Early on winter mornings outside Home Depot near MacArthur Park, the streetlights still shine while the rising sun brushes the clouds with vivid pink and orange.
Two dozen day laborers, or jornaleros, have already gathered at 7 a.m. on this Wednesday. Most are in their 20s and 30s. They lean against a low fence surrounding the parking lot, hands stuffed into jean pockets to keep warm, hoping for work.
Food vendors rim the corner of Union Avenue and West Sixth Street. Ranchera music plays. The aromas of steaming tamales, beans and coffee rise from pots. Meat sizzles on small griddles near rows of bottled soda. It is impossible to squeeze past the long tables without hearing a chorus of “¡Buenos dias!”
Joel Freeman has already arrived. He had walked from his Rampart apartment, as he has most Wednesdays since last October. Freeman, 32, is one of the volunteers organized by the L.A. Tenants Union and CARECEN, an immigrant rights group.
On patrols lasting two to three hours, the volunteers watch for vehicles driven by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and warn the laborers and area residents that they are here.
The ICE patrols are among many convened daily in Los Angeles and thousands nationwide. These volunteers also video arrests. This attention can dampen violence or spark it. The videos have provided information for news reports and evidence for court cases.
Seven volunteers assemble this January morning at the MacArthur Park Home Depot. Some have long experience with nonprofits, organized labor or political activism.
“I’m not a morning person,” Freeman says, an admission he follows with a hearty laugh at the apparent contradiction.
He stations himself on Wilshire Boulevard near an entrance to the Home Depot parking lot. Wilshire is one of three lookout posts. Some of the volunteers set up a folding table and a pop-up canopy. They have a bullhorn, whistles, a stack of “know-your-rights” cards and water bottles. They communicate through walkie-talkies and on a dedicated Signal chat that will disappear when the ICE patrol ends.
For the next two hours, Freeman scans the street for shiny unmarked vans and SUVs with drivers kitted out in military gear. Buses and trucks rumble by. An older unhoused man shuffles past, dragging a large, gray blanket. A young panhandler, with headphones and in red shorts, stops and asks for money. Freeman gives him some. Parents hustle children along to school.
At 7:30 a.m., walkie-talkies crackle with reports that ICE agents are in Filipinotown, a mile away. News accounts later indicate the agents had surrounded a vehicle. Video shows a resident holding a peace sign. The agents leave without detaining anyone.
The sun is up now, and patrol volunteers unzip their jackets and pull out sunglasses.
At 8:15 a.m., Alex walks by, accompanying his son to middle school. Alex and Freeman chat. They recently had discovered that they live near one another. Alex emigrated from Mexico 30 years ago. He has five American-born children, one of whom serves in the U.S. Marine Corps. ICE raids have made Alex consider returning to Mexico, but he doesn’t want to leave his children.
An artist and gig worker in what he calls L.A.’s “art industry,” Joel Freeman came to California in 2012 to attend Pomona College, where he majored in studio art. Some of his professors involved in the L.A. art scene brought him along on trips into the city.
“I realized I actually want to live here,” he says. He moved to L.A. from Arkansas after graduating. He credits his parents for motivating his involvement with the ICE patrols.
Freeman grew up in a “Christ-centered” household. While he no longer considers himself religious, “That framework of ethics and justice is important to me.”
His father directed international student affairs at the University of Arkansas, and his family hosted foreign scholars who exposed him to different cultures. Freeman was 10 when a Gazan student lived with them for a while. Watching TV news with his houseguest and seeing Palestinian homes being bulldozed “shifted my understanding of what went on there,” Freeman says. It also challenged his parents’ long support for Israel.
When they visited L.A. in October, he invited his father and mother to join him at an ICE patrol. “Here’s what I normally do on a Wednesday morning,” he told them. “Y’all want to come?”
They did.
Tall, lanky, with a dark baseball cap, Freeman juggles several jobs. He teaches printmaking at Los Angeles High School of the Arts; he works in a book bindery, and he helps build scenery for the Bob Baker Marionettes. Before COVID, he was a puppeteer there.
He also transports and hangs art for gallerists and art dealers whose clients are often private collectors.
Freeman tracks this complicated schedule with neat handwriting in a Japanese-made pocket calendar.
He has not witnessed any ICE raids at this Home Depot, but immigration officers did appear multiple times in recent months and detained day laborers.
Freeman views his participation in ICE patrols as part of his commitment to Los Angeles and his community.
“These folks are my neighbors,” he says, his eyes still watching Wilshire. “This is what you do in a neighborhood.”
