Cars with shattered windows have been left behind in streets and parking lots, lawn mowers left running on front lawns, and ice cream carts abandoned on sidewalks.
A growing inventory of deserted belongings have been left scattered across Southern California amid the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration sweeps. In each case, the possessions have been left behind by people nabbed without warning by federal agents. Cars. Vending carts. Work tools. Food trucks. When authorities arrested two gardeners outside an Ontario residence, the homeowner went outside to see the lawn mower still running, the lawn half cut and the workers’ truck still in the driveway, he told local reporters.
Now, as the raids enter their second month, there is a growing push to see that even after someone is arrested, their belongings still return to their families.
One local police department has announced it will attempt to return abandoned property, such as vehicles and work equipment, to relatives of those detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“We’re looking out of the box to see how we can help these families,” said Santa Ana Police Officer Natalie Garcia, public information officer for the department.
There are also growing grass-roots efforts across the region to let families know about arrests.
The abandoned property has been a frequent issue facing families who have been separated by immigration raids that began in early June. Under normal circumstances, if someone is arrested while driving a vehicle, their property could be confiscated and removed by the arresting agency.
But during recent immigration raids, cars, fruit carts, and equipment have been found abandoned in public after people have been detained by masked federal agents, who are often seen in videos leaving the area hurriedly and leaving property behind.
Santa Ana police said they were looking for ways to identify owners and return the property before it is towed away or somehow lost, creating a further burden for families affected by deportations.
Since the raids began in early June, some advocacy groups have mobilized to alert community members to when and where immigration raids are happening, and to link affected families with legal and financial support.
For weeks now, some of those groups have worked as de facto middlemen to return some property to families. The groups have posted and circulated videos and images of the raids, looking to identify the people who have been detained, notify their families, and let them know when their property has been left unattended.
Getting their property back might be a secondary priority to families who have suddenly seen a loved one detained by immigration officials. But advocates point out that some of the property — vehicles, for instance — are essential to families’ day-to-day lives, especially after a relative has been deported.
Sandra De Anda, co-founder and director of policy and legal strategy at the OC Rapid Response Network — a group of organizations that provide resources to families affected by the raids in Orange County — said the group had frequently encountered carts and vehicles that had been left behind after their owners were detained by ICE.
“What we’re seeing is they’re being left everywhere,” she said.
At times, some of the property is left behind by street vendors who, after hearing of immigration officers in the area, have chosen to leave instead of risking detention.
“They leave the equipment for hours sometimes,” she said.
On other occasions, cars have been left unattended in parking lots near courthouses where people have been detained.
So far, De Anda said, members of the community have worked together to identify whom the cars belong to, and to contact families to retrieve them before they are towed away.
Sometimes, she said, it’s when families recognize the vehicles on social media posts that they realize a relative has been detained by ICE.
“A lot of times,” she said, “the families are usually the ones to pick up the cars.”
Garcia said Santa Ana police are hoping to assist families in this way as well.
On June 26, the department put out a message on social media stating it would “make reasonable efforts” to contact family members and return property.
About a week before the message was put out, Garcia said, the department had begun efforts to return some property. Garcia said she did not have information on how many families had been contacted so far.
The message was placed on social media, she said, to help connect with residents who might have second thoughts about contacting police because of the immigration raids.
“I sadly think that a lot of community members don’t want to call us because they still associate us with federal agents,” Garcia said. “But you can call [Santa Ana police] and if you don’t have papers, we don’t care. We’re here to help you.”
That distrust, advocates said, could be a problem for law enforcement.
When immigration raids occur in Orange County, De Anda said, the OC Rapid Response Network could receive as many as two calls per minute of residents reporting the activity, or asking about services.
Many of them, she said, are more likely to reach out to groups like the network than local police.
Santa Ana’s effort is also a way for the department to remind residents that local police are not working with federal agents on immigration enforcement, Garcia said.
“We want to remind our community that we’re here to serve and protect them,” Garcia said. “We don’t work with any federal immigration actions.”
Tamara Marquez, spokesperson for Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, agrees. Her organization has been monitoring and alerting communities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties of ICE raids, and has also been contacted about cars and carts being left behind.
In many cases, even citizen children of those detained by ICE have avoided reaching out to law enforcement about the property because they fear other family members could be targeted.
“They don’t really want to come out and say, this is my family member, because the family is mixed status,” she said.
Instead, members of the community have stepped in at times to contact owners and protect the property, she said.
In one incident in Eastvale, she said, four people who were inside a van were detained and the vehicle was left in the middle of the street with the keys inside.
Nearby residents pushed the van into the driveway of a home, where it was kept until relatives of the detained identified the van on social media, Marquez said.
“We are seeing an increase in lost vehicles because [of] arrests and detentions of people who are driving and are pulled over,” she said. “A lot of the time, people find out their family member was arrested because the vehicle was left behind.”
In June, Ontario resident Chris Ames went outside to find that his gardeners had been arrested. He told KTLA News the lawnmower was still running and that authorities left the workers’ cellphones and keys inside the truck unsecured. Hours later, a family member arrived to claim the truck.
“I think this is just wrong. This is not the way we treat people,” he told the station.
Garcia says police officials are hoping residents will reach out to police for help, regardless of their immigration status.
People who spot the abandoned property are asked to contact the department’s communications office at (714) 245-8665.
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