Brian Gavidia was at work on West Olympic Boulevard in Montebello at about 4:30 p.m. Thursday when he was told immigration agents were outside of his workplace.
Gavidia, 29, was born and raised in East Los Angeles and fixes and sells cars for a living. He said he stepped outside. And saw four to six agents.
Within seconds, he said, one of them — wearing a vest with “Border Patrol Federal Agent” written on the back — approached him.
“I’m an American citizen,” Gavidia said he told the agent at least three times.
Despite his responses, the agent pushed him into a metal gate, put his hands behind his back and asked him what hospital he was born in, Gavidia said.
“What hospital were you born?” the agent asked again, this time recorded in the video.
“I don’t know dawg!” he said. “East L.A. bro! I can show you: I have my ... Real ID.”
[The agent took his Real ID and it has not been returned.]
His friend, who Gavidia did not name, narrated the video. As the incident continued, he said: “These guys, literally based off of skin color! My homie was born here!” The friend said Gavidia was being questioned “just because of the way he looks."
Montebello Mayor Salvador Melendez, who watched video of the encounter with Gavidia, called the situation “just extremely frustrating.
“I’m legal,” [Gavidia] said. “I speak perfect English. I also speak perfect Spanish. I’m bilingual, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be picked out, like ‘This guys seems Latino; this guy seems a little bit dirty.’ I’m working, guys. I’m an American. We work. I’m Latino. We work.”
The agency said in a statement that it is “conducting targeted immigration enforcement in support of ICE operations across the Los Angeles area. Enforcing immigration law is not optional* — it’s essential to protecting America’s national security, public safety, and economic strength.”
*This statement is no longer operational.
"Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” Tatum King, a senior official at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in guidance to regional leaders of the department, the Times added.