CHICAGO — Organizers are urging people to boycott Home Depot, saying the company has failed to protect day laborers as federal immigration agents have targeted and detained them outside the chain’s stores in the Chicago area in recent weeks.
Rallies and vigils will be held this weekend at Home Depot stores nationwide to draw attention to people who federal agents have taken, said Janelle Miller, a suburban Broadview resident who is organizing one of the events.
The company’s stores have historically been a place where day laborers, including many immigrants, have gathered outside to look for work from contract companies — but those workers have now been repeatedly targeted by federal agents. Organizers have said Home Depot isn’t doing enough to deter ICE and Border Patrol and to protect day laborers.
“As a larger-scale corporation, you would hope that they would want to protect the life of their company: people who patronize it, people who work there and even folks who use their materials to be able to work,” Miller said.
The Latino Union of Chicago, which supports day laborers, is hosting a rally Saturday at a Northwest Side Home Depot, 1919 N. Cicero Ave., according to a social media post, and vigils are planned this weekend at several other stores in the Chicago area.
“We demand that Home Depot protect workers, not partner with ICE! Together we say: No more raids. No more silence. ICE Out!” the post reads.
Miller is organizing a vigil for 9 a.m. Saturday at the Broadview Home Depot, 700 Broadview Village Square, in solidarity with the National Day Laborers Organizing Network.
Workers Targeted
Back of the Yards’ Home Depot at 4555 S. Western Blvd. has become a “hot spot” for detentions of jornaleros, or day laborers, since the start of operations Midway Blitz and At Large, local organizers said.
During the first days of Operation Midway Blitz, federal agents detained at least five people in that Home Depot’s parking lot, Karina Martinez, communications director for the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, previously said. A vehicle left behind by a person who was detained was towed from the store’s parking lot, organizers previously said.
“It’s sad because people are there searching for work, and now they’re not coming home,” Omar, a witness to those detentions, previously said.
Federal agents have continued to target this Home Depot in addition to stores on the Northwest Side and in suburbs like Cicero and Niles, according to reports by local rapid response groups. This month, federal agents detained Ruben Torres Maldonado, the father of a Chicago high school student who has a rare form of cancer, outside a Home Depot in Niles. A judge ordered his release and he was reunited with his family Thursday night.
The Home Depot, 4555 S. Western Blvd., where several people have been detained by federal agents amid operations Midway Blitz and At Large, as seen on Sept. 26, 2025. Credit: Francia Garcia Hernandez/Block Club Chicago
In response, organizers have called for people to boycott the company, saying it has not taken steps to stop federal agents from staging and detaining people in the stores’ parking lots.
“These are just hard-working people looking for jobs, and Home Depot is doing nothing about that,” said Evelyn Aguayo, community organizer and legal aid supervisor for Back of the Yards nonprofit Increase the Peace.
While the company does not have a formal relationship with the workers, it financially benefits from their presence near stores, an expert told NPR.
Home Depot spokesperson Beth Marlowe, in an emailed statement, said the company’s stores are “not notified that ICE activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations.”
“We tell associates not to engage with the activity for their safety and to report these incidents immediately,” Marlowe said in the statement.
The detentions outside Home Depot locations are seemingly done at random, with agents taking people who are looking for work or who are going into the store to shop.
That’s at odds with the supposed mission of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, as officials previously said agents would “target the worst of the worst criminal” undocumented immigrants.
And the detentions have not been limited to Illinois.
Federal agents have frequently targeted the company’s stores in California and other states, detaining day workers and U.S. citizens, according to news reports.
In California, a Guatemalan man was fatally struck by a driver while attempting to flee an immigration raid at a Home Depot, according to local news reports.
In June, federal agents emerged from a rented van to detain day laborers at a Home Depot in central Los Angeles, “terrorizing” workers, customers and vendors near the home improvement store, The Guardian reported. And a U.S. citizen sued the Department of Homeland Security after he was thrown to the ground and arrested while recording a raid at a Home Depot, according to NBC Los Angeles.
Miguel Alvelo from Latino Union speaks at a press conference to stand up against ICE in immigrant communities across from a Home Depot in Belmont Cragin on Sept. 18, 2025. Credit: Ariel Parrella-Aureli/Block Club Chicago
Miguel Alvelo, executive director of the Latino Union of Chicago, previously said that ICE agents were making “unwarranted attacks” on day laborers “who build, paint, fix and beautify this city.”
Neighbors and organizers are calling on others to instead shop at small, local businesses that are doing more to protect their workers, customers and employees.
“The more locally you shop, the better chance you’ll have of being safe, because the person that owns that business lives in your neighborhood and cares about you,” said Jaime Groth-Searle, founder and executive director of The Southwest Collective.
Home Depot said it is supporting its employees.
“We understand this is a complex community issue and are focused on supporting our associates,” Marlowe said in the statement. “If associates feel uncomfortable after witnessing ICE activity, we offer them the flexibility they need to take care of themselves and their families, which often include the ability to go home for the day, with pay.”
Billionaire and Home Depot cofounder Bernard “Bernie” Marcus, who died last year, was a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and donated more than $1 million to his campaigns. Co-founder Ken Langone has also expressed his support for the president and his policies.
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