California masked operatives are picking up day laborers at Home Depot.
It’s hard to keep up—but it’s been another busy week for terrorizing tactics against immigrants and anybody that vaguely resembles one.
Around California masked operatives—it’s still not clear if they are directly employed by ICE or by contractors (Latinopia is on the case to find out and report) but these bands are picking up day laborers at Home Depot, hospitality workers in hotels and street vendors serving up paletas and tacos.
You know that already. Maybe have noticed how quiet the parks are in your neighborhoods, or how that palatero that used to hit pay dirt at the weekly family birthday celebrations doesn’t show up at the park anymore, because neither do the families.
Quiet as a church at the parks around here.
But–it’s our nation’s birthday this week! July 4th–generally an occasion for celebration— except this year is a little different from usual.
Maybe a lot different. Looks like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, has helped wipe out local celebrations.
Here in California a whole lot of events in predominately Latino communities got cancelled. Makes sense–who wants to throw a party when guests are too cautious to show up because a set of masked men might roll up in unidentified vehicles, cuff people enjoying a parade or outdoor event and take them away?
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has set a quota of 3,000 abductions—sorry—arrests– a day. Independence Day celebrations would be some easy pickings. Even easier than snatching people up at taco trucks, off street corners in front of Home Depot where they’re looking for day labor or worksites where they’ve showed up at a job.
During this week the Trump Administration gleefully opened Alligator Alcatraz in the Florida Everglades.
So cities are cancelling or postponing 4th of July events. We’ll sit for a second with the notion that Independence Day celebrations that are being cancelled. And that we’re too disheartened to celebrate any kind of independence during the week the Trump Administration gleefully opens “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades.
The list of celebration cancellations in Southern California include the big celebration at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles, and in smaller, majority-Latino cities in southeast LA county—Cudahy, Bell Gardens and Huntington Park.
Latino neighborhoods on LA’s Eastside in El Sereno Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights have postponed activities, as has Whittier.
But we’re here not to look at being cancelled as much as we’re looking about the fightback, and that’s rolling out across the country in encouraging and potentially effective ways—with people engaging in demonstrations—because you can’t be heard if you don’t yell and get underfoot—but also at the local level. People are jumping into resistance trenches in their own communities.
Like this: local organizations are stepping up to ease the pain and stress for families whose providers, fearing ICE, are blocked from going to work to pay household expanses, rent and groceries and who are likely also grappling with legal issues.
Day laborers wait outside Home Depot hoping for a few days work.
In Santa Ana, a city of 310, 000-plus and majority-Latino, and the only sanctuary city in Orange County, CA just set up a temporary $100,000 financial aid fund pulled from the city’s events budget to help families with the expenses that pressure them.
Also operating along those lines, the non-profit Anaheim Contigo is reaching out to families to provide support. Anaheim is, of course, freeway-close to Santa Ana and is the home of Disneyland and Angel Stadium—that’s where protesters marched outside on No Kings Day. (Fun fact—Anaheim in the 1920s had a four-out-of-five majority of KKK members on the city council—so things in a town can change with a lot of pushback.)
In the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, where the migra raids have been frequent and people are afraid to go out, the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network and Union del Barrio have organized neighborhood patrols to protect people from street ICE raids.
Home Depot has become a notorious spot for ICE raids. Day laborers wait outside hoping for a few days works and the migra shows up. Home Depot has already been under protest and the target of boycotting for cancelling diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
You might also now run across community people tabling outside and handing out “ICE Out of the Home Depot” posters. Union del Barrio has fanned out across LA County to help defend the jornaleros should ICE show up.
All kinds of protests are set for over the long weekend, from sea to shining sea, you might say.
Community people hand out “ICE Out of the Home Depot” posters.
The big No Kings events make sure the opposition to the current regime is seen and loud, but it’s these more granular approaches that build visibility and support for the being attacked. Block by block, with people delivering groceries to neighbors, taking kids to the doctor, showing up to defend neighbors from ICE patrols, keeping an eye on social media and responding to calls to pressure elected officials and then pestering said officials.
Pushback is sure to evolve as this scenario rolls out and as our communities build on work they’ve been doing for years. Crazy, daunting and cruel times. Seems like it will get way worse before it gets better and lets hope the fightback effort builds on the skills people have developed over the years and the young people coming up bring the thunder.
We’re gonna need it.
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Copyright 2025 by Bobbi Murray. Home Depot photos copyrighted by Barrio Dog Productions. Home Deport logo photographed under “fair use” proviso of the copyright law. Photo of Alligator Alcatraz in the public domain.