Home Depot day laborer<\/a>, to me, is not probable cause,\u201d she said later. \u201cSo the question I would have is, what were they possibly observing at Home Depot? They were observing people looking for a job for one day.\u201d<\/p>\nBass said she wants City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto\u2019s office to determine where the tactics used by federal agents during the Home Depot operation violated the restraining order. <\/p>\n
The Border Patrol changed one aspect of their approach. Instead of arriving in unmarked Ford and Chevy SUVs, agents showed up in vans that could be easily mistaken for those driven by workers, and the Penske truck, often used by people moving who need extra help. At least one van had a straw hat and orange construction vest sitting on the dashboard. <\/p>\n
A day laborer, who identified himself as Cesar, said around 6:45 a.m. the Penske truck pulled up to laborers who had gathered in the parking lot. The driver told them in Spanish he was looking for workers. <\/p>\n
Several of the men gathered around the truck and then someone, it was unclear who, rolled up the back of the truck, Cesar recounted. Masked agents, one wearing a cowboy hat, jumped out and started chasing people. People scattered. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the worst feeling ever,\u201d said Cesar, who has been going to the home improvement store to pick up work for several years. <\/p>\n
Video on social media captured the moment the back of the rental truck opened. When Penske Truck Rental was asked about it, they said they were looking into it. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe company was not made aware that its trucks would be used in today\u2019s operation and did not authorize this,\u201d said Penske spokesman Randolph P. Ryerson. \u201cPenske will reach out to DHS and reinforce its policy to avoid improper use of its vehicles in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cPenske strictly prohibits the transportation of people in the cargo area of its vehicles under any circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna Cho, a member of the advocacy group LA Tenants Union, was setting up a booth at the Home Depot for renters in the dense, low-income Latino neighborhood to get information about their legal rights. Lately, she said, the group has become a de facto recorder of enforcement activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really chaotic,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was a lot of yelling. There was running and when I went outside. The immigration officers were grabbing people, it was very indiscriminate. Some were resisting.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a video shown to The Times, two white sprinter vans and the yellow Penske truck arrive at the parking lot. One of the vans can be seen blocking the Home Depot driveway on Union Avenue, in a move to apparently stop vehicles from driving out of the lot. The other van parks near a sidewalk where street vendors sell food. <\/p>\n
In another video, masked men in border patrol uniforms can be seen leading a woman in an apron away from the folding table where she sold food and drinks. She was handcuffed and loaded into the van.<\/p>\n
A member of Tenants Union can be heard asking \u201cDo you have a warrant?\u201d None of the agents responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so fast. It happened in a matter of 10 minutes,\u201d said Xochilt Soza, a mover who picks up work at the Home Depot. She saw several white vans drive into the lot, along with the Penske truck, and about 20 to 30 agents fan out of the vehicles. Agents arrested Angel, a man who she knew for years and was also looking for work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so sad,\u201d she said shaking her head in disbelief. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am not well,\u201d said another worker, who did not want to give his name. He said he was devastated by the raids but he wasn\u2019t going to leave the parking lot, because he still needed the work. <\/p>\n
One worker who escaped was still shaken by the experience an hour later. He identified himself as Raul, and said he saw at least eight people get arrested. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of their cars,\u201d he said pointing to a silver Toyota sedan. <\/p>\n
The Home Depot had been one of the scenes of the first raids in June that kicked off more than month of operations in Southern California in which civil rights lawyers say federal agents indiscriminately arrested immigrants. The raids gutted businesses, spread fear and tore apart families.<\/p>\n
On July 11, Judge Frimpong temporarily blocked federal agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate arrests after the ACLU, Public Counsel, other groups and private attorneys sued over the practices, saying that the region had been \u201cunder seige.\u201d <\/p>\n
Department of Justice attorneys argued the order hindered them from carrying out federal immigration enforcement, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the order.<\/p>\n
City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the area, called Wednesday\u2019s operation \u201cyet another attack on our judicial system by the Trump Administration\u201d and said it was a \u201cclear violation of the temporary restraining order.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUsing a rental truck to round up people like cargo is a disgusting reflection of this administration\u2019s total disregard for human life and the rule of law,\u201d Hernandez said in a statement. \u201cIt is clear that Angelenos \u2014 my constituents \u2014 are being racially profiled and hunted for political points.\u201d<\/p>\n
ACLU attorney Mohammad Tajsar said the organization is reviewing reports of recent raids. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe evidence available so far raises serious concerns that the federal government may be in violation of the federal judge\u2019s July temporary restraining order [TRO],\u201d he said. \u201cWe encourage community members to reach out if they have any specific information about these incidents and we will continue to evaluate the evidence and alert the court at the appropriate juncture of any further unlawful actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, a federal judge approved a court settlement barring Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from identifying as state or local law enforcement and from engaging in ruses misrepresenting their governmental identity or purpose, according to the ACLU. That settlement applies specifically to ICE.<\/p>\n
For the past weeks since the restraining order kicked in, Bovino has shared photos of arrests of undocumented immigrants, stating that some had active arrest warrants. With others, he referenced a lengthy criminal history, marking the arrests as more targeted than they had been prior.<\/p>\n
But organizers say similar operations to the Wednesday raid have unfolded in recent days and have sparked concerns about violations of the restraining order. On social media, people shared a video from Saturday, of Border Patrol agents seemingly raiding a Lakewood Car Wash and taking at least two people into custody. <\/p>\n
Another operation unfolded on Monday at a Home Depot in Hollywood that was the site of a massive raid in June. <\/p>\n
Maegan Ortiz, the executive director of the nonprofit group Instituto de Educaci\u00f3n Popular del Sur de California, known as IDEPSCA<\/a>, said they began receiving word about an immigration operation at the Home Depot in Hollywood around 6:50 a.m. on Monday. She said at least two people were arrested. <\/p>\nOrtiz said Border Patrol agents \u201cseem to be making the same rounds again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re hitting the same places they hit Round 1, if you will, and they\u2019re trying new tactics,\u201d she said. She said they\u2019re pretending to be employers and luring people \u201cas if they\u2019re street vendors themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does this mean for the TRO? There\u2019s a lot of anxiety both from workers and from organizational staff,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man driving a Penske truck pulled up to day laborers at the Home Depot and told them…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[8618,76735,50,6524,76739,8145,76740,76738,3546,8149,76737,2549,76736,40031,67,132,68,6189,76734],"class_list":{"0":"post-124589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-immigrant","10":"tag-indiscriminate-arrest","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-operation","13":"tag-operation-trojan-horse","14":"tag-order","15":"tag-other-group","16":"tag-penske-truck","17":"tag-people","18":"tag-raid","19":"tag-reignite-fear","20":"tag-southern-california","21":"tag-top-federal-agent","22":"tag-truck","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-vehicle","27":"tag-westlake-home-depot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114983912557057009","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}