A father of two was detained by six officers from the U.S Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) around 1:20 p.m. on Sunday, according to his family and a separate eyewitness. The detainment took place about a mile from USC’s University Park campus.
“I want [them] to give my dad back because I miss him so much,” his 11-year-old son told Annenberg Media in Spanish. “I want to see him again.”
Annenberg Media used Google Translate and independently verified the Spanish translations for this story.
The man’s family — his wife and two sons — fled political violence in Colombia in 2023 and are all undocumented. They spoke to Annenberg Media on the condition of anonymity out of fear for their safety. It is unclear why the man was taken, but his wife and two children weren’t. Annenberg Media reached out to ICE’s Los Angeles Field Office for comment, but they did not respond in time for publication.
The two law enforcement agencies, along with the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), are under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The jurisdiction of DHS law enforcement agencies has grown under President Trump’s executive orders, which expanded the geographical boundaries for DHS detainments.
“When I saw that they were taking my dad away, I cried with my brother and my mom because it’s something that we’re going to have to accept,” the detained man’s 17-year-old son said.
The father’s arrest took about 10 to 15 minutes, according to eyewitnesses. Kayla Sarno, a recent USC graduate, said she was shocked when she saw three unmarked cars pull into her neighborhood.
“They just took the man, and then his family came out and they were all sobbing and crying and trying to talk to them,” Sarno said. “One of the little boys, he came out and he was just sobbing, and he tried to go up to the car and talk to his dad and it was just really heartbreaking to watch.”
The detained man’s wife told Annenberg Media that the family only spoke Spanish, and no Spanish interpreter was with ICE when the detainment was made.
“The people that came, I wanted to talk to them, but they would say ‘No’ and ‘No Spanish, No Spanish.’ That’s what they said to me,” she said.
Officers showed her a deportation order, she said, but did not give the family a copy. Annenberg Media has verified that her husband is currently in ICE custody at the Desert View Facility in Los Angeles, about 90 miles away from USC, using case information accessed from an online database. The man has an “A#,” which is the type of case number assigned to undocumented immigrants by ICE. He will be detained for the next three months until his court date on April 3.
Annenberg Media sat in on a call the man made to his wife from ICE custody about five hours after his detainment. He said that he was asked to sign a voluntary deportation order, but he refused to sign.
“That’s what folks need to do,” Jorge-Mario Cabreras, director of communications for the Coalition for Humane Rights in Los Angeles (CHIRLA), said. “They shouldn’t sign a deportation order. They should say they want to see a judge, and that will trigger them to be transferred to a detention center.”
Cabreras emphasized that ‘legal or not,’ immigrants have rights when confronted with detainment, including:
- The right to silence when being detained.
- The right to an attorney, but at no expense to the government. Removal proceedings are considered civil cases rather than criminal, and an attorney will not be provided free of charge to undocumented immigrants. If detained individuals don’t waive their right to an attorney, a judge must give them time to look for one.
- The right to have the issue of your removability (i.e your deportation from the country) decided by a judge.
Cabreras suggested the following next steps for families with undocumented people concerned about deportation:
- Talk with your family. Finalize a plan in case either you or one of your family members are detained by DHS officers.
- Save money for litigation costs.
- Memorize a trusted phone number for an attorney or hotline; CHIRLA’s hotline is 888-624-4752.
- If immigrants are lawful permanent residents/green card holders, they should keep a copy of their documentation.
It is too early to discern patterns to the targeted arrests in Los Angeles, Cabreras said, but CHIRLA had been notified of two other detainments, one in Southeast Los Angeles and one in Echo Park. Reports of ICE sightings are being shared online, but Cabreras says to be “careful” about unfounded or exaggerated reports, which he said CHIRLA believes is a form of “psychological warfare” that creates a climate of fear.
“We are confused. We don’t know if we came to this country to be safer or perhaps more insecure,” the detained man’s wife said. “The only thing we have done in this country has been to work and in the end … it is useless to do good things because they will take you anyways and deport you without a reason.”
She described her husband as a “hard-working and responsible person.”
“He has been the person who has supported me in many situations when we came to this country in search of a future,” she said.
Their 11-year-old son says he hopes to attend college at the University of Southern California. Their 17-year-old son is currently searching for educational resources for undocumented students.
Professor Niels Frenzen, the director of USC’s immigration clinic, recommended the following Southern California organizations, also part of the L.A. Rapid Response Network:
- Immigrant Defenders Law Center
- Central American Resource Center
- Public Counsel
- El Otro Lado
California has been a sanctuary state since 2017. Los Angeles has only had sanctuary city status for a few months after the LA City Council passed a measure late last year. A spokesperson of the LA County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement to Cal Matters that the Board of Supervisors ”permanently banned cooperation with Federal Immigration officials.”
However, according to Frenzen, this doesn’t affect the ability of ICE, HSI, or CBT to operate in sanctuary cities. The sanctuary laws only apply to state and local government officials in their levels of cooperation with ICE.
Michelle Chavez contributed to this reporting.