An apparent immigration raid resulted in the detainment of two men at a Torrance car wash in an operation captured on camera.
Video recorded on Sunday out of the Bubble Bath Hand Car Wash showed roughly a dozen federal agents at the car wash detaining at least two employees. The majority of the agents covered their faces with masks and sunglasses during the raid.
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The business owner, Emmanuel Karim, said the armed agents ignored his request to see documentation for their operation.
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SIGN UP "I walked up to them first, I tried saying I’m the business owner," Karim said. "They didn’t want to give me any paper, any warrant. They started running into our tunnel, which has signs that nobody is permitted in this area except employees and then they just basically started harassing everyone in the tunnel."
Karim said the agents took off with two employees. After some effort, Karim and his team were able to determine where one employee was taken to.
"We’re not doing anything wrong," Karim said. "They should be going after people with criminal records, not just normal people trying to make a living and feed their families. This is very un-American."
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn condemned the operation, likening the agents to “thugs” in a statement.
“Just a block away from a monthly street fair where Torrance families were enjoying a normal Sunday afternoon, these masked thugs sent by our own federal government violently raided a local car wash -- shoving a worker’s face into a gate and throwing another onto the ground,” Hahn’s statement read. “All the while, another federal agent films the raid with camera equipment. They are trying to make an example of these hardworking people, robbing businesses of their workers and families of their breadwinners.”
Sunday’s operation follows a trend of federal agents targeting car washes during their raids in Southern California. Car wash businesses in Maywood, Bell and Downey have been subjected to these operations.
The raids have led to weeks of protests in Los Angeles and the greater region, with demonstrators denouncing the operations.
