LOS ANGELES — Mario relied on his job in the car wash industry to raise his three children. It was during a shift at a Santa Ana car wash last August that he was arrested by federal agents, taken to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center and held for two months.
“They made me sleep on the cold floor for a week without a blanket, a toothbrush or basic medical care for the injured man next to me,” Mario, a 33-year resident of the United States, said at a news conference earlier this summer at Inglewood’s Crenshaw Imperial Car Wash, which is now closed after being raided by federal agents.
Mario, who is being identified only by his first name for safety reasons, is among hundreds of car wash workers detained across Southern California in the year since the Trump administration began an aggressive immigration crackdown in the region, according to the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center.
News of raids by masked agents has faded from the headlines, but the effects still linger for those caught in the crosshairs. Family members have been deported or left to languish in detention, and many who remain live with the fear of being hunted down by immigration officers.
At least 373 car wash workers have been detained at car washes across Southern California since the raids began last summer, according to figures compiled by CLEAN. The group’s data also shows federal agents raided or attempted to raid at least 106 car washes in communities across Los Angeles, Orange County and surrounding areas, including Inglewood, Culver City, Westchester, Bell and Whittier.
CLEAN, an advocacy group founded in 2007, has been fighting to protect car wash workers from exploitation and unsafe conditions. When the raids began last year, the group sprang into action, working around the clock to help detained workers and provide their families with legal and financial support.
“We gathered our information from workers, managers, and owners of the car washes that were being raided,” CLEAN Deputy Director Andrea Gonzalez said. “We also gathered information from rapid response teams who were on the ground responding to the raids.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on the group’s findings.
Mario said he was one of seven workers at the Harbor Blvd Car Wash detained on the same day last August, but the only one who has been released. He said he refused to sign deportation papers and is fighting to stay in the United States, a process that has drained his family emotionally and financially.
“Being released is not the same as being free,” he said.
During Mario’s detention at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, his wife and children struggled to cope with his sudden absence while fighting for his release, his wife Alejandra said.
“The employer gave us a video showing my husband being taken away under arrest, treated worse than a common criminal, with chains binding his legs, arms and waist,” Alejandra said. “It wasn’t right.”
The experience of a car wash worker named José was recounted at the news conference by the Rev. Andy Schwiebert of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, who said agents “took him” from the La Cienega Car Wash last August.
José’s wife is a U.S. citizen, Schwiebert said, and José had a pathway to gaining citizenship before he was detained. By the time a judge ordered his release on bond, the car wash had shut down, Schwiebert said, leaving José without a job.
“These raids did not just target workers; they destabilized families, congregations, workplaces and entire communities,” Schwiebert said.
The administration’s aggressive enforcement operations have continued across the nation in the months since José’s and Mario’s detention, with ICE arrests in July surging to their highest rate so far under President Donald Trump.
Last month, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three in Houston. Less than a week later, an immigration officer fatally shot 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Duran Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.
Back in Inglewood, Mario said he was grateful to share his story and that, even though he was released, his experience in detention stays with him.
“I still feel frustrated and traumatized,” Mario said, “because my life is no longer the same as it used to be.”
Ernesto Ureño is a Loyola Marymount University journalism major and intern at Capital & Main, a nonprofit publication focused on inequality. It is published here with permission.
Based on reporting by Wave Community Newspapers.
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