Home Depots at 'epicenter' of recent ICE raids

While the number of immigration raids in Southern California have slowed in recent weeks, the focus on Home Depots appears to have intensified.

- BY JENNY JARVIE

AGENTS hit a Home Depot lot Thursday in Monrovia, sending laborers running.

Parking lots at those stores have become a key new battleground in the federal government’s evolving strategy of immigration enforcement.

“Home Depot, whether they like it or not, they are the epicenter of raids,” said Pablo Alvarado, the co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a group that represents the tens of thousands of day laborers working in L.A.

On Thursday, agents moved on a Home Depot parking lot in Monrovia, sending laborers running, including a man who jumped a wall and onto the 210 Freeway, where he was fatally struck. A day prior, fear of a possible raid at a Ladera Ranch location sparked warnings across social media.

Since a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting federal agents from targeting people solely based on their race, language, vocation or location, the number of arrests in Southern California declined in July.

But over the last two weeks, some higher-profile raids have returned, often taking place at Home Depot locations, where immigrant laborers congregate looking for work.

The renewed burst of raids outside neighborhood Home Depots began Aug. 6, when a man drove a Penske moving truck to a Home Depot in Westlake and began soliciting day laborers when, all of a sudden, Border Patrol agents jumped out of the back of the vehicle and began to chase people down.

Sixteen people were arrested.

The raid-branded "Operation Trojan House" by the Trump administration - was showcased by government officials with footage from an embedded Fox News TV crew. "For those who thought Immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again," acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted on X.