At the end of November, Home Depot installed high-frequency “mosquito” noise machines at its Cypress Park store—devices designed to cause nausea, headaches, and dizziness—in order to push away an authorized day laborer work center.
In her thirty years as an activist and twelve years working with day laborers, Maegan Ortiz says she has never seen intimidation at the level Home Depot is now using to attack day laborers who regularly gather at its stores looking for work.
“They have always been against them, even though their customers prefer them. But with Trump’s arrival, the company’s behavior has reached unimaginable levels, using speakers that emit a torturous sound—just like those used at the Guantánamo prison—to drive workers away. They want to make them disappear,” says Ortiz, executive director of the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA), which coordinates five day laborer centers.
At the end of November, Home Depot installed high-frequency “mosquito” noise machines at its Cypress Park store—devices designed to cause nausea, headaches, and dizziness—in order to push away an authorized day laborer work center.
Yesterday, IDEPSCA denounced these incidents alongside the district’s city councilmember, Eunisses Hernández, and other activists. They are calling for an investigation and denouncing the illegal installation of these devices.
“We know that Home Depot has been a strong ally of Trump and his exclusionary policies. They were major donors to his campaign, and now they are helping him attack day laborers. They have allowed ICE to use their facilities for raids, and according to information from one of their security guards, we even suspect that their surveillance systems are connected to ICE’s equipment,” Maegan added.
“This land where this device is located is people’s land. It belongs to Caltrans and they are using it to terrorize people”: – Eunisses Hernandez.
These attacks against day laborers can be understood as a kind of Trump ‘mini-war,’ in which Home Depot resorts to ‘terrorist’ tactics to instill fear in day laborer centers. In previous complaints, after ICE activity was documented at their facilities, sectors of the community organized a boycott against the stores. A large portion of their customers are Latino, and—as in other sectors of the economy—the goal is to weaken these stores and demonstrate Latino consumer power.
“During Bush’s first term, many anti-immigrant individuals felt empowered—they spat on them, insulted them—but it never reached today’s levels of violence. Around 300 day laborers and street vendors have been affected. We are working to assist them. Many remain detained, others are in legal proceedings, and some have returned to their countries. We are responding to this the way we did during the pandemic: providing food, financial support, legal aid, and whatever else they need,” adds the organization’s executive director.
Work at the centers has declined, and many contractors have stopped hiring day laborers out of fear of retaliation. Some have witnessed workers being taken away, which has put them on alert.
“Day laborers live in constant terror. Every day they ask themselves whether it will be their last day of freedom, with their families. But they have no choice but to stand firm—they keep coming in search of work. There is a great need for education in society so people understand what a day laborer is. They do work many people cannot and do not know how to do. They are artists,” she adds.
Maegan anticipates a long battle against the company. For now, they are seeking to prevent new Home Depot stores from opening in Southern California, explore legal options to eliminate the speakers, and spread the word so the community knows what is happening.
“We will continue our fight—make no mistake, these attacks must stop,” she concludes.
