Brian Gavidia was working at West Olympic Boulevard in Montebello around 4:30 pm on Thursday, when they told him that immigration agents were out of their workplace.
Gavidia, 29, was born and grew up in eastern Los Angeles and fixes and sells cars to make a living. He said it came out. And saw four to six agents.
In seconds, he said, one of them, with a vest with “federal border patrol agent” written on his back, approached him.
“Stop there,” he said the agent told him. Then, the agent questioned if Gavidia was American.
“I am a American citizen,” Gavidia said, told the agent at least three times.
Despite his answers, the agent pushed him to a metal door, put his hands behind his back and asked him what hospital he was born, Gavidia said.
Overwhelmed by the meeting, he said he could not remember the hospital.
The video taken by a friend shows two agents holding Gavidia against a blue fence. He tells them that they are twisting their arm.
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“I'm American, brother!” Gavidia said in the video.
“What hospital were born?” The agent asked again, this time recorded in the video.
“I don't know Dawg!” said. “East the bro! I can show you: I have my real identification.”
His friend, that Gavidia did not name, narrated the video. As the incident continued, he said: “These guys are literally based on skin color! My friend was born here!” The friend said Gavidia was being questioned “just because of the way it is seen.”
Gavidia said he gave the border patrol agent her true identification, but the agent never returned it. The agent also took his phone and kept it for 20 minutes, he said, before finally returning it.
Even after the agent saw his identification, Gavidia said, he never apologized.
In an answer to the questions of the Times, Customs and the border protection of the United States did not answer questions about the meeting with Gavidia.
The agency said in a statement that it is “to carry out the specific immigration application in support of ICE operations throughout the Los Angeles area. The immigration law is not optional: it is essential to protect national security, public safety and economic strength.”
The statement continued: “Every elimination of an illegal foreigner helps restore order and strengthen the rule of law.”
Pressing by The Times for answers on that specific meeting, a CBP spokesman said: “The declaration provided is the only information available on the operation at this time.”
The National Security Department did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Gavidia said another friend was arrested that afternoon in the same place. His name is Javier Ramírez, and he is also an American citizen. Tomas de Jesús, the cousin of Ramírez and his lawyer, said that the immigration agents had entered a private business, “without a court order without a probable cause, to guarantee a place like that.”
De Jesus said that his cousin began to alert people about the presence of agents. He said he only learned of his cousin's whereabouts on Friday afternoon and said that the authorities accuse him of “resisting arrest, assaulting people.”
“We are still doing an investigation to really understand and determine the facts of the case,” said De Jesus. De Jesus said he called the Metropolitan Detention Center and identified himself as a lawyer who wanted to talk to his client, but told him that lawyers could not see their clients at this time.
“They didn't give me permission, they didn't give me access to talk to him on the phone,” he said.
The mayor of Montebello, Salvador Meléndez, who saw a video of the meeting with Gavidia, described the situation “extremely frustrating.
“It seems that there is no process,” he said. “They simply get people who resemble our community and take them and question them.”
Meléndez said he received a call from a resident when immigration agents were on the Olympic boulevard. Meléndez said he heard that they also went to other places in the city.
“They go for a specific aspect, which is an aspect of our Latin community, our immigrant community,” he said.
Gavidia said her mother is Colombian and that her father is Salvadoran. They are American citizens.
“He raped my rights as an American citizen,” Gavidia said, his voice trembling with anger while talking on his business on Friday. “It was the worst experience I felt. I felt honestly as if I were going to die. He literally accumulated a camera in his AR-15”.
Gavidia's clothes were dirty for work, and said she thought that is partly why the agents interrogated him.
“I'm legal,” he said. “I speak English perfect. I also speak Spanish perfect. I am bilingual, but that does not mean that it has to be chosen, as 'this boys look like Latin; this guy seems a bit dirty.' I am working, guys.
He added: “Stay, walk while brown, walk while it is dirty, return to work, there is a great possibility of picking you.”
Gavidia said she still does not have her true identification. He went to the Motorized Vehicle Department on Friday morning and said that immigration agents had stolen their identification. He said they told him that they would need to re -apply to another.
“He took my ticket to freedom,” Gavidia said.
