After days of raids, Los Angeles day labourers set aside their fear to support their families
CBC
Most days, Edwin Ciara positions himself on a median at the entrance to the Home Depot parking lot along Wilshire Avenue in Los Angeles and waits for a contractor who might give him a few hours of work.
In time, he'll move to another spot in the city — dipping into a fresh hiring pool because he doesn't want to stay in the same place too long.
"Everybody who's coming here, they're coming here to survive," said Ciara, 57, reading glasses hanging from his collar as he leans against a parking lot lamp post.
"We're doing nothing wrong to anybody here. We are looking for a job."
Day labourers have returned to Home Depots in the Los Angeles area after the stores were targeted by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers during raids last Friday. They wait on sidewalks and medians to be hired by the homeowners and contractors who rely on the undocumented workforce.
The hardware store chain has found itself at the centre of raids across the city that have been criticized by city and state officials. The raids also prompted numerous protests that resulted in what some say is an outsized response from U.S. President Donald Trump, who deployed the National Guard and marines.
Officials have raided a number of Home Depot locations since Friday, including Westlake, Paramount, Whittier and Huntington Park.
"The people who don't have papers, we are feeling panicked. People work hard to come here to L.A. or the U.S.A. and they're taking us to go back to our country," said Ciara, who immigrated to the U.S. from Guatemala nearly 35 years ago.
In Westlake on Wednesday, private security guards assigned to patrol the strip-mall parking lot greeted the labourers with nods and handshakes.
One guard, who declined to provide his name because his employer doesn't want guards to speak to the media, said some of the labourers didn't wait long to return after Friday's raid because they have families depending on their income and are here to work, not cause trouble.
"These guys are troopers, man."
Nearly 50 kilometres southeast of Los Angeles, several more men sought respite from the heat of the day under some trees while waiting for work outside another Home Depot in Santa Ana.
They know their freedom is at risk, but financially, they say they have no choice.
"It's nonsense. It's ridiculous. We haven't done nothing wrong. Standing in front of the Home Depot for work to feed our family? Is that our crime?" asked Edbin Rios Perez, 24, who crossed the border from Mexico to the United States with his family as a child around 2008.
