LOS ANGELES — At a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, guarded by U.S. Marines, relatives of detainees gathered seeking news about their families following sweeps by federal immigration officers.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center, located in the building’s basement, is the first stop for migrants detained in Southern California. ICE officers verify identities and take biometrics before transferring them to detention facilities.
On a recent day, dozens arrived with medicine, clothes and the hope of seeing their relatives, even briefly. However, many were turned away without news, not even confirmation their relatives were inside. Some recounted squalid conditions inside, including detainees so thirsty they drank from toilets. ICE did not respond to an email request for comment.
Two weeks earlier, protesters marched around the federal complex following aggressive raids in Los Angeles that began June 6 and have yet to stop. Obscenities scrawled about President Donald Trump remain on the complex’s walls.
Those arrested come from various countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, India, Iran, China and Laos. About one-third of the county’s 10 million residents are foreign-born.
Many families learned of arrests from social media videos showing masked officers at a Home Depot parking lot, at car washes and in front of taco stands.
Christina Jimenez and her cousin came to check on her 61-year-old stepfather. Her family had prepared for this possibility with the day laborer who worked outside a Home Depot in the LA suburb of Hawthorne. They began sharing locations as raids increased. They told him if he was detained, he should stay silent and follow instructions.
Jimenez had urged him to stop working, or at least avoid certain areas as raids increased. But he remained resolute and “always tries.”
After learning of his arrest, she looked him up online on ICE’s Detainee Locator but found nothing. She tried calling ICE but got nowhere.
Two days later, her phone pinged his location downtown.
“My mother was in shock,” Jimenez said. “She went from very angry to crying, so did my sister.”
Jimenez read his name into the intercom — Mario Alberto Del Cid Solares. After a short wait, she was told yes, he was there.
She and her cousin breathed a sigh of relief — but their questions remained. Her biggest fear was that instead of being sent back to his native Guatemala, he would be deported to another country, which the Supreme Court recently ruled is permissible.
Mid-morning, Estrella Rosas and her mother arrived looking for her sister, Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen. A day earlier, they saw Velez detained after they dropped her off at her marketing job at a downtown shoe company.
Rosas had her sister’s U.S. passport and birth certificate but knew she wasn’t there. They found her next door in a federal detention center. She was charged with obstructing immigration officers, which the family denies, but was released the next day.
About 20 people were now outside. Some found cardboard to sit on after hours of waiting.
One family comforted a woman sobbing in the stairwell.
Then the door opened and a group of attorneys emerged. Families rushed over to ask if the lawyers could help them.
Kim Carver, an attorney with the Trans Latino Coalition, said she had planned to see her client, a Honduran transgender woman, but she had been transferred to a facility in Texas at 6:30 that morning.
As more people arrived, the group began sharing information. One explained the crucial “A-number,” the registration number given to everyone detained, which is necessary before a lawyer can help.
They traded tips on how to add money to accounts for phone calls. One woman said $20 lasted her three or four calls.
Mayra Segura was looking for her uncle after his ice cream pushcart was left abandoned mid-sidewalk in Culver City.
Another attorney, looking frustrated, emerged from the door. She carried bags of clothes, snacks, Tylenol and water that she said she wasn’t allowed to give her client, even though he told her he’d been given only one bottle of water in the past two days.
The line stretched out of the stairwell and into the sun. One man left and returned with water for everyone.
Nearly an hour after visiting hours were supposed to begin, people were finally let inside.
Still wearing her hospital scrubs from work, Jasmin Camacho Picazo arrived to see her husband again.
She brought a sweater because he had told her he was cold, and his back injury worsened from sleeping on the floor.
On her phone, she showed a scene of his car abandoned on the street after he was arrested. The window was smashed and the key was still in the ignition.
More than five hours after Jimenez and her cousin arrived, they saw her stepfather.
Yadira Almadaz cried after seeing her nephew’s boyfriend for just five minutes. She said he was still wearing the clothes he had on when he was detained a week earlier at an asylum appointment in Tustin. He told her he had been given only crackers and chips to eat each day.
Four minutes before visiting hours ended, an ICE officer opened the door and announced visiting hours were over.
One woman berated him in frustration. The officer told her he would get in trouble if he helped her after 4 p.m.
More than 20 people still waited in line. Some trickled outside. Others lingered, staring at the door in disbelief.
According to ABC News.
