Federal agents detained day laborers outside of a Home Depot in Van Nuys during two raids Friday morning, raising questions over whether their actions may violate a court order that bans agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate immigration arrests.
The operations took place around 7:35 a.m. and then again at 11:50 a.m. outside the Home Depot on Roscoe Boulevard, according to Maegan Ortiz, executive director of Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California, which runs a resource center for day laborers directly next to the store.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
But U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Greg Bovino told Fox News on Friday that federal agents always abide by the law during enforcement operations.
“In Los Angeles right now — today, as a matter of fact — we have agents out on the streets right now making apprehensions, as you and I are speaking,” he said. “They’re doing that again, legally, ethically and morally.”
A number of unmarked white vans started circling the parking lot and immigration agents began “grabbing people first and then asking people for ID” said Ortiz, adding that her organization has confirmed 10 people were taken.
“[The agents] came straight for the day labor center,” Ortiz said. “It is very clear they are targeting day laborers and they are targeting the organization.”
On July 11, a U.S. district judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking federal agents in Southern and Central California from targeting people based on their race, language, vocation or location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.
At the time, immigration advocates believed the order would legally bar agents from roving such places as Home Depots and car washes and indiscriminately stopping brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking workers.
“This is a clear violation of the TRO,” said Ortiz regarding Friday’s raids. “This is, in my opinion, contempt.”
The temporary restraining order was upheld last Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Trump administration has since appealed to the Supreme Court, saying the ruling “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”
Following the temporary restraining order, Southern California saw a significant drop in the number of undocumented immigrants arrested. But there is anecdotal evidence that the immigration raids may be picking up steam in Los Angeles once again.
Federal agents reportedly targeted a car wash in Lakewood on Saturday and a Home Depot in Hollywood on Monday, Ortiz said.
Then on Wednesday, Customs and Border Protection agents burst out of a Penske rental truck and detained day laborers at a Westlake Home Depot in a raid dubbed “Operation Trojan Horse.”
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass raised concerns over whether the action violated the temporary restraining order, and directed City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to look into the matter.
“Just being a Home Depot day laborer, to me, is not probable cause [for arrest],” Bass said Thursday.
At a news conference Friday, Feldstein Soto said that video from the Westlake raid appeared to show the Trump administration violating the court’s temporary restraining order but noted that the matter was still under investigation.
“We are very cognizant of the fact that that Penske truck seemed to be engaged in a lot of the exact behavior that the language of the TRO specifically prohibits,” she said.
A Penske spokesman previously told The Times that the company was not aware its trucks would be used in the operation and had not authorized the federal government to do so.
Should the city attorney’s office conclude that the order was violated, it may take action to identify the agents involved or push for stronger legal protections, Feldstein Soto said.
Bovino, however, defended the legality of ongoing Home Depot raids.
“The Border Patrol, CBP and our allied law enforcement partners, when we conduct law enforcement operations, we always abide by the law — whether it’s a temporary restraining order … whether it’s applicable federal laws, rules and regulations, and most especially the Constitution of the United States,” he said during an interview with Fox News.
Bovino said Operation Trojan Horse was a targeted operation based on pre-intelligence, not an indiscriminate sweep.
“We knew there was criminal activity afoot there for a long time, so we’re not going to ignore criminal activity,” he said. “We’re going after it, and that’s exactly what we did.”
He said that of the 16 people apprehended during Operation Trojan Horse, at least six had “significant immigration and criminal histories.” He said this reflects the trend seen in larger immigration operations, where 30% to 40% of people arrested typically have significant immigration and criminal histories.
A Times review of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data in June found that the majority of people arrested in Southern California had no criminal history.
Of the 2,031 people arrested from June 1 to June 26, about 68% of those had no criminal convictions and 57% had never been charged with a crime.
Times staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report
