criticism from elected leaders and community activists in a city that is home to one of the largest undocumented immigrant communities in the country. As word spread, protesters hit the streets to confront the officers and denounce their actions as a broad attack against immigrant families. The indignation continued into Sunday as officers fired tear gas at demonstrators outside a downtown building where some National Guard troops mobilized by President Donald Trump had been stationed.
The hardware store parking lot was empty for the first 24 hours after the raid. The immigration sweep spooked many day laborers who said they could not recall another enforcement action in which people had been detained so seemingly arbitrarily. But by Sunday, they began to return. Their numbers were far fewer but, they said, they showed up because they had to. There were too many bills to pay and mouths to feed not to work.
“You don’t get a break in this town when you’re an immigrant,” said Josue, who like all of the men and women interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear being targeted by immigration officers.
Xochitl, a Guatemalan mother of two, was inside a McDonald’s that shares the parking lot with the Home Depot when she said she saw numerous agents running after men she sees every day but knows only by their nicknames. She said she momentarily froze but then began walking in the opposite direction of agents who were detaining food vendors on sidewalks.
“They were just grabbing people,” she said. “They don’t ask questions. They didn’t know if any of us were in any kind of immigration process.”
While the day laborers related their experiences, they shifted their weight and changed position to keep their eyes peeled for any sign of something suspicious. They whistled to incoming pickup trucks and cars with rolled-down windows to solicit work, but only after taking a good look at the faces inside. Private security guards circled the parking lot in golf carts, occasionally asking the immigrant laborers to move closer to the public sidewalk and off the property.
But they themselves were sympathetic. One of the guards alerted a day laborer to stay away because ICE agents had shown up around 4 that morning. They’d found no one. Experienced day laborers know that on weekends traffic picks up later in the day, when Angelenos are starting up their home projects after sleeping in. Amazon delivery drivers stopped every so often to let them know whether police were nearby.
“Someone said they were at Ventura and Sixth,” Angel related to the group of men and women waiting for work under an overcast sky. “Looks like they got some people at Figueroa and Eighth.”
Those locations were only blocks away. But it’s hard to know what is true and what is hysteria. The protests are encouraging to them, the day laborers said, because they feel supported. They know that many of the demonstrators are the offspring of immigrant parents like themselves and are glad people are standing up. Together, they mused about what it would look like for this country if all Latino undocumented immigrants suddenly left.
Angel is pessimistic. He thinks the demonstrations will fuel more reprisals from Trump. The Honduran worker said he is resigned to eventual deportation.
But in the meantime, they all still have to work to survive.
“I’m not sure it’s worth it anymore,” said Abraham, the man who had shouted “La migra!” to the other day laborers alongside Angel. The Nicaraguan immigrant said he would continue working to support his young son but the constant threat of detention and deportation is weighing on him. “La vida aqui ya no sirve.” Life here doesn’t work anymore.
Josue ran, the morning ICE officers swarmed one of the best places in the city to find decent-paying work as an undocumented person. He parked his car feet from the one hardware store entrance that ICE agents did not cover. He had time get behind the wheel and drive away calmly without arousing suspicion, he said.
Josue’s wife begged him Sunday not to go. He had barely escaped two days before. The father of three might not be as fortunate next time. “I just told her not to worry, I’ll be back,” he recalled. But he wasn’t sure of his own assurances.
The 45-year-old has a lot to lose, he said. Josue’s family is in the middle of an asylum petition after fleeing Guatemala six years ago. He said he was extorted by criminal organizations who charged a fee for running a business in an area they controlled. He witnessed murders. He was robbed. Finally, Josue couldn’t afford the fees and bribes anymore.
The money Josue earns excavating construction sites, painting windows or cleaning up yards for a cheap daily rate helps pay the immigration attorneys representing him, his wife and children. He recently had a court hearing scheduled, but his legal team arranged for him to appear virtually after ICE agents began arresting immigrants outside immigration courts around the country.
Josue saw himself as doing more than working in the United States. He was building a future for his children to study and grow up in peace, away from the rampant violence he witnessed in his own youth. But now, he said, he has doubts.
“I’m starting to feel something ugly,” Josue said. “It’s a familiar feeling not unlike the sense of insecurity I felt in my own country. It’s almost as the same scary, ugly, latent sense of peril.”
A gray compact sport utility vehicle made an unusual circle in the parking lot. Abraham pointed it out and about a dozen men and women perked up and craned their necks toward the suspicious driver.
“Let’s go!” Xochitl yelled. Abraham pulled his backpack up from the ground and pivoted. Angel bolted. Josue started walking backward slowly.
In half a second, the group of idling adults at the Home Depot entrance disappeared. Then the SUV pulled into the McDonald’s drive-through.
False alarm.