Bay Area day laborers say they live in fear of ICE raids: ‘We just come here to find work'

San Francisco Chronicle​

8 hours ago

On the edge of the parking lot of a Home Depot in Alameda County this past week, a woman sold a warm cup of atole, a traditional masa-based drink from Mexico, to a man and his son. She had just returned to her post after a week of hiding at home with her 12-year-old son after hearing rumors of an ICE raid nearby.
'I would rather lose a day of work than risk something happening to me,' said the woman, who declined to share her name due to fear of immigration authorities. However, she said she could not afford to stay home any longer.
Across from her small stand were nearly a dozen men grappling with the same dilemma — day laborers who are hired for all manner of jobs by customers looking for skilled help at a low price, but who are now fearful that the public way they solicit work might make them targets of President Donald Trump's mass deportation effort.
Around the Bay Area, some immigrant advocates have reported that fewer day laborers are gathering at their usual spots outside home improvement stores, moving-truck rental shops and gas stations. But on this day in Alameda County, the men rushed toward vehicles that pulled up. They needed the work.
'We are a little scared because we don't come (to the U.S.) to rob, we come here to work, to give our children a better life,' said a Guatemalan man who also asked not to be identified by name.
This month, as part of a broader series of raids in Los Angeles, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested more than 40 laborers in operations outside a Home Depot and at the workplace of a clothing manufacturer. Immigrant advocates worry that similar raids could occur in the Bay Area, though no actions have yet been reported.
'We feel like it's going to happen,' said Luis Valentan, the west coast regional director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. 'The administration is creating a really, really hostile environment and we don't see workers as we did before.'
Trump administration officials have said undocumented workers take jobs that could go to Americans. But advocates say they mostly do jobs no one else wants — a sentiment echoed by Trump himself on social media. Moreover, some advocates say targeting day laborers would amount to racial profiling.
Gabriela Galicia, executive director of Street Level Health Project, a nonprofit in Oakland that seeks to aid vulnerable immigrants including day laborers, said she and her staff have begun carrying around proof of citizenship because they fear being targeted by ICE for being Latino.
'People are scared,' Galicia said. 'They think that at any time they could be stopped.'
Roberto Hernandez, the CEO of Cultura y Arte Nativa de las Americas, a nonprofit organization in San Francisco that promotes indigenous cultures and healing practices, said arresting day laborers is 'part of Trump's racist targeting of Latinos in this country' and goes against the president's rhetoric about focusing enforcement on criminals.
'A criminal is not going to be at Home Depot looking for work for the pay that a day laborer makes,' Hernandez said.
In interviews, many immigrants who rely on day labor work — typically construction, painting, roofing and gardening — said they had no choice but to risk their safety to put food on the table. 'It's not fair,' said a Guatemalan man at the Alameda County Home Depot, who recounted arriving alone to the U.S. five years ago.
ICE officials did not return a request for comment for this story. Home Depot said in a statement that the company is not informed of ICE enforcement.
'We aren't notified that ICE activities are going to happen, and in many cases, we don't know that arrests have taken place until after they're over,' the company said.
ICE data shows that arrests in Northern California have increased roughly 70% this year, compared to the final six months of the Biden administration. While arrests of convicted criminals grew, arrests of people who were suspected only of immigration-related violations, or had pending charges, went up much faster.
The Trump administration has said it intends to reach arrest quotas of 3,000 people per day. To achieve those goals, ICE has begun targeting immigrants who have been vetted and given a legal status to stay in the country, versus focusing on only those with criminal histories.
It's not clear how many day laborers toil in California. A 2007 report by the California Economic Policy Center found there were at least 40,000, and that 80% were undocumented. Studies have shown that they are frequently exploited, with poor working conditions and stolen pay.
These problems and others have prompted the creation of day labor centers run by nonprofit organizations in San Francisco, Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area, which work to protect day laborers, while helping them secure consistent jobs and wages.
Though day laborers typically wait in parking lots until potential employers drive up offering work, San Francisco has a day labor center where people can make hires through a more formal process.
Hernandez said he lives about a block away from an informal gathering spot for day laborers in the city's Mission District. In recent days, he said, he has rarely seen the usual throng of people waiting for work. Meanwhile, he's seen an uptick of people coming to the Mission Food Hub, a food bank.
'What I've consistently been hearing from a lot of them is that they don't want to be out on the street because of the fear of ICE, which then impacts your ability to pay your rent, put food on your table,' Hernandez said. 'That feeling scared, feeling depressed, feeling fearful — it's at an all-time high.'
The mood in Oakland is similar, Galicia said her organization, which recently lost $400,000 in funding from the city due to budget woes, regularly checks on day laborers who gather at six locations.
'There is a lot of fear and panic even just seeing cars passing by that may look suspicious,' Galicia said. 'Whenever there are reports of ICE in the community, we see a decrease in the day laborer community.'
On a recent day outside a Home Depot in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood, laborers said they hadn't seen any federal immigration officers. Some expressed concern that could change, but felt resigned.
A day later, rumors circulated that federal agents had shown up at the store, but Galicia said that dispatchers from Alameda County's rapid response network, which responds to ICE operations, had not verified those sightings.
And so the rhythm of the workers' lives continued. One man in Fruitvale, who also declined to share his name due to fear of being deported, said he used his earnings to support his wife and their two children, a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old.
The couple, he said, left their home in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, five years ago seeking to escape poverty and crime. They crossed the border by foot, a journey of several days through the Sonoran desert. Now, he splits his time between different spots outside Home Depots — wherever he can land the best jobs.
'If they come, what can we do? There's nothing we can do,' he said. 'We just come here to find work.'