DELIVERING FRUIT, THEN DETAINED

The driver was taking strawberries to a tearoom in Little Tokyo when Border Patrol agents happened to see him. Now his family has been broken apart.

- BRITTNY MEJIA

ANGEL Rodrigo Minguela Palacios about six years ago.

The strawberry delivery driver was making his last drop-off in Little Tokyo, unloading nearly a dozen boxes onto the sidewalk outside the Japanese American National Museum.

Inside the building, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies were holding a news conference about a Democratic Party plan to fight back against President Trump's efforts to maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives through redistricting in Texas.

Angel Rodrigo Minguela Palacios knew nothing of the powerful men’s clash as he stacked cardboard boxes filled with ripe, red fruit Thursday morning last week. He also didn’t know that dozens of Border Patrol agents were amassing nearby.

Minguela was caught between the two spectacles. His life was about to be upended.

In the days that followed, Newsom accused the Trump administration of trying to intimidate the president's political opponents by sending the immigration agents. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin has said the agents were “focused on enforcing the law,” not on Newsom.

Newsom has since submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records from the administration about why agents arrived at the museum as he was announcing his latest skirmish with the president.

For Minguela, who has been in the country for close to a decade, that day felt a lot more personal. He was arrested by Border Patrol agents and now faces deportation back to Mexico. Speaking from behind a plexiglass window at the “B-18” federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, Minguela stressed that he is not a criminal.

"One comes here to work, not commit crimes," said Minguela, who wore the same red T-shirt and jeans he'd been arrested in four days prior.