At least two people were detained when immigration agents raided two street vending sites in East Los Angeles on Sunday.
The first incident took place at around 8:40 a.m. near Whittier and Atlantic boulevards, according to the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network (BHIRN), which works to verify immigration sightings in the area. Later that morning, agents detained another street vendor near Whittier Boulevard and Sunol Drive, the BHIRN said.
Video shared with Boyle Heights Beat showed masked immigration agents in tactical vests standing near two food trucks at the site of the first raid.
A street vendor said she witnessed the raid near Whittier and Atlantic. The woman, who asked not to share her name for fear of retaliation, described seeing trucks arrive and agents approaching one of the regular vendors. When the man tried to run, “agents chased him until they caught him,” the vendor said.
“It all happened so fast, and there weren’t really that many people in the area so nobody really stood up for him,” she added.
“Vendors like me — we’re all really scared to even work right now, but we have no choice. We still have to pay rent, our expenses don’t stop,” the vendor continued. “It affects business in so many ways. Our customers are avoiding the area, and a lot of vendors don’t even want to set up anymore. On this corner, we usually have about six vendors. But when the raids started, it dropped to three. Now, after everything that’s happened, there are just two of us left. The impact is really clear to see.”
According to the BHIRN, agents left “a warning to illegal aliens” flyers at the site of the first action, urging undocumented immigrants to “self-deport or you’ll be prosecuted.”
Boyle Heights Beat is working to find out more information about the operation at the second location.
Boyle Heights Beat reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but has not yet received a response.