They swept into the Southern California car lot last Thursday at 4:32 p.m. — masked and armed Border Patrol agents in an unmarked white S.U.V.
One agent soon twisted Jason Brian Gavidia’s arm and pressed him against a black metal fence outside the lot where he runs an auto body shop in Montebello, a working-class suburb east of the Los Angeles city limits. Another officer then asked him an unusual question to prove whether he was a U.S. citizen or an undocumented immigrant.
“What hospital were you born at?” the Border Patrol agent asked.
Mr. Gavidia, 29, was born only a short drive from where they were standing, in East Los Angeles. He did not know the hospital’s name. “I was born here,” he shouted at the agent, adding, “I’m an American, bro!”
Mr. Gavidia was eventually released as he stood on the sidewalk. But another U.S. citizen, Javier Ramirez, 32 — Mr. Gavidia’s friend and co-worker — had been forced facedown to the ground by two agents in the car lot. Mr. Ramirez was put inside a van and driven to a federal detention center, where he remains in custody. Mr. Ramirez’s lawyer said that officials at the detention center had denied his request to speak to his client.
“I know enough to know this is not right at all,” Mr. Gavidia said in an interview. “Latinos in general are getting attacked. We’re all getting attacked.”
The episode on Thursday was captured on video by Mr. Gavidia’s friend and the car lot’s security cameras, and described in interviews with Mr. Gavidia, Mr. Ramirez’s lawyer and another man who was at the shop during the raid.
It has stirred fears in Montebello and other majority-Hispanic areas in and around Los Angeles that the agents involved in the Trump administration’s immigration raids are questioning the legal status of Americans who happen to be Latino.
Viral videos on social media of the Montebello incident and other instances of agents questioning Latino residents in Los Angeles have heightened anxiety that the federal immigration crackdown has entered a new phase. The fear is that agents, including those who are themselves Hispanic, are now racially profiling Hispanic residents and questioning citizenship on the street. Mr. Ramirez recently started carrying his passport with him because he feared being stopped, Mr. Gavidia said.
“There’s constitutional violations being done left and right,” said Tomas De Jesus, the lawyer for Mr. Ramirez. “They did not show any warrant. They did not provide any reason to why they were there. It seemed to me that they were just like, Hey, you look brown, you look Mexican enough that maybe you’re undocumented.”
Salvador Melendez, the mayor of Montebello, said he was outraged after a resident had sent him a video posted on social media of Mr. Gavidia being briefly detained.
“They came in over here looking for a specific look, which is the look of our Latino community,” Mr. Melendez said of federal agents. “They’re just going to apprehend anybody that looks Latino. We just feel extremely frustrated and angry as a community.”
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency, said that the agents were conducting a lawful immigration enforcement operation.
The spokesperson said one person had attempted to flee the scene, had assaulted an agent in the process and was arrested for having assaulted and interfered with agents. Another person was detained on the street for investigation for interference but was released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen. And a third person, the official said, was determined to be “an illegal alien” and was taken into custody without incident.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Border Patrol as well as Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement that Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, “has been clear: If you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Ms. McLaughlin did not address several questions about the incident, including why the agents went to that site, why they asked Mr. Gavidia which hospital he was born at and if that questioning was typical of the Border Patrol.
The surveillance footage does not provide a full view of everything that had transpired in the auto lot. The agents’ initial interaction with Mr. Ramirez happens off camera. The video shows the agents detaining another man in the lot without incident, but details about him and his status are not known.
Mr. De Jesus said that his client, who has two young children and is also his cousin, did not assault the agents.
Latino residents make up roughly 80 percent of the population of Montebello. The city of 63,000 people is about 12 miles north of Paramount, where recent clashes between federal agents, residents and protesters outside a Home Depot helped set off the latest round of mass demonstrations.
According to the security-camera footage supplied by Mr. De Jesus to The New York Times, the driver of the white S.U.V. did a U-turn and parked in front. The car lot is home to several small tow-truck companies and auto body shops. The entrance gate was nearly shut but was open enough for a person to enter and exit. Several agents got out of the S.U.V. and walked onto the property through the open gate.
Agents can be seen in the surveillance video tackling Mr. Ramirez to the ground in the car lot and struggling to handcuff him. Mr. Gavidia said that Mr. Ramirez was loudly “begging for an ambulance” and that blood was dripping down his forehead.
“I take one step and then the guy wraps the chamber of his AR-15 and he’s staring us down,” said Mr. Gavidia, who stood nearby.
Mr. Gavidia said he was shocked to suddenly see the Border Patrol at his workplace.
He has spent his entire life in and around East Los Angeles. He attended James A. Garfield High School, a storied local institution made famous by the 1988 movie “Stand and Deliver.” His mother is from Colombia and his father is from El Salvador, and both lived as unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. for years before receiving citizenship through President Reagan’s amnesty program.
On the sidewalk in front of the shop, a small crowd had formed. Many of the witnesses shouted at the agents and started recording on their phones.
As agents questioned Mr. Gavidia on the sidewalk, they pressed him against the fence and he repeatedly and loudly told them he could show identification to prove his citizenship. They dropped his arms and he reached for his California driver’s license.
The agents then confiscated both his license and his cellphone, Mr. Gavidia said. He pleaded with them for several minutes and the officer eventually returned his phone but never gave his license back, Mr. Gavidia said.
The spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection said the agents were confronted by a hostile group. The spokesperson issued a warning that the agency would not be intimidated and that interfering with law enforcement is a felony for citizens and noncitizens.
The experience left Mr. Gavidia, who said he had never before had a brush with law enforcement, shocked and angry.
“They’re Latinos, just like me,” he said of the agents. “I am a good United States citizen.”
Eventually, agents loaded Mr. Ramirez into a van and drove off. It would be nearly 24 hours before his lawyer located him inside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, a federal facility that has been the scene of protests in recent days.
When Mr. De Jesus called the detention center Friday afternoon, he was told he could not speak to his client until Monday morning, he said. He said he asked the official to “confirm that you are denying me access to my client. They said, ‘Yes. At this moment, on this weekend, we cannot give you access to see your client.’”
Mr. Gavidia said he wanted others to see what was unfolding in Montebello. At one point, after he was released, he recorded several agents armed with rifles crossing the street amid honking traffic.
“That’s the new gang of L.A. right there,” he said on the video, adding: “This is not fair at all, bro. We’re all American here, man.”
Jesus Jiménez and Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.
Jennifer Medina is a Los Angeles-based political reporter for The Times, focused on political attitudes and demographic change.
The post ‘I’m an American, Bro!’: Latinos Report Raids in Which U.S. Citizenship Is Questioned appeared first on New York Times.
