parking lot

SANTA YNEZ — Shaun Cassidy steers his Dodge Ram 250 into the parking lot of the Maverick Saloon and throws open the truck’s passenger door, refrigerated air whooshing out of the cab, where he sits behind the wheel wearing sunglasses, black jeans and a black T-shirt.

The onetime teen idol who topped Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1977 with his chirpy cover of the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron” — this was seven years after Cassidy’s mother, Shirley Jones, and his half brother, David Cassidy, hit No. 1 as the Partridge Family with “I Think I Love You” — has made a lunch reservation at a vineyard not far from where he lives in Santa Barbara County so the two of us can talk about his upcoming concert tour.

“But the place is as big as Knott’s Berry Farm, and I didn’t want to spend 20 minutes looking for you,” he says, with a laugh. “That’s why I thought better to pick you up here.”

The drive also allows Cassidy, 66, to show off a bit of the picturesque region he’s called home since 2011, when he moved from Hidden Hills with his wife, Tracey, and their four children. (He has three more children from two previous marriages.) “It’s not as remote as it was before the pandemic,” says Cassidy, who’s spent the last few decades working behind the scenes in television. Through the truck’s windows, a panini shop and a microblading clinic roll by. “COVID happened, and suddenly it became part of Los Angeles — a lot of new people,” he says.

“But I grew up in L.A. and New York” — Cassidy’s dad was the actor Jack Cassidy — “and I always envied people that came from somewhere else. My folks told us, ‘Don’t worry, we’re gonna buy a farm in Pennsylvania or move upstate,’ and it never happened.” Here in the Santa Ynez Valley, Cassidy adds, “I’ve managed to manifest the family life that my father always told me was important but somehow couldn’t find for himself.”

Now he’s leaving home for his most extensive run of shows in more than 40 years.

Cassidy’s tour, which kicks off Saturday at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry and has dates scheduled through March, will revisit the lightweight pop pleasures of the musical career he maintained alongside his role as Joe Hardy on TV’s “The Hardy Boys Mysteries.” As the younger brother of an established heartthrob, Cassidy came in hot: His self-titled debut for Warner Bros. Records went platinum within months and spun off three Top 10 singles in “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll,” “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Hey Deanie”; Cassidy was even nominated for best new artist at the Grammy Awards in 1978, where he turned up onstage in a white pantsuit at age 19 for a bum-waggling rendition of “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll.”

“This young man,” proclaimed the show’s host, John Denver, “is definitely going places.”

Shaun Cassidy at the 20th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 1978.

(UPI / Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)

Four more LPs came in quick succession, ending with the willfully eccentric “Wasp,” for which Cassidy recruited Todd Rundgren as his producer. Then, following a 1980 gig at Houston’s Astrodome, Cassidy abruptly quit music to focus on writing and acting, which he describes as his real passion.

“I didn’t love being famous,” he says, as we pull onto a dirt road approaching Vega Vineyard & Farm. “But I think I needed to be famous. I came from a family where everyone was well known, and I didn’t want to go through life being someone’s kid or someone’s brother. So I had to sort of step out into the spotlight and announce myself, and once that was done, I could figure out what I want to do.”

Why return to the stage now? For one thing, Cassidy says he’s singing better at the moment than he ever has — a claim supported by his old friend Bernie Taupin.

“Shaun’s voice has matured in the best way possible,” says the lyricist known for his half-century-long collaboration with Elton John. “But the other thing is that he’s a born raconteur.”

Indeed, Cassidy’s road show, which he’s been workshopping sporadically since 2019, is a songs-and-stories affair in which he looks back on an eventful life he has yet to recount in a book. “You have to be fearless and brutally honest when you write a memoir,” he says, pointing to Patti Smith’s “Just Kids” (2010) as one worth aspiring to. “David wrote a s— book, and my mother wrote a s— book, so I feel a bit of responsibility to represent my family accurately and honestly.”

We’re seated now at a picnic table in the shade, where a server has brought over several bottles from Cassidy’s line of wines — the line is called My First Crush, which is perfect — and a couple of Greek salads. “I don’t think there’s anything I’d be scared to write,” Cassidy says. “My bigger fear would be hurting people.”

Who have you used as a comparison point to explain your ’70s stardom to your youngest child?
She has the poster on her wall: Harry Styles. And I didn’t say it to her; her mother did: “You know, your father was that guy.” My daughter’s like, “That old in guy there? Not possible.” But there was a chain you could tie me into. My record had been No. 1 a week or two before Elvis died, so when that happened, lots of reporters called me: “How do you feel about Elvis passing? How do you feel about walking in the King’s shoes?” I was like, “If he’s dead at 42, I don’t want to be in those shoes.”

Did you actually say that to a reporter?
I was too polite. But there’s a lot of truth in it. Ricky Nelson had just been a guest on “The Hardy Boys,” and I remember thinking that I didn’t want to be guest starring on a TV show in 20 years. Look, my brother David didn’t handle fame well. I had a model for what not to do, and I had a model for what to do: my mother, who’s 91 and lives five minutes away and is as gracious and lovely and happy a human being as you’ll ever meet.

I like to say I’m in show business, but I’m not of it. I love the work and the creativity — I’m not a red carpet guy. She never was either. She was like, “They tell me where to go, I show up, I do it.” And people love her.

There’s a great photo of you in the L.A. Times in 1978 standing in your backyard next to a swimming pool.
I got “The Hardy Boys” when I was 18 — still living at home with my mom in Beverly Hills. My parents are separated — my father died while I was shooting the pilot, which was pretty traumatic — and I’m like, I gotta get out of here. The family’s business manager calls a bank and says, “He’s top of show on a new series making $2,500 a week.” They got me a loan to buy a house without a down payment. So I went and bought a house on the weekend while my mother was out of town.

Was she pissed?
No, she wasn’t. She was happy for me — sort of. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.

You went through the whole emotional spectrum in that answer.
It was weird. I only lived there for like a year because now I’m making a lot of money, so the business manager says, “You need to buy real estate and you need to spend more money,” which is dumb, as it turns out. Keep that little house you bought with your first check and put the rest of it in the stock market, and you won’t need to worry about anything forever.

So somebody finds me a place on Mulholland. Warren Beatty is over here, Brando and Nicholson are over here — Valley view, Beverly Hills view, on a promontory with a pool. This is the house in the picture. When I first go up to see it, there’s a recording truck in the driveway and all this recording equipment inside. Fleetwood Mac are there doing something. I’d met Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

Shirley Jones and Shaun Cassidy at the 73rd Tony Awards in New York in 2019.

(Bruce Glikas / WireImage)

What, as proud Warner Bros. recording artists?
Just at parties in L.A. before they joined Fleetwood Mac. I was out all the time. My parents sent me to boarding school in Pennsylvania in ’73 — I ditched the entire time on a train into New York to go to CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. Danny Fields took me to CBGB’s to see the Ramones when he was managing them. And why did I know Danny Fields when I was 15? Because he was writing for 16 Magazine where [editor in chief] Gloria Stavers was putting pictures of me in there with no record deal: “It’s another Cassidy — isn’t he cute?”

Danny was interesting. He’d managed Iggy Pop, and I knew Iggy — Jim — from hanging out on Sunset because this was the time Jim was living in Hollywood kind of between jobs. Smart guy — big influence on me. Early on, I played Rodney Bingenheimer’s club. I’m there shirtless with a bow tie, screaming, looking kind of like Iggy at 14 or 15.

It’s wild that your most chaotic years happened before you were even 18.
They cleaned me up. I was on “The Hardy Boys” playing a character who really couldn’t look like a punk. My earring had to go.

You ever feel hemmed in by the job?
No, because I was playing a character, and my identity wasn’t tied to the success of the show. Miguel Ferrer was one of my closest friends, and his dad, Joe — José Ferrer, real actor’s actor — I remember he said to me, “So, my boy, you’re thinking of going into the business? Let me give you a piece of advice: I have known success and failure, and they are both impostors.” He took it from Rudyard Kipling, I think. But it stuck with me. Anything I did, even “Wasp” — I don’t view that remotely as a failure. I view it actually as a bold awakening.

One of the great pop-idol freak-outs, 1980’s “Wasp” found Cassidy alternately crooning, yowling and barking his way through new-wave-y covers of tunes by the likes of David Bowie, the Who and Talking Heads while backed by members of Rundgren’s group Utopia.

“All I wanted to do was work with Todd,” says Cassidy, who’d been unhappy making “Room Service” in 1979 “because there was so much pressure from the record company to dive into disco, which I was never a fan of and which felt completely inauthentic for me.” By that time, Rundgren had produced hip records for the New York Dolls and the Patti Smith Group in addition to scoring hits of his own like “I Saw the Light” and “Hello It’s Me.” “He said to me, ‘You’re an actor — let’s do some acting.’ So we created some characters and experimented with different things.”

The album bombed. “My audience wasn’t ready for it, and there was no new audience showing up on FM radio that was gonna embrace me,” says Cassidy. “I think eight people bought it.”

Having been told by a Warner Bros. executive that he should go away — “And he was 100% right” — Cassidy “stayed home for the ’80s,” he says. “My big spending spree would be Friday night. I’d take my rock-star money to Crown Books and bring home $250 worth of books in my Porsche.”

In 1993, he let his brother lure him into co-starring in the musical “Blood Brothers” on Broadway.

“I turned him down three times,” says Cassidy, as we open a second bottle of wine. “I already had a deal at Universal as a writer with an office and an assistant, and I’d sold a couple movies for television. I was on my way, and David’s pitching me: ‘No, no, no — we can be the kings of Broadway!’” He takes a sip. “As it turned out, it was great — really emotionally satisfying. And the show was a big hit.” (David died from liver failure in 2017.)

Yet “Blood Brothers” was enough limelight for Shaun, who quickly turned back to TV. “American Gothic,” the first show he created, premiered in 1995 — an achievement that, he says, “meant a lot more than having ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ as a No. 1 record.” Since then he’s been an executive producer on “Cover Me,” “Cold Case,” “The Agency” and “New Amsterdam,” among other series.

“He reinvented a whole new Shaun Cassidy career,” says Steve Lukather, the Toto guitarist who’s been friends with Cassidy since he appeared in an episode of “The Hardy Boys.” Cassidy’s wife, who’s also worked in TV, didn’t even know he’d been a musician when they met on one of his shows.

“I said, ‘Where you from?’ and Tracey said, ‘Miami,’” the singer recalls. “I said, ‘Oh, I played Miami.’ She goes, ‘What position?’ ”

Still, Lukather reckons that more recently his pal “started missing being onstage a little bit. He knows where it’s at.” Cassidy, who plans to play bass in the show, called Lukather not long ago for some guidance on the instrument. “I told him to play simple — don’t overthink it. It’s not like he’s going out and doing the Mahavishnu set.”

It’s half past 3, and Cassidy has a virtual pitch meeting for a new show at 4 p.m. But first he has to pick up his youngest daughter from school, so we hop back in his truck and head there from the vineyard.

On the ride he says he’s been working on a couple of new songs — the first of his own that he’s recorded since the handful he placed on his albums back in the day alongside stuff by pros like Eric Carmen, Brian Wilson and Carole Bayer Sager. One of them sounds like it could’ve been cut by Mel Tormé, he says. “The other one, it’s very anthemic — I don’t know, maybe like the Killers.”

“It’s been fun to see him to go the piano instead of the computer as an outlet for his passion for storytelling,” Tracey tells me later, though of course Cassidy knows that fans will show up to his gigs wanting to hear the classics.

Who did you long to be at the height of your teen idolhood?
First concert I saw was the Rolling Stones at the Forum in 1972, with Stevie Wonder opening. I took pictures and put those pictures on my wall. Mick and Keith in ’72 — that was a show. I saw David Bowie on “Diamond Dogs” in ’74. And I saw Iggy a lot. Somewhere in between those three is where I wanted to be. Obviously, I was safer than that.

What do you see when you watch the kid singing “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll” at the Grammys?
He’s confident, but he’s not cocky. I remember afterwards Lou Rawls said to me, “Son, never turn your back on the audience.” I said, “They seemed to like it when I shook my ass.”

You lost best new artist that night.
So did Foreigner. Lou Gramm somewhere is still upset.

I wondered if you remembered who else was in the category.
Debby, of course.

Debby Boone, who won — another nepo baby.
Hey, if your dad owns a hardware store and you take over the hardware store, I have no issue with that at all. I don’t know who else. Andy Gibb?

Stephen Bishop and Andy Gibb.
I knew Andy a little bit.

Kind of a similar deal to you, right? Younger brother of a pop sensation.
He had a different challenge, though. This is me being shrink, but I don’t think that anybody got to really know who he was, because Barry [Gibb] was so strong. And I don’t think Andy had a problem with that. I’m sure growing up, he was like, “I want to be a Bee Gee too,” and Barry said, “OK, here’s how we do that.”

David Cassidy, left, with Shaun Cassidy, circa 1975.

(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

What was your relationship like with David in terms of the advice you took or rejected?
David never gave me advice. I think it was very difficult for him because he was at a career low point. I would ask him, “What do you think of this?” and I could tell he was conflicted about it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want me to have success. But he was in a place where it was hard for him to enjoy my success, I think. And I knew that, so I didn’t talk to him about it.

What’d you think when he posed nude on the cover of Rolling Stone?
I thought it was dumb. That was his “Wasp” moment — I thought, You’re putting a bullet in something here, whether you know it or not. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s a cool picture. All I know is he complained a lot in the press. He had a chip on his shoulder because he wasn’t Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix or somebody that he revered. It’s like, “OK, play as well as Hendrix and maybe you’ll be Hendrix. But you’re a really charming guy on a big hit television show, and 8 billion people are in love with you. Tell me why this is a bad deal.”

Why did you understand that and he didn’t?
Because I’m Shirley’s son and he’s not. And I got to watch him — I saw how you can handle it differently.

You never burned to be taken seriously?
I took myself seriously. I’m very secure, and that’s rare in show business. I never needed the love of the audience to feel like I was whole.

You got that love elsewhere, and David didn’t.
He would say that.

Was he not right?
Maybe. I mean, to my mother I could do no wrong — to the point that she had no credibility. But if you’re going to err on one side, that’s a better side than, “Where are my parents?” Both of his parents were actors — they were gone a lot. Then his father left his mother to marry a movie star and have me. David would have every reason in the world to hate me as a little boy, but he didn’t.

My brother was a really sweet — I’m gonna get choked up talking about him — he was a really sweet soul who got hurt and couldn’t overcome that. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I spent a lot of time with him. Again, “Blood Brothers” was great because it was an equalizer. I wasn’t the flavor of the moment, and neither was he. That’s one of the things I miss most about him — that he was the only person in the world I could talk to about our experience.

There is a new reality emerging in the parking lots of one of America’s biggest home improvement stores, highlighted by incidents big and small across Los Angeles.

Construction workers are still hauling lumber and nails, and DIY homeowners pushing carts of paint and soil. But all of a sudden, federal immigration agents may appear.

On Thursday, they 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 migrant laborers often congregate looking for work.

The number of arrests in these incidents was not immediately known, but the fear that pervades the sweeps underscores how Home Depot has emerged this summer as a key battleground in the fight over immigration enforcement in Los Angeles and Southern California.

“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.

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.

The next day, federal agents raided a Home Depot in San Bernardino. Then, on Aug. 8, they conducted two raids outside a Home Depot in Van Nuys in what DHS described as a “targeted immigration raid” that resulted in the arrest of seven undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

Over the weekend, activists say, a Home Depot was targeted in Cypress Park and word spread that federal agents were at a Home Depot in Marina del Rey. On Monday, day laborers were nabbed outside a Home Depot in North Hollywood, and on Tuesday more were arrested at a Home Depot in Inglewood.

“And it’s not just day laborers they are taking,” Alvarado added, noting that when federal agents descend on the hardware store’s parking lots, they question anyone who looks Latino or appears to be an immigrant and ask them about their papers. “They also get customers of Home Depot who look like day laborers, who speak Spanish.”

The national hardware chain — whose parking lots have for decades been an unofficial gathering point for undocumented laborers hoping to get hired for a day of home repair or construction work — was one of the first sites of the L.A. raids in June that kicked off the Trump administration’s intense immigration enforcement across Southern California.

Nearly 3,000 people across seven counties in L.A. were arrested in June as masked federal agents conducted roving patrols, conducting a chaotic series of sweeps of street corners, bus stops, warehouses, farms, car washes and Home Depots. But the number of raids and arrests plummeted dramatically across L.A. in mid-July after the court order blocked federal agents across the region from targeting people unless they had reasonable suspicion they entered the country illegally.

On Aug. 1, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to lift the restraining order prohibiting roving raids. But within just a few days, federal agents were back, raiding the Westlake Home Depot.

“Even though we’ve had two successful court decisions, the administration continues with their unconstitutional behavior coming and going to Home Depot stores,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference Thursday. “They are violating the” temporary restraining order.

Advocates for undocumented immigrants question the legality of federal agents’ practices. In many cases, they say, agents are failing to show judicial warrants. They argue that the way agents are targeting day laborers and other brown-skinned people is illegal.

“It’s clear racial profiling,” said Alvarado.

The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions from The Times about how many people have been arrested over the last week at Home Depots across L.A. or explain what why the agency has resumed raids outside hardware stores.

After last Friday’s raids on Van Nuys, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said four of the seven individuals arrested had criminal records, including driving under the influence of alcohol, disorderly conduct and failing to adhere to previous removal orders. She dismissed activists’ claims that the Trump administration were violating the temporary restraining order.

“What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — not their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” McLaughlin said. “America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists — truly the worst of the worst from Golden State communities.”

Activists say that federal agents are targeting Home Depots because they are hubs for a constant flow of day laborers — mostly Latino and a great deal of whom are undocumented.

“They know that at the Home Depot there will always be people who are day laborers, many of them undocumented,” said Ron Gochez, a member of the Unión del Barrio, a group that patrols neighborhoods to alert residents of immigration sweeps. “And so they figured it would be a much easier, faster and more effective way for them to kidnap people just to go to the Home Depot.”

Another reason the hardware store parking lots had become a focal point, Gochez said, is that they present a wide, open space to hunt people down.

“There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Gochez said. “And when some of the day laborers started running inside of the Home Depot stores, the agents literally have chased them down the aisles of the store.”

In Los Angeles, pressure is mounting on Home Depot to speak out against the targeting of people outside their stores.

“They haven’t spoken out; their customers are being taken away and they are not saying anything,” Alvarado said. “They haven’t issued a public condemnation of the fact that their customers have been abducted in their premises.”

This is not the first time Home Depot has found itself in the center of a political firestorm.

In 2019, the Atlanta-based company faced boycott campaigns after its co-founder Bernie Marcus, a Republican megadonor, announced his support for Trump’s reelection campaign. Back then, the chain tried to distance itself from its founder, noting that Marcus retired from the company in 2002 and did not speak on its behalf.

But in a global city like L.A., where civic and political leaders are rallying against the raids and public schools have developed policies blocking federal agents from entering their premises, there are growing calls for the national hardware chain to develop consistent policies on raids, such as demanding federal agents have judicial warrants before descending on their lots.

On Tuesday, a coalition of advocacy groups led a protest in MacArthur Park and urged Angelenos to support a 24-hour boycott of Home Depot and other businesses that they say have not stopped federal immigration agents from conducting raids in their parking lots or chasing people down in their stores.

“We call them an accomplice to these raids, because there is no other location that’s been hit as much as they have,” Gochez said. “We think that Home Depot is being complicit. They’re actually, we think, in some way collaborating, whether directly or not.”

Home Depot denies that it is working with federal agents or has advance notice of federal immigration enforcement activities.

“That’s not true,” George Lane, manager of corporate communications for Home Depot, said in an email to The Times. “We aren’t notified that these activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations. We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate.”

Lane said Home Depot asked associates to report any suspected immigration enforcement operations immediately and not to engage for their own safety.

“If associates feel uncomfortable after witnessing ICE activity,” he added, “we offer them the flexibility they need to take care of themselves and their families.”

The targeting of day laborers outside L.A. Home Depots is particularly contentious because day laborers, primarily Latino men, have for decades represented an integral part of the Los Angeles labor force.

Since the 1960s, day laborers have formed an informal labor market that has boosted this sprawling city, helping it expand, and in recent months they have played a pivotal role in rebuilding L.A. after the January firestorms tore through Pacific Palisades and Altadena destroying thousands of homes.

“It appears they’re targeting and taking the very people rebuilding our cities,” Alvarado said. “Without migrant labor, both documented and undocumented, it’s impossible to try to rebuild Los Angeles.”

In many L.A. neighborhoods, day laborers are such a constant, ingrained presence at Home Depots that the city’s Economic and Workforce Development Department sets up its resource centers for day laborers next to the stores.

Day laborers are also a reason many customers come to Home Depot.

“Day laborers are a part of their business model,” Alvarado said. “You come in, you get your materials, and then you get your helper.”

Alvaro M. Huerta, the Director of Litigation and Advocacy of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, part of a coalition of groups suing Homeland Security over immigration raids in L.A., said the pick up of raids at Home Depot parking lots was “deeply troubling” and raised serious concerns that the federal government was continuing to violate the July temporary restraining order.

“This looks a lot like it did before a temporary restraining order was in place,” Huerta said.“My sense is they feel they can justify raids at Home Depots more than roving raids.”

Lawyers, Huerta said, were investigating the raids and asking some of the people taken into custody a series of questions: Did agents ever present a warrant? What kinds of questions did they ask? Did you feel like you were able to leave?

“One of the things we’ve been arguing is that some of these situations are coercive,” Huerta said. “The government is saying, ‘No, we’re allowed to ask questions, and people can volunteer answers.’ But we’ve argued that in many of these cases, people don’t feel like they cannot speak.”

Attorneys will likely present information about the arrests to court at a preliminary injunction hearing in September, Huerta said, as they press Trump administration attorneys for evidence that the arrests are targeted.

Huerta said some of the people caught up in recent Home Depot raids were not even looking for work at the parking lot.

One man, a 22-year-old who was getting gas across the street from a Home Dept last Thursday, Huerta said, was detained even though he had special immigrant juvenile status as he was brought to the U.S. as a teen. The man had an asylum application pending, work authorization and no criminal history — and yet a week after he was arrested he was confined in Adelanto Detention Center.

Times staff writer Julia Wick contributed to this article.

“Thank you so much for showing up this morning,” Sharon Nicholls said into a megaphone at 8 a.m. Wednesday outside a Home Depot in Pasadena.

As of Friday afternoon, no federal agents had raided the store on East Walnut Street. But the citizen brigade that stands watch outside and patrols the parking lot in search of ICE agents has not let down its guard—especially not after raids at three other Home Depots in recent days despite federal court rulings limiting sweeps.

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.

About two dozen people gathered near the tent that serves as headquarters of the East Pasadena Community Defense Center. Another dozen or so would be arriving over the next half hour, some carrying signs.

“Silence is Violence”

“Migrants Don’t Party With Epstein”

Cynthia Lunine, 70, carried a large sign that read “Break His Dark Spell” and included a sinister image of President Trump. She said she was new to political activism, but added: “You can’t not be an activist. If you’re an American, it’s the only option. The immigration issue is absolutely inhumane, it’s un-Christian, and it’s intolerable.”

Anit-ICE activists march through the Home Depot in Pasadena on Aug. 6.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

There are local supporters, for sure, of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Activists told me there aren’t many days in which they don’t field shouted profanities or pro-Trump cheers from Home Depot shoppers.

But the administration’s blather about a focus on violent offenders led to huge demonstrations in greater Los Angeles beginning in June, and the cause continues to draw people into the streets.

Dayena Campbell, 35, is a volunteer at Community Defense Corner operations in other parts of Pasadena, a movement that followed high-profile raids and was covered in the Colorado Boulevard newspaper and, later, in the New York Times. A fulltime student who works in sales, Campbell was also cruising the parking lot at the Home Depot on the east side of Pasadena in search of federal agents.

She thought this Home Depot needed its own Community Defense Corner, so she started one about a month ago. She and her cohort have more than once spotted agents in the area and alerted day laborers. About half have scattered, she said, and half have held firm despite the risk.

When I asked what motivated Campbell, she said:

“Inhumane, illegal kidnappings. Lack of due process. Actions taken without anyone being held accountable. Seeing people’s lives ripped apart. Seeing families being destroyed in the blink of an eye.”

Anywhere from a handful to a dozen volunteers show up daily to to hand out literature, patrol the parking lot and check in on day laborers, sometimes bringing them food. Once a week, Nicholls helps organize a rally that includes a march through the parking lot and into the store, where the protesters present a letter asking Home Depot management to “say no to ICE in their parking lot and in their store.”

Nicholls is an LAUSD teacher-librarian, and when she asks for support each week, working and retired teachers answer the call.

“I’m yelling my lungs out,” said retired teacher Mary Rose O’Leary, who joined in the chants of “ICE out of Home Depot” and “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”

Sharon Nicholls gets a hug of support from another protester outside the Home Depot in Pasadena.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“Immigrants are what make this city what it is … and the path to legal immigration is closed to everybody who doesn’t have what, $5 million or something?” O’Leary said, adding that she was motivated by “the Christian ideal of welcoming the stranger.”

Retired teacher Dan Murphy speaks Spanish and regularly checks in with day laborers.

“One guy said to me, ‘We’re just here to work.’ Some of the guys were like, ‘We’re not criminals … we’re just here … to make money and get by,’” Murphy said. He called the raids a flexing of “the violent arm of what autocracy can bring,” and he resents Trump’s focus on Southern California.

“I take it personally. I’m white, but these are my people. California is my people. And it bothers me what might happen in this country if people don’t stand firm … I just said, ‘I gotta do something.’ I’m doing this now so I don’t hate myself later.”

Nicholls told me she was an activist many years ago, and then turned her focus to work and raising a family. But the combination of wildfires, the cleanup and rebuilding, and the raids, brought her out of activism retirement.

“The first people to come out after the firefighters—the second-responders—were day laborers cleaning the streets,” Nicholls said. “You’d see them in orange shirts all over the city, cleaning up.”

The East Pasadena Home Depot is “an important store,” because it’s a supply center for the rebuilding of Altadena, “and we’re going out there to show our love and solidarity for our neighbors,” Nicholls said. To strike the fear of deportation in the hearts of workers, she said, is “inhumane, and to me, it’s morally wrong.”

Nicholls had a quick response when I asked what she thinks of those who say illegal is illegal, so what’s left to discuss?

“That blocks the complexity of the conversation,” she said, and doesn’t take into account the hunger and violence that drive migration. Her husband, she said, left El Salvador 35 years ago during a war funded in part by the U.S.

Pablo Alvarado, right, co-director of National Day Laborer Organizing Network, speaks to Anti-ICE protesters on Aug. 6.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

They have family members with legal status and some who are undocumented and afraid to leave their homes, Nicholls said. I mentioned that I had written about Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo, who was undocumented as a child, and has kept his passport handy since the raids began. In that column, I quoted Gordo’s friend, immigrant-rights leader Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

“Full disclosure,” Nicholls said, “[Alvarado] is my husband.”

It was news to me.

When the raids began, Nicholls said, she told her husband, “I have the summer off, sweetie, but I want to help, and I’m going to call my friends.”

On Wednesday, after Nicholls welcomed demonstrators, Alvarado showed up for a pep talk.

“I have lived in this country since 1990 … and I love it as much as I love the small village where I came from in El Salvador,” Alvarado said. “Some people may say that we are going into fascism, into authoritarianism, and I would say that we are already there.”

He offered details of a raid that morning at a Home Depot in Westlake and said the question is not whether the Pasadena store will be raided, but when. This country readily accepts the labor of immigrants but it does not respect their humanity, Alvarado said.

“When humble people are attacked,” he said, “we are here to bear witness.”

Nicholls led demonstrators through the parking lot and into the store, where she read aloud the letter asking Home Depot to take a stand against raids.

Outside, where it was hot and steamy by mid-morning, several sun-blasted day laborers said they appreciated the support. But they were still fearful, and desperate for work.

Jorge, just shy of 70, practically begged me to take his phone number.

Whatever work I might have, he said, please call.

[email protected]

They groveled at his feet when they visited him at the White House in April, owner Mark Walter applauding when he lied about egg prices and team president Stan Kasten laughing at his attempts at humor.

They remained silent when he flooded their city with federal agents, chief marketing officer Lon Rosen refusing to comment on the racist kidnapping sweeps terrorizing the very community that helped them break attendance records.

And what did the Dodgers receive in exchange for betraying their fans and sucking up to President Trump?

A knock at the door from immigration enforcement.

The Dodgers learned what many Trump voters already learned, which is that Agent Orange doesn’t always reward subservience.

So much for all of their front-office genius. So much for staying out of politics.

Federal agents in unmarked vehicles formed a line at Dodger Stadium’s main entrance on Thursday, apparently with the intention of using a section of the parking lot as a processing center for detainees who were picked up during a morning immigration raid.

The Dodgers could look away when ICE was causing havoc in other parts of town, but even the morally compromised have limits. More than 40% of Dodgers fans are Latino. Transforming Dodger Stadium into ground zero for the administration’s war on brown people would be financial suicide for the franchise.

The agents were denied entry, according to the team.

There was speculation in and around the organization about whether the presence of the federal agents was a form of retaliation by a notoriously vindictive administration. Just a day earlier, the Dodgers said they would announce on Thursday plans to assist immigrant communities affected by the recent raids. In the wake of the visit, the announcement was delayed.

Ultimately, what did the Dodgers gain from their silent complicity with Trump?

They further diminished their stature as vehicles of inclusion, a tradition that included the breaking of baseball’s color barrier by Jackie Robinson and the expansion of the sport’s borders with the likes of Fernando Valenzuela, Hideo Nomo and Chan Ho Park.

They broke their sacred bond with the Latino community that was forged over Valenzuela’s career and passed down for multiple generations.

They at least resisted immigration agents’ efforts to annex their parking lot, but how much damage was already done? How much trust was already lost?

Consider this: When photographs of the unmarked vehicles in front of Dodger Stadium started circulating online, the widespread suspicion was that federal agents were permitted by the Dodgers to be there.

That was later revealed to be untrue, but what does that say about how the Dodgers were perceived?

Federal agents stand outside Gate E of Dodger Stadium on Thursday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Their announcement about their impending announcement looked like a cynical effort to reverse a recent wave of negative publicity, which started with Rosen refusing to comment on the immigration sweeps.

Asked if the Dodgers regretted visiting the White House, Rosen said, “We’re not going to comment on anything.”

On the day of the “No Kings” demonstrations, a 30-year-old performer named Nezza sang a version of the national anthem in Spanish that was commissioned in 1945 by the U.S. State Department under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Nezza, whose full name is Vanessa Hernández, later posted a video on her TikTok account showing a Dodgers employee directing her to sing in English. She disobeyed the order, explaining that because of what was happening in Los Angeles, “I just felt like I needed to do it.”

In subsequent interviews, Nezza said her agent was called by a Dodgers employee, who said Nezza was to never return to Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers later clarified that Nezza wasn’t banned from the ballpark, but the incident nonetheless struck a chord. Reports of American citizens being detained or harassed have surfaced, creating a feeling the raids are as much about making brown-skinned people feel unwelcome as they are about deporting undocumented migrants. Nezza’s experience symbolized this feeling.

The incident resulted in widespread calls for a Dodgers boycott, which, coincidentally or not, was followed by the Dodgers teasing their announcement of support for immigrants.

The divisive environment created by Trump forced the Dodgers to take a side, however passively. Now, they have to win back angry fans who pledged allegiance to them only to be let down. Now, they have to deal with potential retaliation from the Mad King they pathetically tried to appease.

More than a dozen religious leaders from an array of faiths marched to the steps of the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday night, flowers in hand, calling for an end to the federal immigration raids they say have torn families apart and resulted in racial profiling.

At the start of the procession in Plaza Olvera, the Rev. Tanya Lopez, senior pastor at Downey Memorial Christian Church, recounted how last week she watched as plainclothes federal agents swarmed a constituent in the parking lot of her church. Despite her attempts to intervene, she said, the man was detained, and she doesn’t know where he is now.

“All of our faith traditions teach us to love our neighbor, to leave the world with less suffering than when we find it, and this is creating trauma that will be unable to be undone for generations,” Lopez said.

Religious leaders from multiple faiths left flowers on the steps of the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles in honor of people detained in recent immigration raids.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Federal enforcement actions have played out across Southern California this week as the Trump administration carries out its vows to do mass deportations of immigrants in the country without documentation. Initially, President Trump focused his rhetoric on those who had committed violent crimes. But shortly after he took office, his administration made clear that it considers anyone in the country without authorization to be a criminal.

The raids — which have spanned bus stops, Home Depot parking lots, swap meets, farms and factories — have prompted many immigrants to go into hiding, and in some cases, to self-deport.

The religious leaders marching Wednesday called for a halt to the raids, saying immigrants are integral to the Los Angeles community and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, regardless of documentation status.

They carried their message through downtown, marching from Plaza Olvera to the Federal Building, dressed in colorful garb reflecting Jewish, Sikh, Muslim and Catholic traditions, and uniting in song and prayer, in Spanish and English.

They called out to God, Creator, the Holy One, and prayed for healing and justice. They prayed for the hundreds of people who have been detained and deported and the families they’ve left behind.

Father Brendan Busse of Dolores Mission Church looks out over the crowd participating in an interfaith protest Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In the crowd, Talia Guppy held purple flowers to her chest as she sang along. Guppy said she learned that members of her Episcopalian church, St. Stephen’s Hollywood, had been detained during the raid of the Ambiance Apparel factory in downtown L.A. Her church has since moved its services online to accommodate people afraid to venture from their homes.

“We’re out here for them,” she said. “We’re going to keep the hope and keep the faith until we get justice for them.”

At the end of the procession, the marchers approached the steps of the Federal Building. Officers from the Department of Homeland Security poured out of the building and guarded the entrance as clergy leaders lined the steps. Inside, behind semireflective doors, rows of U.S. Marines stood at the ready.

The leaders called for peace and laid flowers on the steps in tribute to those who have been detained.

“We come with flowers, and we will keep coming with flowers as long as our loved ones are held in cages,” said Valarie Kaur, a Sikh leader. She turned her attention to the officers at the doors, who stood stoic, and questioned how they wanted to be remembered by history. Then she placed flowers by their feet.

Sikh leader Valarie Kaur leaves a flower at the feet of federal officers standing guard at the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In the crowd, protesters held signs with images of the Virgin Mary and Mexican flags. The clergy asked them to be ready to defend their neighbors in the coming days.

Father Brendan Busse, a Jesuit priest at the Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, said he has felt the impact of the raids within his church. Devoted members are no longer in the pews. Others call asking whether it is safe to come to church. The fear is palpable.

“We need to be a safe space for people, not just in our church, but in the whole neighborhood,” he said. “I can’t guarantee to anybody that we are a totally safe space, but to at least give them a sense that in the difficult moment we’re at, that we stand together.”

This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.

The first time Gene Kozicki drove to Lompoc to see a rocket blast off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, it was night, and the whole scene reminded him of the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The road was blocked off. There were police. Flashing lights. A guy standing near Kozicki had a radio scanner, and they listened as a spartan voice counted down: Ten, nine, eight, seven … Over the hill, where the rocket was on the pad, all was dark.

And then it wasn’t.

“The sky lights up, and it’s like daytime,” Kozicki said. “This rocket comes up and then a few seconds later, the sound hits you. It’s just this roar and rumble, and then it’s a crackle. And then you look at it and you realize, this thing is not a movie. This thing is actually going into space.”

People (and dogs) gather in Lompoc to watch SpaceX successfully launch a Falcon 9 rocket. (George Rose / Getty Images)

Kozicki told me about that experience as we both stood atop a sand dune at Surf Beach, just outside Lompoc, waiting for a different rocket to launch. Through my binoculars I could see a SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 on the pad at Vandenberg, with a Starlink satellite on top. SpaceX and other companies have been sending up more and more rockets in recent years, and Lompoc has become a day trip destination for aerospace aficionados.

With Blue Origin sending up an all-female crew, including Katy Perry, Gayle King and Lauren Sanchez, from West Texas in April and my social feeds full of pics of launches from California’s Central Coast — not to mention SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s preternatural ability to stay in the news — it seemed like everyone was talking about rockets, so I wanted to get as close to a liftoff as possible.

I had driven to Surf Beach on the advice of Bradley Wilkinson, who runs the Facebook group Vandenberg Rocket Launches. When asked for the best spot to experience a launch, Wilkinson had responded, in the manner typical of connoisseurs, with questions of his own.

“Do you want to see it?” Wilkinson asked me. “Do you want to feel it? Do you want to hear it?”

If I had just wanted to see it, he said, I could do that easily from Los Angeles. If I picked a launch around twilight, I could even see the jellyfish effect that happens when sunlight reflects off the rocket plume. (People all across Southern California had that experience earlier this week.) But I wanted more. I wanted to hear and feel the launch, so I took off toward Vandenburg on a clear Friday afternoon, staying just ahead of traffic.

Rocket launches have become more frequent at Vandenberg Space Force Base, located in Santa Barbara County.

(Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Not everyone is a fan of the increased frequency of SpaceX launches. Beyond the many controversies surrounding the company’s founder, there are concerns about the effects of sonic booms on the environment, and the California Coastal Commission has been battling SpaceX in court over the need for permits. Some Lompoc residents have complained about the effects of all that rumbling on their houses, but others, like Wilkinson, enjoy living so close to the action; he said he doesn’t even bother straightening the pictures on the walls of his house anymore.

As I drove up the coast, I kept checking the Facebook group for updates. Launches can be scrubbed for any number of reasons, and Wilkinson and other members of the group, including Kozicki, have become adept at reading signs: They track the weather; they watch the rocket’s movement toward the pad; they monitor SpaceX’s website and social media.

I pulled into the Surf Beach parking lot about an hour before launch, and that’s where I met Kozicki, chatting with a SpaceX engineer and her mother. The engineer was off the clock, but that didn’t stop her mom from telling everyone, proudly, that her daughter worked at SpaceX. It became a refrain for the next hour:

“You should ask my daughter. She works at SpaceX.”

“Stop telling everyone I work at SpaceX!”

From the top of the dunes, the four of us watched the launchpad for telltale signs of exhaust. I thought of how, thousands of miles away, crowds in St. Peter’s Square had watched for white smoke with a similar feeling of anticipation. Other spectators soon crunched across the ice plants and joined us on our perch. Some of them had parked in a bigger lot to the north and followed the train tracks that ran parallel to the beach.

The SpaceX engineer answered questions about rocket stages and landing burns. She was not authorized to speak to the media, but she shared her knowledge with everyone her mom sent her way.

We all watched and waited. More people walked up the dunes, including Dan Tauber, who said he’d been motorcycling around the area with friends before deciding to break off from the group to experience the launch.

“You want to feel your bones rattle,” he said. “So why not get as close as you can?”

Kozicki announced to the group that we’d know the launch was about to happen — really about to happen — when we saw a deluge of water on the pad. Then it would be a matter of seconds before liftoff.

Tauber and I sat together in the sand. We watched and waited. He had been a firefighter in San Francisco. He now lived in San Diego. We watched. We waited. A southbound Pacific Surfliner train pulled up alongside the parking lot. The railroad bell kept ringing, adding to the tension.

“Deluge!” shouted Kozicki.

“Deluge!” shouted the SpaceX engineer’s mother.

Three seconds later, ignition. Fire. Smoke. Liftoff.

Cameras clicked.

Someone shouted, “Whoa!”

I might’ve done the same.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off. Vandenberg Space Force Base has hosted 836 rocket launches to date.

(Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)

The sound of the rocket came next, just as Kozicki had described. Roar. Rumble. Crackle.

Tauber leaned back and said, “I’m just going to enjoy it. Take pictures for me.”

The rocket rose in the blue sky. I managed to get a few pics, but the flames were so bright that my camera’s settings went haywire. I put the camera down and watched the rocket go up, up, up. Then it was gone. Awestruck, I stood around, wanting more. I wasn’t sure where to go afterwards.

I knew I would be back.

Tips for experiencing a Vandenberg rocket launch

Find an upcoming launch

Start with a site like SpaceLaunchSchedule.com. There are many reasons why a launch could get scrubbed, however, so Wilkinson suggests checking the Vandenberg Rocket Launches group about 12 hours before a liftoff is scheduled to see whether it’s actually going to happen. The final authority for SpaceX launches would be SpaceX.com.

If you just want to see the rocket, go outside when there’s a liftoff scheduled for twilight or later. Depending on the weather, you should be able to see the rocket streaking across the Los Angeles sky.

For a closer look, head toward Lompoc

Surf Beach is a good spot, although the parking lot can fill up quickly. There is another parking lot to the north, at Ocean Park, about a 30-minute walk from Surf Beach. Wilkinson also recommended just parking along Ocean Avenue to feel the launch in your feet.

“There’s more of a rumble out there,” he said. “You can feel the vibration in the ground.” Other viewing spots, recommended by Explore Lompoc, include Santa Lucia Canyon Road & Victory Road; Harris Grade Road; and Marshallia Ranch Road. No matter where you park, be considerate of locals. That means no littering, and no middle-of-the-night tailgating. The roads can be crowded with cars and people, so take care whether driving or walking.

While in Lompoc

If you’re looking for food after the launch, I had a satisfying surf and turf burrito from Mariscos El Palmar (722 E. Ocean Ave) in Lompoc, right next to a bar called Pour Decisions.

There’s a renowned burger at Jalama Beach Store, where you can also view a launch. Jalama Beach County Park has many charms, but the cellular signal is spotty out there, so you’ll likely have no way of knowing whether a launch has been scrubbed at the last minute. But you’ll have a pretty drive either way.

Looking to spend the night? The Village Inn (3955 Apollo Way) just opened and markets itself as being inspired by “the golden age of space exploration.” If you’re having a space day, might as well go all the way.

Brian Gavidia had stepped out from working on a car at a tow yard in a Los Angeles suburb Thursday, when armed, masked men — wearing vests with “Border Patrol” on them — pushed him up against a metal gate and demanded to know where he was born.

“I’m American, bro!” 29-year-old Gavidia pleaded, in video taken by a friend.

“What hospital were you born?” the agent barked.

“I don’t know, dawg!” he said. “East L.A., bro! I can show you: I have my f—ing Real ID.”

His friend, whom Gavidia did not name, narrated the video: “These guys, literally based off of skin color! My homie was born here!” The friend said Gavidia was being questioned “just because of the way he looks.”

In a statement Saturday, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said U.S. citizens were arrested “because they ASSAULTED U.S. Border Patrol Agents.” (McLaughlin’s statement emphasized the word “assaulted” in all-capital and boldfaced letters.)

When told by a reporter that Gavidia had not been arrested, McLaughlin clarified that Gavidia had been questioned by Border Patrol agents but there “is no arrest record.” She said a friend of Gavidia’s was arrested for assault of an officer.

As immigration operations have unfolded across Southern California in the last week, lawyers and advocates say people are being targeted because of their skin color. The encounter with Gavidia and others they are tracking have raised legal questions about enforcement efforts that have swept up hundreds of immigrants and shot fear into the deeply intertwined communities they call home.

Agents picking up street vendors without warrants. American citizens being grilled. Home Depot lots swept. Car washes raided. The wide-scale arrests and detainments — often in the region’s largely Latino neighborhoods — contain hallmarks of racial profiling and other due process violations.

“We are seeing ICE come into our communities to do indiscriminate mass arrests of immigrants or people who appear to them to be immigrant, largely based on racial profiling,” said Eva Bitran, a lawyer at ACLU of Southern California.

When asked about the accusations of racial profiling, the White House deflected.

Calling the questions “shameful regurgitations of Democrat propaganda by activists — not journalists,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson chided The Times reporters Saturday for not reporting the “real story — the American victims of illegal alien crime and radical Democrat rioters willing to do anything to keep dangerous illegal aliens in American communities.”

She did not answer the question.

McLaughlin said in a statement, “Any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE.”

She said the suggestion fans the flames and puts agents in peril.

“DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence,” she said. “We know who we are targeting ahead of time. If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability.

“We will follow the President’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” she said.

Customs and Border Protection officers are stationed at the federal building in Los Angeles on Friday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The unprecedented show of force by federal agents follows orders from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration plan and a Santa Monica native, to execute 3,000 arrests a day. In May, Miller reportedly directed top ICE officials to go beyond target lists and have agents make arrests at Home Depot or 7-Eleven convenience stores.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not answer specific questions about the encounter with Gavidia and said that immigration enforcement has been “targeted.” The agency did not explain what is meant by targeted enforcement.

But a federal criminal complaint against Javier Ramirez, another of Gavidia’s friends, said Border Patrol agents were conducting a “roving patrol” in Montebello around 4:30 p.m. when they “engaged a subject in a consensual encounter” in a parking lot on West Olympic Boulevard. The complaint noted that the parking lot is fenced and gated, but that, at the time of the interaction, the gate to the parking lot was open.

The enforcement was part of a roving patrol in what John B. Mennell, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said was a “lawful immigration enforcement operation” in which agents also arrested “without incident” an immigrant without legal status.

Gavidia said he and Ramirez both rent space at the tow yard to fix cars.

On video captured by a security camera at the scene, the agents pull up at the open gate in a white SUV and three agents exit the car. At least one covers his face with a mask as they walk into the property and begin looking around. Shortly after, an agent can be seen with one man in handcuffs calmly standing against the fence, while Ramirez can be heard shouting and being wrestled to the ground.

Gavidia walks up on the scene from the sidewalk outside the business where agents are parked. Seeing the commotion, he turns around. An agent outside the business follows him and then another does.

Gavidia, whom Mennell identified as a third person, was detained “for investigation for interference (in an enforcement operation) and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants.”

“Video didn’t show the full story,” he said in a statement.

But it is unclear from the video exactly what that interference is. And Gavidia denies interfering with any operations.

CBP, the agency that has played a prominent role in the recent sweeps, is also under a federal injunction in Central California after a judge found it had engaged in “a pattern and practice” of violating people’s constitutional rights in raids earlier this year.

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Greg Bovino, who oversaw raids that included picking people up at Home Depot and stopping them on the highway, has emerged as a key figure in L.A. He stood alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday at a news conference where Sen. Alex Padilla — the state’s first Latino U.S. senator — was handcuffed, forced to the ground and briefly held after interrupting Noem with a question.

“A lot of bad people, a lot of bad things are in our country now,” Bovino said. “That’s why we’re here right now, is to remove those bad people and bad things, whether illegal aliens, drugs or otherwise, we’re here. We’re not going away.”

Bovino said hundreds of Border Patrol agents have fanned out and are on the ground in L.A. carrying out enforcement.

A federal judge for the Eastern District of California ordered Bovino’s agency to halt illegal stops and warrantless arrests in the district after agents detained and arrested dozens of farmworkers and laborers — including a U.S. citizen — in the Central Valley shortly before President Trump took office.

The lawsuit, brought by the United Farm Workers and Central Valley residents, accused the agency of brazenly racial profiling people in a days-long enforcement. It roiled the largely agricultural area, after video circulated of agents slashing the tires of a gardener who was a citizen on his way to work, and it raised fears that those tactics could become the new norm there.

The effort was “proof of concept,” David Kim, assistant chief patrol agent under Bovino, told the San Diego investigative outfit Inewsource in March. “Testing our capabilities, and very successful. We know we can push beyond that limit now as far as distance goes.”

Bovino said at the news conference that his agents were “not going anywhere soon.”

“You’ll see us in Los Angeles. You’ll continue to see us in Los Angeles,” he said.

Bitran, who is working on the case in the Central Valley, said Miller’s orders have “set loose” agents “with a mandate to capture as many people as possible,” and that “leads to them detaining people in a way that violates the Constitution.”

In Montebello, a 78% Latino suburb that shares a border with East Los Angeles, Border Patrol agents took Gavidia’s identification. Although they eventually let him go, Ramirez, also American and a single father of two, wasn’t so lucky.

Tomas De Jesus, Ramirez’s cousin and his attorney, said authorities are accusing him of “resisting arrest, assaulting people” after agents barged into a private business, “without a warrant, without a probable cause.”

“What is the reasonable suspicion for him to be accosted?” De Jesus questioned. “What is the probable cause for them to be entering into a private business area? … At this moment, it seems to me like they have a blanket authority almost to do anything.”

Ramirez has been charged in a federal criminal complaint with assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer. Authorities allege that Ramirez was trying to conceal himself and then ran toward the exit and refused to answer questions about his identity and citizenship. They also allege he pushed and bit an agent.

Montebello Mayor Salvador Melendez said he’d watched the video and called the situation “extremely frustrating.”

“It just seems like there’s no due process,” he said. “They’re going for a specific look, which is a look of our Latino community, our immigrant community. They’re asking questions after. … This is not the country that we all know it to be, where folks have individual rights and protections.”

A third individual was detained on the street for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants.

Even before the video was looping on social media feeds, Angelica Salas — who heads one of the most well-established immigration advocacy groups in Los Angeles — said she was getting reports of “indiscriminate” arrests and American citizens being questioned and detained.

“We have U.S. citizens who are being asked for their documents and not believed when they attest to the fact that they are U.S. citizens,” said Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. “They just happen to be Latino.”

The Supreme Court has long held that law enforcement officers cannot detain people based on generalizations that would cast a wide net of suspicion on large segments of the law-abiding population.

“Some of the accounts I have heard suggest that they’re just stopping a whole bunch of people, and then questioning them all to find out which ones might be unlawfully present,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law School.

An agent can ask a person about “anything,” he said. But if the person declines to speak, the agent cannot detain them unless they have reasonable suspicion that the individual is unlawfully here.

“The 4th Amendment as well as governing immigration regulations do not permit immigration agents to detain somebody against their will, even for a very brief time, absent reasonable suspicion,” he said.

Just being brown doesn’t qualify. And being a street vendor or farmworker does not, either. A warrant to search for documents at a work site also is not enough to detain someone there.

“The agents appear to be flagrantly violating these immigration laws,” he said, “all over Southern California.”

Gavidia said the agents who questioned him in Montebello never returned his Real ID.

“I’m legal,” he said. “I speak perfect English. I also speak perfect Spanish. I’m bilingual, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be picked out, like, ‘This guys seems Latino; this guy seems a little bit dirty.’

“It was the worst experience I ever felt,” Gavidia said, his voice shaking with anger as he spoke from the business Friday. “I felt honestly like I was going to die.”

On Saturday, Gavidia joined De Jesus in downtown L.A. for his first-ever protest.

Now, he said, it felt personal.