LOS ANGELES — Mario relied on his job in the car wash industry to raise his three children. It was during a shift at a Santa Ana car wash last August that he was arrested by federal agents, taken to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center and held for two months.

“They made me sleep on the cold floor for a week without a blanket, a toothbrush or basic medical care for the injured man next to me,” Mario, a 33-year resident of the United States, said at a news conference earlier this summer at Inglewood’s Crenshaw Imperial Car Wash, which is now closed after being raided by federal agents.

Mario, who is being identified only by his first name for safety reasons, is among hundreds of car wash workers detained across Southern California in the year since the Trump administration began an aggressive immigration crackdown in the region, according to the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center.

News of raids by masked agents has faded from the headlines, but the effects still linger for those caught in the crosshairs. Family members have been deported or left to languish in detention, and many who remain live with the fear of being hunted down by immigration officers.

At least 373 car wash workers have been detained at car washes across Southern California since the raids began last summer, according to figures compiled by CLEAN. The group’s data also shows federal agents raided or attempted to raid at least 106 car washes in communities across Los Angeles, Orange County and surrounding areas, including Inglewood, Culver City, Westchester, Bell and Whittier.

CLEAN, an advocacy group founded in 2007, has been fighting to protect car wash workers from exploitation and unsafe conditions. When the raids began last year, the group sprang into action, working around the clock to help detained workers and provide their families with legal and financial support.

“We gathered our information from workers, managers, and owners of the car washes that were being raided,” CLEAN Deputy Director Andrea Gonzalez said. “We also gathered information from rapid response teams who were on the ground responding to the raids.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on the group’s findings.

Mario said he was one of seven workers at the Harbor Blvd Car Wash detained on the same day last August, but the only one who has been released. He said he refused to sign deportation papers and is fighting to stay in the United States, a process that has drained his family emotionally and financially.

“Being released is not the same as being free,” he said.

During Mario’s detention at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, his wife and children struggled to cope with his sudden absence while fighting for his release, his wife Alejandra said.

“The employer gave us a video showing my husband being taken away under arrest, treated worse than a common criminal, with chains binding his legs, arms and waist,” Alejandra said. “It wasn’t right.”

The experience of a car wash worker named José was recounted at the news conference by the Rev. Andy Schwiebert of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, who said agents “took him” from the La Cienega Car Wash last August.

José’s wife is a U.S. citizen, Schwiebert said, and José had a pathway to gaining citizenship before he was detained. By the time a judge ordered his release on bond, the car wash had shut down, Schwiebert said, leaving José without a job.

“These raids did not just target workers; they destabilized families, congregations, workplaces and entire communities,” Schwiebert said.

The administration’s aggressive enforcement operations have continued across the nation in the months since José’s and Mario’s detention, with ICE arrests in July surging to their highest rate so far under President Donald Trump.

Last month, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three in Houston. Less than a week later, an immigration officer fatally shot 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Duran Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.

Back in Inglewood, Mario said he was grateful to share his story and that, even though he was released, his experience in detention stays with him.

“I still feel frustrated and traumatized,” Mario said, “because my life is no longer the same as it used to be.”

Ernesto Ureño is a Loyola Marymount University journalism major and intern at Capital & Main, a nonprofit publication focused on inequality. It is published here with permission.

Based on reporting by Wave Community Newspapers.

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By Post Staff

U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) joined California senators and other members of the California delegation to Congress to call on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the Trump administration’s use of the Defense Production Act and other taxpayer funds to support coal projects, including the proposed coal export terminal in West Oakland.

Defense Production Act funding is for national defense emergencies, such as authorizing private car companies to build parts for tanks or ships.

Since President Donald Trump’s June 4 announcement of $75 million in funding for the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal, Simon has opposed and worked to stop the proposed coal terminal.

She filed an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2027 Energy and Water Appropriations bill that would have prohibited funding for the proposed Oakland coal export terminal project; however, House Republicans blocked the amendment.

Last week, in a letter to the GAO Acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown, Simon and her colleagues questioned the Department of Energy’s plan to use up to $425 million in DPA funds to support coal-fired power plants and construct the West Gateway Terminal Project in Oakland.

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This terminal project would primarily serve foreign commercial markets, rather than meet national emergency needs.

“The Defense Production Act was intended to scale up domestic industrial capabilities to meet urgent military or national emergency needs; therefore, its invocation to construct a commercial, civilian export facility intended primarily to serve foreign commercial markets raises profound statutory, legal, and fiscal questions,” wrote the lawmakers, which included Senators Alex Padilla (D) and Adam Schiff (D), Jared Huffman (D-CA-02), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee and Reps. John Garamendi (D-CA-08) and Ro Khanna (D-CA-17).

“We do not believe this satisfies the statutory definition of ‘national defense’ or ‘critical infrastructure protection’ under the DPA and that there is no legally sufficient, data-driven nexus between civilian coal exports and immediate U.S. military readiness or critical infrastructure defense,” the lawmakers’ letter said.

DPA funds are intended for U.S. national security and defense readiness. The Trump administration is instead diverting these funds to support a commercial export project that primarily benefits private industries and foreign markets in East Asia.

“Congress has never appropriated funds to the DOE’s DPA account with the intent of propping up a dying industry or financing a purely commercial project,” continued the lawmakers. “We are deeply concerned that DOE has improperly diverted funds from accounts intended by Congress for the critical modernization and resilience support of our nation’s grid to instead finance a commercial fossil fuel export project.”

Simon and colleagues also raised concerns that the Trump administration has improperly diverted funds designated for critical grid modernization and may be using emergency authorities to circumvent local environmental protections.  

“With no clear national security nexus, we question whether the DOE utilized emergency DPA authorities with the intent of preempting or subverting valid local health ordinances and environmental regulations. If so, this would be a gross departure from the intent of the DPA,” concluded the lawmakers.

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By Emil Amok Guillermo

Americans complain about inflation.

Filipinos complain about surviving.

That’s not a knock on America. It’s a reminder that for millions of Filipino Americans, the Philippines isn’t some faraway place we visit on vacation. It’s where our parents were born. Where our cousins still live. Where grandparents are buried. Where every phone call home can begin with, “We’re okay,” or, just as easily, “We need help.”

The Bay Area is home to one of the nation’s largest Filipino communities. California alone has nearly two million Filipinos—roughly half of all Filipino Americans in the United States.

Every year, Filipino Americans send an estimated $17 billion from the United States to the Philippines. Those remittances account for roughly a tenth of the Philippine economy. One wire transfer may keep children in school, put food on the table, pay hospital bills, or help elderly parents make it another month.

That’s why Filipino Americans were paying attention to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address this week.

They were listening for justice.

They were listening for Lyle Prijoles.

Prijoles, a 40-year-old Filipino American from Hayward, was killed on April 19 during a Philippine military operation in Negros Occidental. Also killed was Kai Sorem, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines say those killed were connected to the Communist Party’s New People’s Army.

Their families say otherwise.

Human-rights advocates describe Prijoles and Sorem as labor organizers and peaceful activists working alongside sugar workers struggling under crushing poverty. Prijoles had traveled repeatedly to the Philippines since 2006, documenting conditions in Negros and advocating for farm workers whose lives rarely improve no matter who occupies the presidential palace in Manila.

Those conflicting stories are exactly why members of Congress, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-7), have called for an independent investigation.

After all, two American citizens are dead.

If an ally’s military kills Americans under disputed circumstances, shouldn’t we want to know exactly what happened?

Yet the story barely made news in the United States.

Perhaps because it’s inconvenient.

It’s inconvenient for Manila – and Washington.

Strategic allies aren’t supposed to kill American citizens.

The Philippines isn’t just another country.

It’s family.

President Marcos had bigger issues on his mind this week.

China’s growing aggression in the West Philippine Sea dominated much of the speech. Marcos rightly rejected racist insults aimed at Filipinos and insisted his country would not surrender its sovereignty.

“We are not racists. We are not liars,” Marcos declared. “We are respectful, and we are dignified. We are Filipinos, and we do not yield.”

Strong words.

But patriotism isn’t measured only by how forcefully a government stands up to China.

It’s also measured by how a government treats its own people.

The Philippines inherited many of America’s democratic institutions. Even the “State of the Nation Address” echoes our “State of the Union.” Congress. Elections. Constitutional government. We exported the architecture of democracy.

What we couldn’t export was accountability.

That’s why activists like Lyle Prijoles believed ordinary workers deserved better.

And that’s why his death matters.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, political analyst and comic monologist. See him on his microtalk show on YouTube at @emilamok1.

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