They ran and drove after vehicles with men inside, believed to be federal agents. They pulled out their phones to record. They blew whistles, honked car horns and shouted, “Migra, Migra, Migra!” alerting their neighbors that agents were nearby.
This is how residents showed up for each other on Wednesday as Boyle Heights experienced the most federal immigration activity in a single day since the raids began last summer. Flower vendors and a frutero were among the six taken in a cluster of raids in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles.
“ICE was all over. We weren’t able to stop the kidnappings from happening, but [we saw] the community be aware and come out,” said Joe Diaz, a longtime Boyle Heights resident.
On Wednesday, Diaz witnessed how neighbors headed out to the streets to keep watch for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He roamed Cesar Chavez Avenue to warn street vendors of nearby agents, only to learn others had already stopped by to inform them. At Ramona Gardens, where agents took 28-year-old Edgar Leonel Sincu, Diaz found members of Legacy LA and the staff of Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and Assemblymember Mark González.
And, when administrators at First Street Elementary School called for backup after two people were detained nearby, rapid response teams with the social justice group Centro CSO and the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network showed up to help guard the gates during dismissal.
“The word was getting out,” Diaz said.
In El Sereno, about a dozen community members rushed toward Ascot Hills Park to check on a fruit vendor whom they feared had been captured. She hadn’t. It turned out the vendor had fled and left her cart behind, fearing agents were nearby.
She came out of hiding from a neighbors home nearby, and they helped pack up her cart and preserve the fruit she had yet to sell.
“El pueblo salva al pueblo,” said Martin, a rapid responder who did not want to share his last name over safety concerns. “This is the pueblo out here, trying to save, trying to take care of the neighborhood.”
By the afternoon in Boyle Heights, artist Nico Aviña of Espacio 1839 and others sprinted across the Food 4 Less parking lot on First Street near Mott, blowing their whistles as they chased after a truck that appeared to have been involved in a raid earlier that afternoon.
Before that, the rapid responders were at Michigan and Evergreen avenues, where a produce vendor known as Don Valdo was taken. “By the time we got there, the [vendor’s] truck was already abandoned,” Aviña said.
Immigration agents were moving fast. “Their tactics are probably picking one or two people up and moving out of the area. By the time we show up, they’re gone,” he said. “The only thing we could do is make sure that we share the information.”
Residents also confronted agents and captured footage of them dragging and shoving people inside their vehicles. Videos show bystanders shouting and cursing at agents. “Leave him alone! Let me see your face!”
Boyle Heights resident Alberto Carrillo said he was one of about 10 to 15 neighbors who ran toward agents after they captured a flower vendor, identified as Hector Corea, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 20 years.
Carrillo was running on adrenaline as he confronted and filmed an agent armed with what looked like a paintball gun. Carrillo wasn’t scared, he said. “I’ll just stand up for him [the vendor],” he thought. “He doesn’t have a voice right now.”
“You see it happening … on social media and the news, but you never see it front row, and it just sucks because it’s your people. It’s your neighbors doing an honest living, selling flowers not bothering anybody,” Carrillo added.
Elizabeth Blaney, of the tenant rights group Union de Vecinos, drove around the neighborhood where the first flower vendor was taken Wednesday, responding to reports of sightings of immigration agents.
Blaney said businesses along Cesar Chavez Avenue and Soto Street closed their doors to prevent agents from getting inside.
“What is good is that you have, on a micro level, different neighborhoods that have come together providing support to each other and alerting each other when they see something,” Blaney said.
For Blaney, there’s opportunity for more. “There’s patrolling, which has some level of importance, but we also can’t be spending our time trying to catch a mouse,” she said.
“You have to have community members who are organized in their neighborhood … who know where the houses are safe. We have to start building defense so they [agents] don’t come into that specific neighborhood,” Blaney said.
Boyle Heights Beat reporter Laura Anaya-Morga contributed to this story.