‘I’m an American, bro!’: Latinos report raids in which US citizenship is questioned
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
By Jennifer Medina
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 SUV.
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 immigrant living in the country illegally.
“What hospital were you born at?” the Border Patrol agent asked.
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!”
Gavidia was eventually released as he stood on the sidewalk. But another U.S. citizen, Javier Ramirez, 32 — Gavidia’s friend and co-worker — had been forced facedown to the ground by two agents in the car lot. Ramirez was put inside a van and driven to a federal detention center, where he remains in custody. 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,” Gavidia said in an interview. “Latinos in general are getting attacked. We’re all getting attacked.”
The episode Thursday was captured on video by Gavidia’s friend and the car lot’s security cameras, and described in interviews with Gavidia, 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. Ramirez recently started carrying his passport with him because he feared being stopped, Gavidia said.
“There’s constitutional violations being done left and right,” said Tomas De Jesus, the lawyer for 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 Gavidia being briefly detained.
“They came in over here looking for a specific look, which is the look of our Latino community,” 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 spokesperson 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.”
McLaughlin did not address several questions about the incident, including why the agents went to that site, why they asked Gavidia which hospital he was born at and if that questioning was typical of the Border Patrol.
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 immigrants lacking legal status in the U.S. for years before receiving citizenship through President Ronald 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 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, Gavidia said. He pleaded with them for several minutes and the officer eventually returned his phone but never gave his license back, 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 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.”
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