Worker let go after woman intervenes during immigration raid at California car wash

By Anabel Munoz

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    TORRANCE, California (KABC) — A woman is speaking out after she intervened during an immigration raid at a Torrance car wash and helped prevent one worker from being detained by federal agents.

Bertha Alicia Guzman was washing her car Sunday afternoon when she says masked men in unmarked vehicles ran into Bubble Bath Hand Car Wash.

Guzman started filming and intervened. Video shows her telling one worker not to answer any questions as an agent stood next to him.

The incident happened in a private area for employees and clients only.

Emmanuel Karim Nicola-Cruz, the car wash owner’s son, said he wasn’t given any warrants. He also questioned the men, many of whom were wearing U.S. Customs and Border Protection vests.

“This happened in like three minutes… It was like a takeover. I was basically screaming that what they’re doing was illegal,” he said. “You can’t be doing what you’re doing. And they were like, ‘This is an immigration investigation.'”

Nicola-Cruz described seeing them dressed in ballistic vests and armed with guns.

At one point he was shoved by one of the agents, surveillance video shows. He says one of his employees was shoved against a fence and another pushed on the ground.

The man Guzman tried to help was not taken.

“He kept telling me in Spanish, ‘Thank you, thank you for saving me. You saved me. I can go back to my family,'” Guzman said.

The niece of another worker, who was handcuffed and taken as his son watched, says they’ve been unable to locate him. A GoFundMe campaign has been set up for the worker’s family.

“They just slammed him against the wall. They didn’t ask him any questions,” said the woman who didn’t want to be identified. “They handcuffed him and they just took him. It’s heartbreaking because we don’t know where our uncle is at.”

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn condemned the raid in a statement released Monday.

“Just a block away from a monthly street fair where Torrance families were enjoying a normal Sunday afternoon, these masked thugs sent by our own federal government violently raided a local car wash – shoving a worker’s face into a gate and throwing another onto the ground,” Hahn said.

“All the while, another federal agent films the raid with camera equipment,” the statement added. “They are trying to make an example of these hardworking people, robbing businesses of their workers and families of their breadwinners.”

An immigration law expert explains that at a private business open to the public – absent a judicial warrant – the access federal authorities have comes down to an expectation of privacy.

“If it’s clear that no one from off the street, who doesn’t work there, can come into that space, that would be a much stronger argument that the officials have violated the Fourth Amendment in going in without permission from the owner or manager of the property,” said Jean Reisz, the co-director of USC’s immigration clinic.

Eyewitness News reached out to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security but has not heard back yet.

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