Giovanni Garcia stopped towards a dusty intersection in South Gate and extended the scene. It was calm, just people who come home from work, but Garcia was one of several people there in the hope of testifying to one of the federal raids that have taken place in the County of Los Angeles in recent days.
A few minutes earlier, several Instagram accounts had displayed alerts warning that white vans with customs and protection of American green borders had been seen near the intersection.
With friends loaded in his big white Cherokee and a large Mexican flag flying the sunroof, it was the sixth consecutive day that Garcia, 28, had spent up to 10 hours following such alerts through the districts of South South immigrants.
Fueled by sodas and snacks he picked up on a Northgate market, Garcia’s objective, he said, was to catch immigration and the application of customs or other immigration agents in the act of holding people on the street.
So far, it was an unsuccessful prosecution.
“I have been doing this for six days. It sucks because I receive these alerts and I leave, but I never manage in time, “said Garcia, a Mexican American citizen who lives in the South Center.
Surveillance of ICE activity has become a dark hobby for some Angelenos. Applications dedicated to the objective have arisen, which combine with Citizen, Nextdoor, X and other platforms to create an unaccompanied information fire hose generated by users on federal movements and operations.
Trying to follow in real time can be just as exhausting and frustrating. The reports sometimes prove to be false, and the immigration executors seem to strike and leave with rapid precision, leaving the public little opportunity to respond.
It is impossible to determine how many people are engaged in this Sisyphe pursuit. But they have become a frequent show in recent days, because anger has developed in response to viral videos of tasty and violent. A journalist and photographer of the Times crossed the southern half of the County of Los Angeles, meeting Garcia and other ice hunters in the pursuit of federal agents who constantly seemed one step ahead.
Giovanni Garcia, 28, crosses the south door with a Mexican flag. He spent six days trying to attend an ice raid with little luck.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
A new notification appeared on Garcia’s Instagram flow Thursday afternoon: ice agents had been identified in an indescribable residential area in South Gate, a city of around 90,000 people, more than 40% of whom were born abroad, according to the American census. Garcia therefore put his SUV in equipment and accelerated.
He and his crew were late again. They arrived in a corner about 15 minutes after witnesses say that the immigration agents with vests and green gaiters on their faces had jumped vehicles, handcuffed and took a man who had sold flowers in front of a Ranch style house for years.
“I continue to do this because they play with my people,” said Garcia. “It is no longer immigration. Trump no longer targets criminals; it aims for Hispanics.”
It was one of the many raids in the south of the past few days in houses, parks and businesses ranging from car wash to grocery stores.
People took in incidents captured in photos and videos that passers -by shared online ran the whole range: a man torn off a diverse crowd without discernible reason while walking at South Gate Park. Another handcuff on the sidewalk outside a Ross clothing store in Bell Gardens. Two men from Rosemead ripped off from a bakery parking lot.
The workers of a Fashion Nova clothing warehouse in Vernon told Times that ice trucks had been identified in the region and that they had heard agents planned to face the employees during a quarter work change.
From the elderly to children, no one was immune to federal application efforts.
Jasmyn Vasillio, 35, said that she was first worried when she saw social networks that ice agents had attacked a car washing in South Gate, then an hour later, an article on the apprehension of the flower seller.
“I knew that Flower Guy is still there and I live nearby, so I just went,” she said, standing in the corner where he stood 20 minutes earlier. “I think they just take people and leave.”
“I’m just another frustrated person who wants to see the end.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
A 20 -year -old Latin man who refused to provide his name for fear of reprisals said that he had done everything he could to make known what immigration application agents make in his district of South Gate and through the south of the
“I am an American citizen, so I’m good. I’m worried about the others. It was heartbreaking,” he said by broadcasting live on a South Gate street where CBP agents had been spotted a few minutes before, according to articles he had seen on Instagram.
“They are there to work and be torn from their families,” he said. “It’s sad. They came here for the American dream and that’s what is going on. ”
Adolescents Emmanuel Segura and Jessy Villa said they had spent hours during last week by scrolling social media and desperately endlessly without aggressively detained videos. They felt helpless in the face of repression, so they planned a manifestation at the heart of their own community.
On Thursday, they went to Atlantic Avenue and Firetona Boulevard in South Gate, where Villa stirred a flag pole with American and Mexican flags landing there. They were joined by more than 30 other demonstrators who chanted slogans and hoisted anti-ice posters. Drivers hob in support when they passed.
Jessy Villa, 14, protests against recent ice raids in the Southland in Atlantic Avenue and Firestona Boulevard in South Gate.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“It’s a bit scary. They take anyone at this stage. I just saw that the ice has gone to a car washing and took two people. And they are working hard – they are not criminals,” said Segura, a 15 -year -old South Gate resident. “So we planned the protest to go against the ice, Trump and his administration.”
Villa, 14, lives in Lynwood nearby, where he says that everyone he knows is terrified, them or someone they care will be the next person swept away in an ice raid.
“The streets are empty. No one wants to go out. And children don’t want to go to school, especially children who have migrated here,” said Villa. “They are afraid to go to school in the morning and feared to go home and discover that their parents were expelled.”
Five kilometers away in Vernon, Manolo was held on Thursday morning on the loading quay of the candle manufacturing company he has as an employee loaded with candles at the back of a black SUV. He said that he had followed news and rumors on online raids, and that the fear generated by them and the events in response were devastating for his business and other small businesses.
“Everyone worries about it,” said Manolo, telling how he heard that earlier in the day, the ice had made a descent into the two doors. Her business received no calls for orders Thursday morning, from 50 to 60, which she generally receives per day. If raids and immigration demonstrations did not end by the end of the month, he said that he may have to close his business.
Family members of STG logistics employees are waiting to hear it from the situation of their loved ones after an ice raid in business facilities in Compton.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“All the people snatched in the street – they have you on the ground handcuffed, traumatize you, why? It makes me nervous, of course,” said Manolo, an American citizen who has moved to the United States since Guatemala 33 years ago and refused to give his family name and his society which could be targeted by the forces of law.
“And that’s not only that, it affects businesses, it affects people’s lives. It affects economics, police. This affects your daily routine. When it ends?”
