LOS ANGELES (AP) — U.S. Border Patrol agents jumped out of the back of a rented box truck and made arrests Wednesday at a Los Angeles Home Depot store during an immigration raid that an agency official called “Operation Trojan Horse.”
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The early morning raid near downtown LA came just days after a federal appeals court upheld a federal judge’s order blocking the Trump administration from conducting indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in Southern California.
Breaking: DHS arrives in Penske trucks at a Home Depot in McArthur Park area of LA for early morning immigration enforcement. The area was filled with migrants who scattered. DHS says MS 13 has a chokehold on this area, which is one reason they’re carrying out the highly… pic.twitter.com/hTskuM9Q4l
— Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) August 6, 2025
“For those who thought immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again,” acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted on the social platform X after the raid. “The enforcement of federal law is not negotiable and there are no sanctuaries from the reach of the federal government.”
Messages were sent to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seeking details on the raid, including how many people were arrested. U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Greg Bovino reposted Fox News reports of Monday’s arrests on X, calling the action “Operation Trojan Horse.”
Photos on social media showed the moment the rear door of the rented Penske truck opened, revealing several uniformed agents with guns. A spokesperson for Penske Truck Rental said the company was looking into the use of its vehicles by federal officials, saying its regulations prohibit transporting people in truck cargo areas.
“The company was not made aware that its trucks would be used in today’s operation and did not authorize this,” spokesperson Randolph P. Ryerson said in an email. “Penske will reach out to DHS and reinforce its policy to avoid improper use of its vehicles in the future.”
Since June, the Los Angeles region has been a battleground in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration strategy that spurred protests and the deployment of the National Guards and Marines for more than a month. Federal agents have rounded up immigrants without legal status to be in the U.S. from Home Depots, car washes, bus stops, and farms. Some U.S. citizens have also been detained.
Lupe Carrasco Cardona, an educator with Union del Barrio, said members of her advocacy group were conducting regular patrols at the Home Depot early Monday when they saw a Penske truck pull into the parking lot, advertising work to the day laborers there. Immigrant workers, some with legal status and others without, often wait in Home Depot parking lots to be hired for various day jobs.
“They opened the back, they hopped out and they started indiscriminately just grabbing people,” Cardona said.
Unmarked white vans with U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents arrived shortly after the truck to participate in the operation, Cardona said. The organization has identified three street vendors and four day laborers that were arrested, but they were still trying to account for others. Family members said one street vendor tried to show evidence of holding asylum before he was arrested, she said.
Last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked federal agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate arrests after the ACLU, Public Counsel and other advocacy groups sued over the practices. Attorneys for the government argued that the order hinders agents from carrying out immigration enforcement, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal on Friday upheld the order.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has previously said that “enforcement operations are highly targeted.”
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network condemned Wednesday’s raid, calling targeted workers the backbone of the local economy.
“Today’s raid staged by agents in cowboy hats jumping out of a rented van with a TV crew in tow marks a dangerous escalation in the Trump Administration’s assault on immigrant communities, the courts, and the people of Los Angeles,” Pablo Alvarado, the group’s co-executive director, said in a statement.
Cute, but the scale has to increase by two orders of magnitude. Trump has only 3 years left. Around 30 million illegals need to be deported during this time period. 10 million a year is 30,000 every day.
This will lower our local property taxes, raise our wages, and make real estate more affordable.
Paying 50 cents extra for a pound of strawberries is well worth it. The only people losing out would be the slumlords and contractors that charge their clients as if they are paying their workers professional American wages, while actually employing the dirtcheap unreliable 3rd world labor.
Did Penske complain when human smugglers and sex traffickers used there trucks to transport people?
I live here. Many have no know idea of all the free social services, food, medical,housing,not to mention schooling, policing etc. these people get. The middle class can barely make it and many have left. We’re being squeezed to death to take care of millions of people who send most of their money home
Why would the truck rental company need to be advised of how the truck is being used? Why do you write this article as if ice did something wrong?
They are doing the jobs that high school graduates use to do .if there were no illegals than the grads would be doing the jobs or the drop outs . So yeah the jobs would be filled so I’m not sure what your point is .I’m in construction and all you see is foreigners doing the work that others did at one time but can’t get hired because the illegals are doing them for less money.
Something many hear dont know. I WORKED for ICE. San Jose
SF area 2010. Many large residential communities were over run by illegal immigrants willing to work for less wages, retail, food services, labor, agriculture etc. Multiple families live in single family homes that are rented. Generational families of citizens sold and moved out of their neighborhoods because crime went up, lack of parking, increased trash and gangs taxing illegal residents for protection against assault and vandalism by them the gangs. The most I ever counted was 10 families in one 1800sq ft home. Each family or couple paid their seperate portions for rent. Each bedroom was $1200. Living room $800, walk in closet $500 and 5 cheap metal tool shed lined up in the back yard $500 Each! Seen by my own eyes and told to me by these people being charged. They City looked the other way, sanctuary cities. Looking deeper later I learned from County records that many of the Santa Clara County homes were corporate owned. Many by foreign investors from China. One 1800sq ft home 3 bedroom 2 bath taking in over 7k per month for a $2000 average rental in 2010. Guess what party the mayors and city council members were part of..all democrats. Guess who these ” foreign real estate investors” donated too …the democrats. SELLING OUT OF America for Profit in rent and cheap labor for their many corporate companies using cheap labor to include corp owned farms. CoST SAVINGS TO THE US Citizen ZERO! Profits grossly High. SO when democrats say its about being humane and decent they’re full of Sh$t. Its about BIG PROFITS.
Nice!
You whiney buts obviously don’t care about the laws of the land. The government must get rid of as many illegal immigrants as possible, no matter what tactics they have to use in order to accomplish their goal. Go get as many as possible you guys! YOUR DOING A GREAT JOB PROTECTING AMERICAN CITIZENS!!
This “journalist” doesn’t understand that over 70 millions Americans voted for Trump for the sole purpose of getting ALL of the illegals out of our country. We have immigration laws like every other country. You cannot demand that an entire country follow laws and regulations while letting another group of people completely disregard our laws.
Outstanding move. Keep it up!
Keep up the good work. People want to live peacefully in safe neighborhoods and be able to let their children play without the fear of being harmed. Quit worrying about criminals over the safety of Americans. It’s time to fix the border problem once and for all. Deport people who broke the law by entering this country without first asking!!
It’s time to enforce the laws in this nation if we want to have a NATION!
If penske wants to be on the wrong side of this then as bud light says hold my beer
Great now do more
How is a day laborer the backbone of the local economy? I’m asking for a friend. SMDH.
I’m just hoping ice inforcement captures all the people in Boston Massachusetts that Healey gave $30.000 she should be in jail
I’m all for secure borders & only legal immigration.
But going after the ones that get up in the morning & go to work (often doing jobs Americans won’t) is just stupid. They contribute a lot to the economy.
They should be the last to be deported, if at all.
Like saying it is fine to drive drunk and without a license so long as you don’t get caught.
Someone needs to see if this Pablo guy is legal to be here. Probably isn’t.
Penske provided trucks to transport illegal aliens into the United States. The got no beef with ICE. BOYCOTT PENSKE
VIN news is Very Inappropriate News
We did these when we were kids in 1960’s
Boycott Penske , made millions off tax paying americans i urge everyone to stay away
Let me see. What other group uses this tactic?????? Proud Boys!!! Yep. Oh wait same group. My bad
They should be doing the opposite. The ones at home Depot are the good ones the ones we want to stay and work for cheap.
They should have a truck with agents jumping out and giving them citizenship!