{"id":59653,"date":"2025-07-12T13:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T13:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/59653\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T13:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T13:19:10","slug":"east-l-a-family-heartbroken-after-father-taken-in-immigration-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/59653\/","title":{"rendered":"East L.A. family heartbroken after father taken in immigration raid"},"content":{"rendered":"

When ICE raids began in Los Angeles on June 6, 51-year-old Anastasio Sanchez decided to take a break from running \u201cTacos del Tacho,\u201d his taco truck business in East L.A. for the past five years. The reason?<\/p>\n

Fear of deportation.<\/p>\n

A month after the raids began, the necessity of being his family\u2019s primary breadwinner drove him to reopen this past weekend, and his fear became a reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While setting up for the day on Sunday, July 6, Sanchez noticed federal agents in the area near the intersection of Whittier and Atlantic boulevards at around 8:40 a.m.<\/p>\n

He became flustered and began speed-walking away, according to his daughter, Alondra Sanchez.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Agents<\/a>Agents are seen at a street vending site near Whittier and Atlantic boulevards on Sunday, July 6, 2025.
Photo courtesy of East L.A. News.<\/p>\n

When the agents noticed and approached Sanchez, he tried to run away, prompting the agents to chase him until they caught up and detained him<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alondra said that her father has been living in the U.S. for just over 20 years, and had a work permit to operate his taco truck. The family has called East L.A. home for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all happened so fast, and there weren\u2019t really that many people in the area, so nobody really stood up for him,\u201d said a fellow vendor on the same block who witnessed the incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cVendors like me \u2014 we\u2019re all really scared to even work right now, but we have no choice. We still have to pay rent, our expenses don\u2019t stop,\u201d the vendor added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what charges Anastasio is facing. Boyle Heights Beat reached out for comment to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), about the incident, but has not yet received a response.<\/p>\n

After hearing about what happened, Alondra, her four siblings and her mom scrambled to figure out what had happened, and where the agents had taken Anastasio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tracking his location using the \u201cFind My\u201d feature on his iPhone, they determined he was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Monday, Alondra visited her father at the detention center, dropping off medication he needs to manage his diabetes. She said seeing him behind glass was heartbreaking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very devastating. As soon as he saw me, he started crying, and then I started crying,\u201d said Alondra. \u201cI kept asking him questions, if he\u2019s been eating, what the conditions there have been like. He kept saying it\u2019s really cold where they\u2019re keeping him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Anastasio Sanchez alongside his daughter Alondra, pictured here in the fourth grade. Photo courtesy of the family. <\/p>\n

Other than the medication, Alondra hadn\u2019t brought anything for her dad because it was unclear if she would be allowed to. But another family who were visiting a detained loved one at the center offered Anastasio a sweater after hearing the exchange between the two.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Anastasio was transferred to Adelanto Detention Facility in San Bernardino County, according to Alondra. The whole experience has impacted every member of the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy youngest sister, she\u2019s nine, so she\u2019s just very confused and doesn\u2019t understand why they took him, why he can\u2019t come home, and that\u2019s just so hard,\u201d Alondra said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom\u2019s very much in shock. She\u2019s trying to hold it together because she has a family to take care of, but she\u2019s worried about how he\u2019s doing\u2026 It\u2019s altered all of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to support on GoFundMe<\/a>, Alondra and her family were able to find an attorney to support Anastasio through the legal process. They aim to fight the deportation and bring him home.\u00a0They\u2019re hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad, he\u2019s a very hard working man\u2026 a lot of people know and love him in our community, our neighbors,\u201d said Alondra. \u201cIt\u2019s just very hard to believe these things that are happening, that someone was just taken like that, especially the head of a household. It\u2019s just heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When ICE raids began in Los Angeles on June 6, 51-year-old Anastasio Sanchez decided to take a break…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[43353,1582,276,31951,409,20523,2961,224,5337,12323],"class_list":{"0":"post-59653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-anastasio-sanchez","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-east-l-a","12":"tag-immigration","13":"tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-street-vendors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114840467539894745","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59653","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=59653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}