US man arrested while filming Home Depot Ice raid sues government for $1m
Job Garcia, a 37-year-old a photographer and PhD student at Claremont Graduate University, was tackled, thrown to the ground, arrested and detained for over 24 hours, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (Maldef) said. The advocacy group is representing Garcia.
The arrest of immigrants has escalated nationwide, notably at Home Depot sites, where undocumented laborers in particular gather in parking lots outside branches of the store chain, waiting to be picked up for casual work.
Such sweeps have been on the rise, especially since a May meeting in which top White House officials placed significant pressure on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials to step up arrest numbers.
'Why aren't you at Home Depot?' the White House adviser Stephen Miller reportedly asked the Ice top managers during the heated meeting, where Ice was instructed to arrest at least 3,000 people a day under Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, which would amount to a million arrests ayear.
Ice raids and arrests outside Home Depot outlets last month led to massive demonstrations in Los Angeles in particular. The protests set up a showdown between the California state government and the Trump administration, after the US president deployed the national guard over the objection of the governor, in a rare and extreme move, to clamp down on the pockets of fierce protests across the sprawling metropolis.
Garcia's claim, submitted by Maldef, is under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows individuals to sue the federal government for wrongful acts by employees in the course of their duties, the organization says.
The document, submitted on Tuesday, is a formal FTCA notice, which is required to be submitted before filing an official lawsuit.
According to the claim submitted to Ice and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Garcia was present at a Home Depot on the morning of 19 June doing some delivery work, when he noticed masked immigration officials arresting day laborers.
Garcia began recording the arrests on his phone and began advising people inside a commercial truck to not respond to immigration officials, who wanted to arrest them, too. The masked officials then smashed the window of the truck to arrest the men.
Garcia said he continued recording the interaction, when suddenly, 'with no warning from an agent', one of the masked officials lunged at him, threw the man's phone and tackled him. Other officials joined in, pinning Garcia to the floor and placing cuffs on him.
'The Border Patrol and Ice agents unlawfully restrained and detained Mr Garcia for more than 24 hours without any valid grounds for interfering with his liberty and freedom of movement, and they did so based on legally prohibited grounds,' the complaint reads.
Garcia was later taken to the federal Metropolitan detention center in Los Angeles and detained for a total of 25 hours, despite asserting multiple times that he was a US citizen. He was later released 'without arraignment or notification of charges'.
Maldef says Garcia suffered 'physical injury, emotional distress, and economic losses' from the entire experience, including bruising all over his body and emotional distress.
'When government engages in widespread violation of individual rights with respect to immigrants without status, the harm inevitably spills over and spreads to others; that is why we must insist, as a society, on respect for the rights of everyone,' Thomas Saenz, Maldef president and general counsel, said in a statement.
'Here, a citizen, acting in the best traditions of our democracy, was engaged in documenting government misconduct to encourage policy change; he was wrongfully arrested and detained because of his race and his heroic efforts.'
The DHS views the situation differently. In a statement to NBC, a department spokesperson said that 'Garcia assaulted and verbally harassed a federal agent and that he was subdued and arrested for the alleged assault'.
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