Courtesy David Dayen
Community members at the Culver City Express Hand Car Wash.
Jasmine Delgado, a member of Westside Rapid Response, a community network that attempts to send witnesses to ICE workplace raids as they’re occurring, arrived at the car wash on Sunday just as ICE was throwing people into unmarked vans. The only ones left after the raid were children of one of the workers, who were working with their father on site. “It’s quick. They show up, grab people, whoever they can, and then leave,” she said. “They don’t want to make a scene, they don’t want to stay too long. And from what I’m hearing they’re trying to make quotas.”
Delgado and Chuy Orozco, another member of Westside Rapid Response, told me that the same day, ICE stormed a Shell gas station across the street from the car wash and took a U.S. citizen. Home Depots in Inglewood and Huntington Park have also been hit. And I talked to day laborers at a third Home Depot in Playa Vista who witnessed a raid there last Saturday. The laborers scattered, and ICE quickly left the scene.
For all of the emphasis on the unpopular, costly deployment of National Guard troops and Marines and the protests in a narrow section of downtown Los Angeles, it has overshadowed this spate of kidnappings by ICE agents, now accompanied by California National Guard troops, across Los Angeles County. While there have been sporadic updates and social media reports about these incidents, the full scope of the dragnet is just coming into focus.
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According to Melendrez, 26 individuals have been taken from local carwashes since last Saturday: 25 workers and one client. Only four of these 26 have known whereabouts at the moment: Two were deported and two others are at a detention center in Texas. The other 22 have thus far not been located.
“My dad isn’t a criminal, he’s a hardworking man with such great respect from everyone,” said Jaslyn Hernandez, the daughter of Joel, a car wash worker who was kidnapped on Sunday. Jaslyn is due to graduate from high school tomorrow. “He’s always pushed me to be the greatest in school and as a person,” she said. “I just want my dad to come home safe, and I wish that he was able to see his little girl graduate.”
Courtesy David Dayen
Jaslyn Hernandez, whose father was taken by ICE, speaks to reporters.
According to photos on ICE’s social media, National Guard troops are now accompanying them on raids, something that has started in the last 24 hours. According to Westside Rapid Defense, the frequency of the raids has slowed down relative to the weekend, perhaps a function of the outrage from across the city and the protests downtown.
Meanwhile, the car wash itself on Venice Boulevard is shut down. “How does this help?” asked Dan O’Brien, mayor of Culver City. “We have a business behind us that is closed right now because their employees are in fear. We have people who are staying in their homes locked for fear of walking in the streets and the communities they once felt was their home. That’s not right … It’s hard not to be emotional.”
O’Brien, who noted that over 70 languages are spoken at home throughout Culver City, later told me he was unaware of other businesses that have shut down as a result of the raids. But he relayed what he heard from community members about what happened at the car wash. “The ICE vehicles pulled up, [workers] ran in fear, and guns were drawn,” he said.
State assemblymember Isaac Bryan, who has been downtown at protests this week and who represents the district, also spoke at the event, along with a representative for state Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas. Nearly 100 community members showed up in support of the families of the kidnap victims.
While ICE continues to insist its agents are focused on public safety threats, speakers at the car wash said that their family members had no criminal records, and were hardworking people targeted because of the color of their skin, without due process. Indeed, reporting has confirmed that top White House aide Stephen Miller encouraged federal agents to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” targeting Home Depots or 7-11 stores where day laborers might gather.
Perhaps the most poignant story came from Noemi Ciau of Inglewood. She met her husband Jesus when they lived in the same apartment complex; both were from the same area back in Mexico. Jesus has worked for ten years at a car wash in Inglewood, while Noemi worked at LAX airport.
On Sunday, she went over to the car wash in Inglewood whereJesus worked to take him some pizza for lunch. After that she had to go buy her daughter a dress for graduation ceremonies this week; she was graduating eighth grade with honors. “He’s like, ‘OK, here’s some money, if you need anything else come by,’” Noemi said. “So we were at T.J. Maxx buying her dress. We finished, I was inside the car, I don’t know why I decided to open Facebook, and that’s when I saw a lady post that ICE was in Westchester [a neighborhood near Inglewood]. I clicked on the picture, that’s the first thing I noticed that it was a car wash.”
Noemi raced over to the car wash, and when she got there, only the owner and a couple other people were there. “I asked them, ‘Where is everyone?’ They’re like, ‘They were all taken.’”
Since Sunday, Noemi has had no contact with Jesus. Her attempts to reach detention facilities in Texas were unsuccessful. Even the office of her member of Congress, Maxine Waters, conceded that ICE has not been responsive to their questions. “If they can’t do anything, I’m just a regular citizen here, what hope does that give me?”
Noemi has four children. The two older ones know what’s going on, but she said she’s been making up stories for the other two about why their dad isn’t around. She’s worried about how she will pick up the kids from school and other activities without her husband. The eighth-grader officially graduates tomorrow. “She’s very upset because we had already done so many plans,” Noemi said. “And now her dad can’t even be there to witness her walking that stage with honors.”
Her entire community has been affected. Noemi talked about friends who are afraid to leave the house, and other community members who are offering to get people groceries so they can stay inside. Other people don’t have that luxury. Last Sunday I asked a day laborer outside the Playa Vista Home Depot, who didn’t want to give his name, if he was worried about returning after the ICE raids. “Yes, but I have to work,” he said. “I’ve been coming here 20 years.” He said business was slow because people who needed work done didn’t want to get caught up in the situation. “Fucking Donald Trump, he’s hurting everybody,” the man said.
Noemi addressed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem by name. “I hear Kristi saying, ‘We detained a rapist, we detained a criminal, all of them being detained have a criminal background.’ That’s not true,” she said. “My husband didn’t have a criminal background. We are up to date with our taxes. We never had any government support, we both worked really hard to provide for our children. How come she doesn’t say that she’s also separating innocent families?”
The focus on whether the situation in Los Angeles is a “political win” has overshadowed the catastrophe that this situation has caused for families, communities, the local economy, and the fabric of the city. But the protests may be having the intended effect of slowing down the deportation machinery; rapid response teams say that ICE raids have been less frequent over the past 48 hours.
Melendrez said that her worker center and other legal groups were determined to help families find their kidnapped loved ones. “The ones creating a public safety hazard are ICE and the other federal agencies profiling our communities,” said Aquilina Soriano Versoza of the Pilipino Workers Center. “We will not rest until all are released and have due process, and until the unjust and illegal raids end.”
