Los Angeles (AP) – In a parking space for home depot, a man with a bicycle for the federal immigration agent and organized a megaphone on his hip so that he can blow up a warning to day workers who are waiting to land a landscape building or building job.
The workers from Mexico, El Salvador and elsewhere wear the pipe to give the alarm, while activists exchange details for two-way radio devices about whether cars could be by traffic jams from cars from non-marked vehicles with civil servants with preparation for an attack.
Your work is cut out for you. The agents searched the property outside the 108,000 square meter Home Depot shop in the Van Nuys district in Los Angeles at least five times this summer. They rounded up some immigrants and sent others in search of security.
Home Depot shops in Southern California have long been an informal hub for jobs for day workers in the country both legally and illegally. Now the locations have become a main goal for immigration agents.
In fact, Home Depot reported that Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff of the White House and the chief architect of President Donald Trump, was mentioned as the goal for immigration attacks at the beginning of this year.
At least a dozen home deposit shops have been targeted, some of them repeatedly in South California since the administration increased their immigration check this summer.
The supporters of immigrants sued the raids, but on Monday the Supreme Court solved the path for federal agents to continue the extensive immigration operations in Los Angeles, the latest victory for the Trump administration at the High Court. Kristi Noem, secretary of the homeland protection authority, called it “a victory” for the rule of law, while they quickly criticized the decision.
“If you undermine the civil rights of those who are more at risk, they undermine the civil rights of everyone else,” said Pablo Alvarado, Co-Executive of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, during a press conference near a home depot.
Last month, a man ran on a nearby highway in front of a home depot in Monrovia to flee the immigration authorities, and was hit and killed.
Van Nuys’s location was hit particularly challenging.
Three raids escape
Javier, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant who has lived in US states from California to Kansas in the past three decades, said he had escaped almost three raids in the shop. He avoided agents by hiding under a truck, setting up in his car and walking into the busy buyers.
“They come in large vans and everyone goes out to pursue people,” he said in Spanish and asked that his last name is not used for fear of the government’s reprisals.
The business is on the property near the Van Nuys Airport, which is owned by Los Angeles World Airport, a department in a city, the guidelines of which limit the cooperation with the implementation of the immigration of the federal government.
Karen Bass, Mayor of Los Angeles, said in a statement that her office supported the legal disputes against the sweeps and trained the city workers in order to prepare for the enforcement of immigration on urban real estate.
The city council of Ysabel Jurado has commented against a plan for a novel home depot in her district and claims that the company had not done enough to combat the raids.
Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Workers Organizing Network, said: “These locations should be protected by the city to the same extent that the public libraries are.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comments.
Terms make up about half of his business
According to lawyers from the immigrants, the country’s largest retailer benefits from an adequate job in the contractor in the BIG-BOX-HAUS-HAUS-HAUS-HAUSMENTIAL and should do more to protect customers, employees and day workers.
The company based in Atlanta with an annual turnover of almost $ 160 billion until February 2 counts on contractors and specialists for around half of his business and that is an vital attraction for mostly immigrant workers. The secondary competitor, Lowe’s, receives about 30% of his business from the contractor and is more based on homeowners and DIY enthusiasts, said Neil Saunders, Managing Director of Globaldata Retail.
“So if you are looking for the volume when you go where people are and you can enforce things, go to the Home Depot,” said Saunders.
The raids have not affected the total sales, but the disorders could affect certain business by being afraid of shopping there, said Saunders.
In the Los Angeles area, the business of the company in June recorded a decline in foot traffic in June by 10.7% compared to the previous year and in July by 10%, according to Placer.ai, an analysis company that pursues the movements of people on the basis of the exploit of mobile phones. This is a larger decline than the declines of 3.8% and 2.7%, which were reported nationwide nationwide in the same months.
Home Depot says that it is not made aware of raids
Home Depot has repeatedly denied being involved in the immigration enforcement processes. The deceased co -founder of the company, Bernie Marcus, supported Trump, although a political campaign committee for the home depot donated to both Democrats and Republicans.
The company said it was not announced whether a raid will take place in one of its approximately 2,300 shops.
“We tell the employees that they should immediately report alleged activities to enforce immigration and do not deal with the activity for their security,” said Beth Marlowe, a company spokesman, and added that the employees, if they feel restless after a raid, can go home for the rest of the day.
In Van Nuys, witnesses said that federal agents arrested those on the property before they seemed to ask about their immigration status. Local managers have closed the automated glass doors of the business to keep agents away, they said.
“They only fish,” said Luis, a 37-year-old worker who is a legal resident and grew up in the United States after arriving from Mexico as a child. He refused to exploit his last name, which feared the government’s reprisals.
“Home Depot is not an innocent viewer”
The trend that workers who gathered outside the Home Depot began to escalate the retail business for home improvements in which humans, including contractors, were bought directly and bought material directly, said Nik Theodore, Professor of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
“The basis of the competition began to change and what prevents a contractor from receiving the offer or no longer doing labor costs,” said Theodore. “Home depot is not an innocent viewer in all of this. Their sources of success were significant for the catalysis of this change.”
As the trend increased, complaints about workers who gathered in parking spaces, and in 2008 Los Angeles passed a regulation in which similar retailers were opened to say goodbye to plans to provide relief such as a seating area, bathing rooms and garbage facilities.
In the parking lot in Van Nuys, a non -profit association operates a work center that takes workers and persecutes employers who do not pay as promised. This is one reason why the workers said they return after the repeated raids.
The other is a community.
Since the raids, Javier said that he had started to return to Mexico to wait for the Trump administration. In the meantime, he said he would come to Van Nuys again and again to find work.
“It’s a place that becomes familiar,” he said. “Here, all of us together, we became friends.”
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D’unoolzio reported from New York. Associated Press Writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
