Federal agents wearing U.S. Border Patrol vests seized two men working as gardeners in a cul-de-sac in Long Beach’s University Park Estates neighborhood.
At approximately 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, according to neighbors, three employees of a gardening company had just started working when multiple black vehicles pulled into the street, blocking traffic and preventing the workers, as well as a city garbage truck, from leaving.
The driver of the garbage truck began honking, alerting the gardeners to the agents’ presence. One gardener put down his lawn equipment as federal agents handcuffed him and led him into the back of a Ford Expedition, according to neighbors and a video verified by the Long Beach Post.
Another gardener attempted to scale a nearby wall, but a group of armed agents, most of them masked, chased him, hauling him through the street and toward the van.
Agents asked the man for his documents, and he produced an identification card and said he was born at Memorial, referring to MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center, and that he is a dual citizen. One agent said he would investigate that. Yet, five agents handcuffed him and placed him in the back of the car as an onlooker shouted, “Five guys for one guy?” adding, “I’m pretty sure he pays taxes, just like you and me.”
One federal agent told the onlooker that he was “being recorded” and that the agents were going to “report it to [his] station.”
Another bystander asked the agents, “Do you guys feel like Nazis yet?” as they loaded up the car and drove off.
Neighbors told the Post that a third man who worked for the gardening company had been present, but when agents asked if he had papers, he said yes and agents did not arrest him. Neighbors also said it appeared the federal agents had been planning to arrest these men in particular and that it was a “quick, methodical” operation.
“I never thought it would ever happen here,” said one neighbor who agreed to speak on the condition that he not be named. The neighbor pointed out that ICE has been active at car washes, large stores and local businesses in the Long Beach area. “Now they’re stooping to the lowest level: picking people up off the street,” the neighbor said of the federal agents.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
If it’s true that a U.S. citizen was taken, “this is extremely serious and demands immediate answers and accountability,” said Mayor Rex Richardson.
He called the entire operation “deeply disturbing and unacceptable.”
“Targeting people on their way to work undermines public safety and harms entire neighborhoods,” he said.
Long Beach has taken steps to try to block some behavior by immigration agents. It recently joined an amicus brief in federal court arguing California should be allowed to enforce its new ban on agents wearing masks.
As an example, the brief cites the Long Beach Post’s news coverage about agents chasing a gardener into a Bixby Knolls restaurant and tackling him in front of alarmed police officers.
“Not only are anonymous federal agents engendering confusion in residents, but local law enforcement also faces the same confusion while carrying out their duties,” lawyers wrote.
The mask ban is currently on hold while it’s being litigated.