Four people have been arrested in Van Nuys, California, and charged with felony offences after being accused of trying to impede an immigration raid by bursting agents’ truck tires with homemade devices made from nails.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino took to social media to name and shame the suspects, saying they had “attempted to impede and obstruct our efforts, using improvised devices aimed at disabling our vehicles.”
Jenaro-Ernesto Ayala, 43, Jude Jasmine Jeannine Allard, 28, Sadot Jarnica, 54, and Daniel Montenegro, 30, were arrested over the incident in question, he said.
“The case is being reviewed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Bovino added. “All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
He also posted pictures of the spikes, one of which was shown embedded in a tire’s tread.
According to ABC’s local affiliate, the arrests came after armed federal agents embarked on a raid targeting alleged undocumented migrants outside of a branch of Home Depot near Van Nuys Airport on Tuesday, making an unspecified number of arrests.
That, in turn, led activists to protest outside of a local federal detention center that evening, demanding their peers be freed.
Maegan Ortiz, Executive Director of Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California, a nonprofit group that seeks to support the state’s immigrant community, said that one of her workers, a U.S. citizen, was arrested, as was a volunteer.
The Golden State has increasingly found itself on the frontline of the Donald Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, with anti-ICE protests erupting in downtown Los Angeles last month.
The president responded by deploying the National Guard and active-duty Marines to maintain peace, despite the opposition of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, who expressed concern that the show of force would only exacerbate the situation.
The tensions have since been exacerbated by incidents like the tackling of Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla as he attempted to ask a question at a press conference being held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and controversial comments from the Vice Mayor of Cudahy for local “cholos” to rise up and defend the community against ICE.
The situation has reportedly left the state’s Latino community living in fear and even going into hiding, regardless of their immigration status, with one man telling the press: “It’s like Anne Frank.”
Trump is reportedly preparing to relax the rules to exempt farm laborers from his mass deportation push after realising that doing otherwise threatens to blow a huge hole in an important industry, a decision that would bring significant relief to California where farmers and ranchers are major employers and where seasonal migrant workers are all-important come harvest time.
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