Rally held for L.A. day labor center amid disputed eviction threat

A coalition of elected officials, unions and workers’ rights groups mobilized Friday to defend a day labor center in Cypress Park as word spread that Home Depot was seeking to evict it, a claim the home improvement store denies.

State Assemblymember Jessica Caloza (D-Los Angeles) said Home Depot’s head of government relations and affairs called her late Thursday night and said the labor center would be served with an eviction notice.

The Cypress Park Community Job Center — run by the Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California, or IDEPSCA — sits at the edge of the parking lot of the store at 2055 N. Figueroa St., just beneath a 5 Freeway overpass. It has operated there for more than 20 years, according to Maegan Ortiz, executive director of IDEPSCA.

Caloza said she sent word to local groups who mobilized and showed up to defend the center, which subleases the space from Home Depot — which, in turn, leases the property from the California Department of Transportation.

A Caltrans spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. But in an email to The Times, Home Depot spokesperson Beth Marlowe denied that a phone call took place as Caloza described.

“There are no plans or discussions about evicting IDEPSCA,” she wrote.

On Friday morning, nearly 100 people rallied at the center. They held signs that read “Protect our workers” and “Defend day labor centers! Boycott Home Depot.”

Caloza used a microphone to address the crowd as shoppers navigated the parking lot.

“Ten minutes before this press conference, Home Depot has been blowing me up, my office and spreading lies this was just a simple misunderstanding,” she said.

Many in the crowd booed.

“We are done with Home Depot’s lies,” she said, drawing cheers and applause. “Make no mistake: Only one of us is lying, and it’s not us.”

Ortiz said any effort to evict the day labor center from the site would conflict with a 2008 Los Angeles city ordinance that requires Home Depot stores to have such facilities to manage the workers they attract. But she said there has been friction between the centers and the home improvement giant for years.

Maegan Ortiz — executive director of the Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California — looks out over the parking lot of the Cypress Park Home Depot store on Friday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The Cypress Park store made headlines in November when videos circulated on social media of federal immigration agents arresting a U.S. citizen there and then driving off with his toddler.

Federal authorities at the time said the man was arrested on suspicion of assault and unlawful possession of a firearm. They said they took him and the child to another location away from angry protesters.

That same day, Ortiz said federal agents permanently injured one of her staff members when they handcuffed him during the operation. She said a number of workers have been detained by federal agents since last year.

Tensions flared in May when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the chief architect of President Trump’s immigration policies, lambasted federal agents and immigration officials, asking them: “Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?”

The following month, federal immigration agents escalated their operations at Home Depots — including using a Penske rental truck as a “Trojan Horse” in L.A. to catch immigrant workers off guard.

The city received a bit of a reprieve in July when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from conducting “indiscriminate” immigration stops and arrests in Southern California. In September, however, the Supreme Court cleared the way for federal agents to continue the operations.

Ortiz said the Cypress Park center is one of five IDEPSCA operates across the city. There are two others operated by other organizations. She said the centers provide more than just jobs; they can connect individuals with an array of services, including housing.

L.A. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Cypress Park, said the alleged move to evict the center was “another case of Home Depot exposing itself as a complicit corporation willing to profit off immigrant labor but unwilling to stand with workers.”

Marlowe said Home Depot is not “notified that immigration enforcement activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations.”

“We aren’t coordinating with ICE or Border Patrol,” Marlowe said. “We cannot legally interfere with federal enforcement agencies, including preventing them from coming into our stores and parking lots.”

Hernandez and Ortiz said the Cypress Park store in November installed sound machines that emit high-pitched tones to allegedly push day laborers out of the area.

A detail of a memorial mural to day laborers at the Cypress Park Home Depot store.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Marlowe denied those claims. She said the noise devices and barriers at the Cypress Park store were designed to deter illegal overnight parking, encampments and other related problems that were creating a safety hazard. She did not elaborate on what those other problems were.

“Misinformation was circulating that conflated these parking lot safety measures with immigration enforcement. That is false,” she wrote in an email.

As organizers headed back to their vehicles Friday, Pepe de la Torre, 64, ate a red apple and gazed at the crowd. He said he was thankful people showed up.

He said he has been coming to the day labor center since it started operating some 20 years ago. He said staff there have helped him find work and connected him with other services, including housing. Even so, he said there are times he has needed to sleep on people’s couches and in his car.

He said his $500 monthly Social Security check is not enough to pay rent in Los Angeles. The work he gets at the center can bring in another $400 a month, just enough to get by.

“This center is very important,” he said. “For some of us, this is all we have.”