AMERIKAN GESTAPO
Many Americans are witnessing immigration arrests for the first time and reactingJULIE WATSON, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and CLAIRE RUSH
Fri, June 20, 2025
Melyssa Rivas poses for a photo at a location where she witnessed masked federal agents detaining a person earlier this month outside Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Downey, Calif., on Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)More
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Adam Greenfield was home nursing a cold when his girlfriend raced in to tell him Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles were pulling up in their trendy San Diego neighborhood.
The author and podcast producer grabbed his iPhone and bolted out the door barefoot, joining a handful of neighbors recording masked agents raiding a popular Italian restaurant nearby, as they yelled at the officers to leave. An hour later, the crowd had grown to nearly 75 people, with many in front of the agents’ vehicles.
“I couldn't stay silent,” Greenfield said. “It was literally outside of my front door.”
More Americans are witnessing people being hauled off as they shop, exercise at the gym, dine out and otherwise go about their daily lives as President Donald Trump's administration aggressively works to increase immigration arrests. As the raids touch the lives of people who aren’t immigrants themselves, many Americans who rarely, if ever, participated in civil disobedience are rushing out to record the actions on their phones and launch impromptu protests.
Arrests are being made outside gyms, busy restaurants
Greenfield said on the evening of the May 30 raid, the crowd included grandparents, retired military members, hippies, and restaurant patrons arriving for date night. Authorities threw flash bangs to force the crowd back and then drove off with four detained workers, he said.
“To do this, at 5 o’clock, right at the dinner rush, right on a busy intersection with multiple restaurants, they were trying to make a statement,” Greenfield said. "But I don’t know if their intended point is getting across the way they want it to. I think it is sparking more backlash.”
Previously, many arrests happened late at night or in the pre-dawn hours by agents waiting outside people's homes as they left for work or outside their work sites when they finished their day. When ICE raided another popular restaurant in San Diego in 2008, agents did it in the early morning without incident.
White House border czar Tom Homan has said agents are being forced to make more arrests in communities because of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with ICE in certain cities and states. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody.
Vice President JD Vance, during a visit to Los Angeles on Friday, said those policies have given agents “a bit of a morale problem because they've had the local government in this community tell them that they're not allowed to do their job."
“When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them,” he said.
Melyssa Rivas had just arrived at her office in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California one morning last week when she heard the frightened screams of young women. She went outside to find the women confronting nearly a dozen masked federal agents who had surrounded a man kneeling on the pavement.
“It was like a scene out of a movie,” Rivas said. “They all had their faces covered and were standing over this man who was clearly traumatized. And there are these young girls screaming at the top of their lungs.”
As Rivas began recording the interaction, a growing group of neighbors shouted at the agents to leave the man alone. They eventually drove off in vehicles, without detaining him, video shows.
Rivas spoke to the man afterward, who told her the agents had arrived at the car wash where he worked that morning, then pursued him as he fled on his bicycle. It was one of several recent workplace raids in the majority-Latino city.
The same day, federal agents were seen at a Home Depot, a construction site and an LA Fitness gym. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people had been detained.
“Everyone is just rattled,” said Alex Frayde, an employee at LA Fitness who said he saw the agents outside the gym and stood at the entrance, ready to turn them away as another employee warned customers about the sighting. In the end, the agents never came in.
Fri, June 20, 2025
Melyssa Rivas poses for a photo at a location where she witnessed masked federal agents detaining a person earlier this month outside Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Downey, Calif., on Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)More
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Adam Greenfield was home nursing a cold when his girlfriend raced in to tell him Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles were pulling up in their trendy San Diego neighborhood.
The author and podcast producer grabbed his iPhone and bolted out the door barefoot, joining a handful of neighbors recording masked agents raiding a popular Italian restaurant nearby, as they yelled at the officers to leave. An hour later, the crowd had grown to nearly 75 people, with many in front of the agents’ vehicles.
“I couldn't stay silent,” Greenfield said. “It was literally outside of my front door.”
More Americans are witnessing people being hauled off as they shop, exercise at the gym, dine out and otherwise go about their daily lives as President Donald Trump's administration aggressively works to increase immigration arrests. As the raids touch the lives of people who aren’t immigrants themselves, many Americans who rarely, if ever, participated in civil disobedience are rushing out to record the actions on their phones and launch impromptu protests.
Arrests are being made outside gyms, busy restaurants
Greenfield said on the evening of the May 30 raid, the crowd included grandparents, retired military members, hippies, and restaurant patrons arriving for date night. Authorities threw flash bangs to force the crowd back and then drove off with four detained workers, he said.
“To do this, at 5 o’clock, right at the dinner rush, right on a busy intersection with multiple restaurants, they were trying to make a statement,” Greenfield said. "But I don’t know if their intended point is getting across the way they want it to. I think it is sparking more backlash.”
Previously, many arrests happened late at night or in the pre-dawn hours by agents waiting outside people's homes as they left for work or outside their work sites when they finished their day. When ICE raided another popular restaurant in San Diego in 2008, agents did it in the early morning without incident.
White House border czar Tom Homan has said agents are being forced to make more arrests in communities because of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with ICE in certain cities and states. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody.
Vice President JD Vance, during a visit to Los Angeles on Friday, said those policies have given agents “a bit of a morale problem because they've had the local government in this community tell them that they're not allowed to do their job."
“When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them,” he said.
Melyssa Rivas had just arrived at her office in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California one morning last week when she heard the frightened screams of young women. She went outside to find the women confronting nearly a dozen masked federal agents who had surrounded a man kneeling on the pavement.
“It was like a scene out of a movie,” Rivas said. “They all had their faces covered and were standing over this man who was clearly traumatized. And there are these young girls screaming at the top of their lungs.”
As Rivas began recording the interaction, a growing group of neighbors shouted at the agents to leave the man alone. They eventually drove off in vehicles, without detaining him, video shows.
Rivas spoke to the man afterward, who told her the agents had arrived at the car wash where he worked that morning, then pursued him as he fled on his bicycle. It was one of several recent workplace raids in the majority-Latino city.
The same day, federal agents were seen at a Home Depot, a construction site and an LA Fitness gym. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people had been detained.
“Everyone is just rattled,” said Alex Frayde, an employee at LA Fitness who said he saw the agents outside the gym and stood at the entrance, ready to turn them away as another employee warned customers about the sighting. In the end, the agents never came in.
Communities protest around ICE buildings
Arrests at immigration courts and other ICE buildings have also prompted emotional scenes as masked agents have turned up to detain people going to routine appointments and hearings.
In the city of Spokane in eastern Washington state, hundreds of people rushed to protest outside an ICE building June 11 after former city councilor Ben Stuckart posted on Facebook. Stuckart wrote that he was a legal guardian of a Venezuelan asylum seeker who went to check in at the ICE building, only to be detained. His Venezuelan roommate was also detained.
Both men had permission to live and work in the U.S. temporarily under humanitarian parole, Stuckart told The Associated Press.
“I am going to sit in front of the bus,” Stuckart wrote, referring to the van that was set to transport the two men to an ICE detention center in Tacoma. “The Latino community needs the rest of our community now. Not tonight, not Saturday, but right now!!!!”
The city of roughly 230,000 is the seat of Spokane County, where just over half of voters cast ballots for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Stuckart was touched to see his mother’s caregiver among the demonstrators.
“She was just like, ‘I’m here because I love your mom, and I love you, and if you or your friends need help, then I want to help,’” he said through tears.
By evening, the Spokane Police Department sent over 180 officers, with some using pepper balls, to disperse protesters. Over 30 people were arrested, including Stuckart who blocked the transport van with others. He was later released.
Aysha Mercer, a stay-at-home mother of three, said she is “not political in any way, shape or form." But many children in her Spokane neighborhood — who play in her yard and jump on her trampoline — come from immigrant families, and the thought of them being affected by deportations was “unacceptable," she said.
She said she wasn't able to go to Stuckart's protest. But she marched for the first time in her life on June 14, joining millions in “No Kings” protests across the country.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt as strongly as I do right this here second,” she said.
_____
Offenhartz reported from Los Angeles and Rush from Portland, Oregon.
'A good day': Detained U.S. citizen said agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot
Brittny Mejia, Rachel Uranga
Fri, June 20, 2025\
Job Garcia in his apartment in Silver Lake. Garcia, an American citizen, was arrested and held during a raid at a Los Angeles area Home Depot on Thursday. He was released at 8:30 a.m. the next day. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
A 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was tackled to the ground and arrested after filming federal agents at Home Depot on Thursday said he was held for more than an hour near Dodger Stadium, where agents boasted about how many immigrants they arrested.
“How many bodies did you guys grab today?” he said one agent asked.
“Oh, we grabbed 31,“ the other replied.
"That was a good day today," the first agent responded.
The two high-fived, as he sat on the asphalt under the sun, Job Garcia said.
Garcia was released on Friday from a downtown federal detention center. No apparent criminal charges have yet to be filed. He is one of several U.S citizens arrested during enforcement operations in recent days. Department of Homeland Security officials say some have illegally interfered with agents' jobs.
In response to questions about why Garcia was arrested and if he'd been charged, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. recommended a reporter contact the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment.
Job Garcia in his apartment in Silver Lake Friday, June 20, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA. Garcia, an American citizen, was arrested and held during a raid at a Los Angeles area Home Depot on Thursday, June 19, 2025. He was release at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)More
Garcia said he was shaken by what he heard while he was detained
“They call them 'bodies,' they reduce them to bodies,” he said. "My blood was boiling."
Garcia, a photographer and doctoral student Claremont Graduate University, had been picking up a delivery at Home Depot when someone approached the customer desk and said something was unfolding outside.
"La migra, La migra," he heard as he walked out. He quickly grabbed his phone and followed agents around the parking lot, telling them they were "f— useless" until he came to a group of them forming a half-circle around a box truck.
A Border Patrol agent radioed someone and then slammed his baton against the passenger window, his video shows. Glass shattered. He unlocked the door as people shouted.
In the video, a stunned man can be seen texting behind the wheel. He had apparently refused to open his door.
It's unclear from the footage what happened next, but Garcia said an agent lunged toward him and pushed him.
"My first reaction was to like push his hand off," he recalled. Then, he said, the agent grabbed his left arm, twisted it behind his back and threw his phone.
The agent brought him to the ground and three other agents jumped in, Garcia said
"Get the f— down sir" and "give me your f— hand. You want it, you got it, sir, you f— got it. You want to go to jail, fine. You got it," an agent can be heard saying in the video.
"You wanted it, you got it," the man yelled.
An agent handcuffed him so hard "that there was no circulation running to my fingers," Garcia said.
Pinned down, Garcia had difficulty breathing.
"That moment, I thought I could probably die here," he said.
The agent put Garcia's phone back in his pocket. The recording kept running.
As Garcia was put into a vehicle, his video captured an agent twice saying: "I've got one back here."
"You got one what?" Garcia shot back. "You got one what?"
He said an agent told him in broken Spanish to "wait here,' though it could not be heard on the video.
"I f— speak English, you f— dumbass," he clearly shouts back.
No agent asked if he was an American citizen, he said. Nobody asked for identification.
“They assumed that I was undocumented," he said later in an interview.
The video ends after about four minutes, while he is waiting in the van.
Read more: Raid at a Home Depot in Hollywood shatters an immigrant refuge
Garcia asked an agent to get his wallet from his car, so he could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Another agent retrieved his ID, but he remained handcuffed.
They were so tight, his hands began to swell.
The agents switched him to handcuffs that looked like shoelaces. They took off around a corner, stopped to shuffle him into another van and sped off down the 101 Freeway.
"I smeared my blood in their seat," he said. And he thought, "They're going to remember me."
With him in the van was a Mexican man, face downcast, who said his wife was six months pregnant.
"My wife told me not to go to work today," the man said. "Something doesn't feel right," he said she told him.
"It broke my heart," Garcia said. "I wish he was the one who got away when they were trying to grab me."
On what he described as a ramp going into Dodger stadium near Lot K, Garcia was taken out of the car and told to sit on the asphalt as agents shuffled detainees into different vans and processed them for about an hour. A woman ran his background for criminal offenses.
It felt surreal and enraging.
“They were trying to build some sort of case," Garcia said. He told The Times he was arrested at 17 for driving without a license.
After they transported him, agents later fingerprinted him and tried to interrogate him.
The agent said they wanted to "take your side of the story."
Garcia declined.
He said he overheard an agent tell someone, “Trump is really working us."
While held at a downtown detention facility, he met Adrian Martinez.
Martinez, a 20-year-old Walmart worker and also a U.S. citizen, had been arrested on Tuesday while he tried to stop the arrest of a man who cleaned a shopping center in Pico Rivera. The two spoke for about 10 minutes, as Martinez waited to go to court.
"You're the Walmart kid, right?" he asked him.
Garcia told him what had unfolded outside the Home Depot.
"That's exactly what happened to me," he said Martinez told him. "They were bullying this older guy. I didn’t like that so I went and confronted them and they put their hands on me and I pushed their hands off.”
U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted a photo of Martinez on X and said he "was arrested for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face after he attempted to impede their immigration enforcement operation." Martinez was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to impede a federal officer.
The complaint makes no reference to a punch, but alleges that Martinez blocked agents' vehicles with his car and then later a trash can.
“A complaint generally contains one charge and does not include the full scope of a defendant’s conduct, or the evidence that will be presented at trial," said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. "Considering this is an active case, we will not be providing further comments outside of court proceedings.”
Martinez was released Friday on a $5,000 bond.
“U.S. Attorney Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent," Martinez's attorneys said in a statement. "However he has not been charged with an assault charge because he didn’t assault anyone, and the evidence of that is clear."
Garcia said his cellmate was worried about these protests. He asked, "Don’t you think the protesters who are out there destroying property, rioters, is a bad look?"
“Rioting is the language of the unheard," he said, riffing on a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Brittny Mejia, Rachel Uranga
Fri, June 20, 2025\
Job Garcia in his apartment in Silver Lake. Garcia, an American citizen, was arrested and held during a raid at a Los Angeles area Home Depot on Thursday. He was released at 8:30 a.m. the next day. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
A 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was tackled to the ground and arrested after filming federal agents at Home Depot on Thursday said he was held for more than an hour near Dodger Stadium, where agents boasted about how many immigrants they arrested.
“How many bodies did you guys grab today?” he said one agent asked.
“Oh, we grabbed 31,“ the other replied.
"That was a good day today," the first agent responded.
The two high-fived, as he sat on the asphalt under the sun, Job Garcia said.
Garcia was released on Friday from a downtown federal detention center. No apparent criminal charges have yet to be filed. He is one of several U.S citizens arrested during enforcement operations in recent days. Department of Homeland Security officials say some have illegally interfered with agents' jobs.
In response to questions about why Garcia was arrested and if he'd been charged, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. recommended a reporter contact the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment.
Job Garcia in his apartment in Silver Lake Friday, June 20, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA. Garcia, an American citizen, was arrested and held during a raid at a Los Angeles area Home Depot on Thursday, June 19, 2025. He was release at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)More
Garcia said he was shaken by what he heard while he was detained
“They call them 'bodies,' they reduce them to bodies,” he said. "My blood was boiling."
Garcia, a photographer and doctoral student Claremont Graduate University, had been picking up a delivery at Home Depot when someone approached the customer desk and said something was unfolding outside.
"La migra, La migra," he heard as he walked out. He quickly grabbed his phone and followed agents around the parking lot, telling them they were "f— useless" until he came to a group of them forming a half-circle around a box truck.
A Border Patrol agent radioed someone and then slammed his baton against the passenger window, his video shows. Glass shattered. He unlocked the door as people shouted.
In the video, a stunned man can be seen texting behind the wheel. He had apparently refused to open his door.
It's unclear from the footage what happened next, but Garcia said an agent lunged toward him and pushed him.
"My first reaction was to like push his hand off," he recalled. Then, he said, the agent grabbed his left arm, twisted it behind his back and threw his phone.
The agent brought him to the ground and three other agents jumped in, Garcia said
"Get the f— down sir" and "give me your f— hand. You want it, you got it, sir, you f— got it. You want to go to jail, fine. You got it," an agent can be heard saying in the video.
"You wanted it, you got it," the man yelled.
An agent handcuffed him so hard "that there was no circulation running to my fingers," Garcia said.
Pinned down, Garcia had difficulty breathing.
"That moment, I thought I could probably die here," he said.
The agent put Garcia's phone back in his pocket. The recording kept running.
As Garcia was put into a vehicle, his video captured an agent twice saying: "I've got one back here."
"You got one what?" Garcia shot back. "You got one what?"
He said an agent told him in broken Spanish to "wait here,' though it could not be heard on the video.
"I f— speak English, you f— dumbass," he clearly shouts back.
No agent asked if he was an American citizen, he said. Nobody asked for identification.
“They assumed that I was undocumented," he said later in an interview.
The video ends after about four minutes, while he is waiting in the van.
Read more: Raid at a Home Depot in Hollywood shatters an immigrant refuge
Garcia asked an agent to get his wallet from his car, so he could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Another agent retrieved his ID, but he remained handcuffed.
They were so tight, his hands began to swell.
The agents switched him to handcuffs that looked like shoelaces. They took off around a corner, stopped to shuffle him into another van and sped off down the 101 Freeway.
"I smeared my blood in their seat," he said. And he thought, "They're going to remember me."
With him in the van was a Mexican man, face downcast, who said his wife was six months pregnant.
"My wife told me not to go to work today," the man said. "Something doesn't feel right," he said she told him.
"It broke my heart," Garcia said. "I wish he was the one who got away when they were trying to grab me."
On what he described as a ramp going into Dodger stadium near Lot K, Garcia was taken out of the car and told to sit on the asphalt as agents shuffled detainees into different vans and processed them for about an hour. A woman ran his background for criminal offenses.
It felt surreal and enraging.
“They were trying to build some sort of case," Garcia said. He told The Times he was arrested at 17 for driving without a license.
After they transported him, agents later fingerprinted him and tried to interrogate him.
The agent said they wanted to "take your side of the story."
Garcia declined.
He said he overheard an agent tell someone, “Trump is really working us."
While held at a downtown detention facility, he met Adrian Martinez.
Martinez, a 20-year-old Walmart worker and also a U.S. citizen, had been arrested on Tuesday while he tried to stop the arrest of a man who cleaned a shopping center in Pico Rivera. The two spoke for about 10 minutes, as Martinez waited to go to court.
"You're the Walmart kid, right?" he asked him.
Garcia told him what had unfolded outside the Home Depot.
"That's exactly what happened to me," he said Martinez told him. "They were bullying this older guy. I didn’t like that so I went and confronted them and they put their hands on me and I pushed their hands off.”
U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted a photo of Martinez on X and said he "was arrested for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face after he attempted to impede their immigration enforcement operation." Martinez was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to impede a federal officer.
The complaint makes no reference to a punch, but alleges that Martinez blocked agents' vehicles with his car and then later a trash can.
“A complaint generally contains one charge and does not include the full scope of a defendant’s conduct, or the evidence that will be presented at trial," said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. "Considering this is an active case, we will not be providing further comments outside of court proceedings.”
Martinez was released Friday on a $5,000 bond.
“U.S. Attorney Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent," Martinez's attorneys said in a statement. "However he has not been charged with an assault charge because he didn’t assault anyone, and the evidence of that is clear."
Garcia said his cellmate was worried about these protests. He asked, "Don’t you think the protesters who are out there destroying property, rioters, is a bad look?"
“Rioting is the language of the unheard," he said, riffing on a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment