For several days, rumors that the federal government had planned a massive immigration sweep in Los Angeles County on Sunday brought vigilance to officials and threw all of fear and anxiety at many immigrant communities.
By the morning, however, when it was actually released it seemed to have not been as widely used as many people had predicted.
Immigration and customs enforcement officers will not say whether the special operations of the day were carried out or whether the arrests were released. FBI representatives, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office and the Los Angeles Police Department said they have no information or are not involved in a federal immigration lawsuit, referring questions to ICE.
Two sources familiar with the situation say Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Detention Center (a lockup run by the Federal Prisons Bureau) is being asked to prepare up to 120 new bookings from the expected immigration attack this weekend. Usually, downtown facilities have staff members who only receive new inmates on weekdays, officials said, and staff on weekend intakes are available on holidays. We had to order staff to come.
Staff came in as directed, but in the afternoon the immigration officers were less than 12 people due to the processing, sources said.
“We’ve heard they haven’t got the number they want,” the source said if officials who brought detainees from San Bernardino County start to get detained late in the evening, the numbers could increase. I added. Neither source requested anonymity as they were not permitted to publicly talk about the issue.
When contacted via email for comment, a federal prison spokesman confirmed that the agency supports ICE by housing some detainees, but detains immigrants at Los Angeles Detention Center He declined to comment on the plan. He said the agency “doesn’t comment on the legal status of an individual, nor does it identify the legal status of an individual assigned to a particular facility, including numbers or locations.”
Videos have been posted on social media showing officers showing unmarked vehicles and bests in their homes, from the Alhambra to Highland Park, across Los Angeles County.
However, at least one group acting to protect immigrants posted on Sunday morning that they were chasing ice agents from staging points at the Alhambra’s target parking lot to their residence. Part of their video showed law enforcement officers casting in bulletproof vests posted outside the building of their face-covered stucco apartments.
Neighbors said that shortly after dawn, the two black-painted sedans retreated around a low, hanging two-storey apartment.
Behind the door to the residence was Felipe Espinoza, a 56-year-old Los Angeles traffic officer.
More than half a dozen agents were outside his home. He raised his hand to the screen, reminiscing about every police show he had seen. They repeatedly sought his stepfather. His car was registered at the address.
“I’ve never seen him in a while,” he told them. Meanwhile, his seven-year-old child came to the door with his wife.
Espinoza says he finally went outside to talk to them and they produced a three-page document that said they were warrants. But they showed him only the first page.
“They were a bit hesitant to show me the warrant, but all I saw was that they had no seal on it or anything,” he said. That was clearly stated: “illegal aliens.”
This document showed some variations of his stepfather’s name, and that was what it became clear to him that it was an issue of immigration. He thought it could be related to drug activity at the location. Before the family moved into their apartment two years ago, police were frequently called to the complex for drug dealings. However, the new owner had repaired the site, but there was no police activity for years, and the family lived there now.
Neighbors walked their dogs on tidy, tree-lined streets of the Alhambra, a largely middle-class community of Asian and Latinx residents.
That became more clear after Espinoza read about the immigration crackdown on Sunday.
“It happened so fast,” he said. “I was really surprised.”
He had known his stepfather for over a decade and could not understand why officials were searching for him.
The activist with the speaker tried to communicate with someone in the apartment. “If they don’t have a warrant, you don’t need to open the door,” the voice said. “It must be signed by a judge. If they don’t have a warrant, don’t talk to them.”
Other voices on the speaker called the agents “daughter” and “terrorists”, and the small group began to chant: Please say it twice. We don’t hold back on ice. ”
It was unclear from the video whether the officers were actually from the ice or from other agencies, and whether anyone was taken into custody as a result of the visit. The watch commander of the Alhambra Police Station said his agency was not aware of the operation in his city on Sunday.
Sofia Teodoro, a member of the community’s Self-Defense Coalition, said she came across Sunday’s operation when she pulled into Target’s parking lot, as it was recently formed in response to increased immigration enforcement.
She saw multiple unmarked vehicles and began recording. Shortly before 6am, some vehicles remained, and she and others continued to a nearby residential area. They arrived at Olive Avenue and St. Charles Terrace, where agents blocked the intersection with the car.
Meanwhile, another member returned to the parking lot and notified the Union Group after notifying him of a van with a Department of Homeland Security license plate.
“We made sure we had DHS visible and started warning the community and let them know that immigrants were in the area and were indoors.”
Much of Los Angeles has been supported for its major operations since President Trump was sworn in his second term last month. ICE already runs well-known businesses in Chicago and New York, among other places.
This month, The Times reviewed government documents suggesting federal law enforcement agencies are planning to implement “large” immigration enforcement measures in the Los Angeles area by the end of the month. However, sources also warned that these plans could be changed.
Times staff writer Howard Bloom contributed to this report.
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