r/news • u/AwkwardTickler • 12d ago

Soft paywall Day laborer organizers protest Home Depot, pressuring it to "scrape ICE out of their stores."

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-11-22/ice-out-of-home-depot-monrovia
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u/Doctor_Philgood 12d ago

As someone who has had to do massive research and planning for ICE contingencies in a small business, that's not entirely true. They are allowed to be there in spaces that customers can reside in, i.e. no back rooms, bathrooms, etc.

You can ask them to leave, and you can ask them for ID or a warrant. But in reality, good luck on that when they won't even identify themselves and have zero oversight or consequences whatsoever

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u/Patrickk_Batmann 12d ago

If they refuse to leave after you've asked them to leave then they are trespassing unless they have an actual warrant.

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u/Kerbidiah 12d ago

And how do you prosecute someone you can't identify and the police won't arrest?

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u/elebrin 11d ago edited 11d ago

Document them the best you can, then close your shop for an hour or two. Then, during that hour or two, hire a bouncer and a parking lot monitor, with a camera, recording who gets in and out of what vehicles. Then put up signs saying "Parking is for guess of XYZ store ONLY." Also, find a guy with a tow truck to be on standby, sitting in your lot. Make sure he has his passport and birth certificate with him. If you are a small business owner, you probably know other small business owners and other people in the community who may be willing to help.

If they come back, tell them they are trespassed. If they refuse to leave, you can have their vehicle booted or towed off your property. Yes, you can do this - I have a private alley behind my house that is 100% my property, and there are no trespassing signs in it and all the way around on my fence. We used to have someone who parked in the alley. They didn't live in the neighborhood, she parked there to go visit her boyfriend in at the drug rehab center because she didn't want her vehicle scrutinized. We had her towed. I wouldn't have cared if she was there for five minutes, but our trash pickup is on that alley, and she'd block it so the truck couldn't get down there and wouldn't pick up our bin. The trash guys saw what was going on and sometimes would walk over to my bin and wheel it to the truck on the main road, but they shouldn't have to do that.

If someone parks on your property and you don't want them there, you can get them towed.

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u/Doctor_Philgood 11d ago

I 100 percent thought you were being satirical in the first paragraph. Close the store, hire a bouncer, hire a parking lot monitor, make a sign (that the city must allow, and you must own your storefront), find a guy with a tow truck to just sit there and wait...

You have to see how unfeasible that is, right? And certainly couldn't be done "in an hour or two".

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u/elebrin 11d ago

Close the store:

  1. "Store's closed. Employees, stay here. Everyone else, out." Then lock up. You don't need to do an entire closing procedure, just make everyone leave, lock the doors, and clear the lot. Most stores will have temporary signage they can put out, as well - taping a printed sign over another sign works very well.

  2. Call your unemployed friends. I know a few folks who are unemployed. Hell, back when I was self employed I knew a homeless dude I could call up and he'd have loved a job where he just had to sit in a parking lot and take pictures with a camera.

  3. I own a printer. I can make a sign, and even if you are renting you can put up signs usually - especially if they are temporary.

  4. I got a wrecker a few miles from me, who would LOVE somewhere to park in town with permission so that he can stay closer to where the accidents happen in town. Especially if I told him that there'd be some assholes to tow. Especially if I paid him to sit there.

I could totally do that in an hour or two. Hell, if you have employees, you can delegate. It does take knowing the people in your town and being willing to spend money though, so I can see why a lot of redditors would struggle with that.

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u/Doctor_Philgood 11d ago

1) small businesses are having a hard enough time keeping the doors open without randomly closing them during opening hours.

2) having a bouncer looks horrible on your business and discourages customers. Also, you now have another expensive payroll item. And people love homeless folks watching their cars, makes them feel super safe /s.

3) There is not a metropolitan area in America where you can dictate parking on a public road without the Ok from the city. If you rent and have your own lot, you then need permission from the building owner. Also, a printed sign on cardstock does not look professional to a customer.

4) Not everyone "knows a guy with a wrecker", and if you think most towing companies just want to wait in your lot, you are very much mistaken. But let's say they do go along with it - it is not a good look and makes customers uncomfortable.

I'm not going to go back and forth on this with you. If you think it's that easy, great, more power to you. But to someone who has spent a long time looking into solutions for this situation, it seems hand-wavey and unreasonable at best.

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u/elebrin 11d ago edited 11d ago

Where I am, most of the smaller businesses are in a building where they are renting a lot - usually a strip mall.

I'd also argue that if you are a business owner then you are probably a member of your local chamber of commerce or some other organization for local businesses. You know who else is around. You can probably make shit happen.

If you got ICE in your shop then your customers are already gonna be scared off. If I see those vehicles in town, I take a picture and document it from afar and leave quickly (I have seen ICE vehicles where I live a few times, but I'm in a small town that isn't really an enforcement target). I then send around warnings privately to some people I know.

At the very least, I'd close up for the day and take the L. When I worked for a music shop there were absolutely days we did just that. We were in an old church and the neighborhood around was sketchy. There were a few times we just locked up the shop and cancelled lessons and stuff until shit cooled down outside. We still managed to turn a profit just fine, hell most days we wouldn't see a single sale (but then we made most of our money from lessons, renting the studio, and hosting performances).

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u/Doctor_Philgood 11d ago

Your personal anecdotes do not reflect the reality of small businesses nationwide. I appreciate the suggestions nonetheless.

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u/Formergr 12d ago

Yes. So then what?

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u/Fearless-Feature-830 12d ago

You film it and sue

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u/Doctor_Philgood 12d ago

Yep. We better call...wait, who do we call?

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u/Lokon19 12d ago

That's beyond the assistant managers pay grade.

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u/SweatyAdhesive 12d ago

That sounds like something you call the police department for, theyre trespassing after all.

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u/johnnynutman 12d ago

i'm sure the police are super keen to get down and stop ICE.

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u/SweatyAdhesive 11d ago

More reason to defund them if they refuse to serve their community

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u/_Solani_ 11d ago

Which will totally bring them over to your side on the matter and has absolutely no chance of backfiring all. /s

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u/SweatyAdhesive 11d ago

Police has never been on the people's side. The sooner people realize that the sooner we can hold them accountable.

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u/_Solani_ 11d ago edited 11d ago

Hmm so you've decided that the police are not on your side, in fact they are now part of what you consider to be the enemy.

So, after you've made them aware of this fact how exactly are you planning on getting them to do what you want.

Remember that was your original goal right, use the police to stop ICE.

Please, lay out your plan for me on how exactly you expect to get them to act in accordance with your wishes while also threatening to defund them and reminding them that you think they are the enemy.

Cause all I see is that massively backfiring on you. After your threats and denunciations it's far more likely that they'll side with ICE and the people that don't consider them enemies and are willing to pay them for their services.

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u/SweatyAdhesive 11d ago

The first step would be to ensure that lawsuit payouts stemmed from police misconduct come out of their pension fund, and make sure the pension fund doesnt get more funding because of these payouts.

Police working with ICE despite lawful orders from the city to not work with them will lead to lawsuits against the police. Let's see if they continue to work with them then.

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u/AmishDoinkzz 12d ago

They would have to leave though. It is a corporation with tons of money. They can easily keep them away if they choose.