DOWNEY, Calif. (KABC) — A Downey car wash owner is speaking out after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided her business.
Surveillance cameras at Galaxy Auto Detail car wash in Downey captured the ICE raid on Wednesday.
The video shows a car wash employee looking out when he notices a suspicious SUV pull up. The worker walks away as two ICE agents get out of the vehicle and head towards the car wash. Seconds later, the employee sprints past the camera as agents chase him.
The agents eventually caught the worker. Another car wash employee was also taken into custody.
The owner of the car wash says she was forced to shut her business down after several ICE raids, with her employees terrified to come to work.
“I am frustrated because these guys that they picked up are good gentlemen,” the owner said in Spanish. “They don’t have so much as a ticket, and their families are suffering.”
The car wash owner asked Eyewitness News not to share her identity, claiming ICE agents threatened her.
“They came and threatened me and said if I keep talking about ICE, that they are going to detain me,” she said.
The business owner said her heart is broken.
“I can’t sleep, I’m frustrated. I keep looking at their faces when they were taking them away, and the guys telling me, asking me to help them,” she said. “I don’t understand why they’re doing this to us.”
The mayor of Downey, Mario Trujillo, acted as translator for Eyewitness News Reporter Leo Stallworth during the interview. He was in tears hearing the owner speak.
“It is not right. This is not right, man. She’s a hard-working woman and trying to make a living, chasing the American dream, and our own federal government has just destroyed that for her,” Trujillo said. “This is un-American.”
After a decade of being in business, the car wash owner fears this might be the end.
“I don’t know. I can’t find people to work because everyone, even if they have a valid work permit, are afraid. I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to survive. I don’t know,” she said.
“I’m going to ask the council to perhaps allocate some funds to help those businesses that have been impacted by these federal operations,” Trujillo said. “Look out for each other. This is a time when we have to go into protection mode. We’re going to survive, we’re going to come out strong.”
Trujillo is encouraging Downey residents to move about the city with caution.
