After weeks of relative quiet, Border Patrol agents raided a Home Depot in Westlake on Wednesday as a top federal agent warned, “We’re not leaving,” and posted images of half a dozen border agents running from a Penske truck through the parking lot.
As many as 16 immigrants were reported rounded up and arrested in what U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Greg Bovino called “Operation Trojan Horse.” The early morning raids revived fears of more widespread sweeps that organizers had hoped would ease with a federal judge’s order, affirmed by a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel, that immigration officials cannot racially profile people or use roving patrols to target immigrants.
“For those who thought Immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again,” acting U.S. attorney Bill Essayli posted on X, shortly after the raid. “The enforcement of federal law is not negotiable and there are no sanctuaries from the reach of the federal government.”
A day laborer, who identified himself as Ceasar, said around 6:45 a.m. a yellow Penske truck pulled up to the laborers who had gathered in the parking lot. The driver told them in Spanish he was looking for workers.
Several of the men gathered around the truck and then someone, it was unclear who to him, rolled up the back of the truck. Masked agents, one wearing a cowboy hat, jumped out and started chasing people. People scattered.
“This is the worst feeling ever,” said Ceasar, who has been going to the home improvement store to pick up work for several years.
Video on social media captured the moment the back of the rental truck opened. When Penske Truck Rental was asked about it, they said they were aware of the incident.
“The company was not made aware that its trucks would be used in today’s operation and did not authorize this,” said Penske spokesman Randolph P. Ryerson. “Penske will reach out to DHS and reinforce its policy to avoid improper use of its vehicles in the future.
He added: “Penske strictly prohibits the transportation of people in the cargo area of its vehicles under any circumstances,” the statement said.
One worker who escaped was still shaken by the experience an hour later. He identified himself as Raul, and said he saw at least eight people get arrested.
“That’s one of their cars,” he said pointing to a silver Toyota sedan.
The Home Depot had been one of the scene of the first raids in June that kicked off a more than month of operations in Southern California in which civil rights lawyers say federal agents indiscriminately arrested immigrants. The raids gutted businesses, spread fear and tore apart families.
On July 11, a federal judge temporarily blocked federal agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate arrests after the ACLU, Public Counsel, other groups and private attorneys sued over the practices saying that the region had been “under seige.”
Department of Justice attorneys argued the order hinders them from carrying federal immigration enforcement, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the order.
For the past weeks since the restraining order kicked in in early July, Bovino has shared photos of arrests of undocumented immigrants, stating that some had active arrest warrants. With others, he referenced a lengthy criminal history, marking the arrests as more targeted than they had been prior.
But organizers say a similar operation to the raid unfolded on Monday at a Home Depot in Hollywood that was the site of a massive raid in June. That operation also sparked concerns about violations of the TRO.
Maegan Ortiz, the executive director of the nonprofit group Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California, known as IDEPSCA, said they began receiving word about an immigration operation at the Home Depot in Hollywood around 6:50 a.m. on Monday.
