Los Angeles — On Aug. 14, the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and its Federal Law Enforcement Collaborators killed yet another human being: Carlos Roberto Montoya.
Like many immigrants living in the belly of the beast, Carlos was escaping extreme poverty in his home country and was forced to separate from his beloved family to try his luck in the U.S. Immigrants seeking a better life are forced to choose between being poor in their home country or being poor in the U.S.
Carlos was the sole provider for his daughters back in Guatemala. He was a regular at a Home Depot parking lot in Monrovia, California, just outside Los Angeles, where so many of the most vulnerable and exploited workers are forced to exchange their hard labor for the green paper that allows them to pay for just enough food and a roof over their head.
Per witness reports, day laborers ran as soon as they saw ICE was there because they knew that the risk of getting detained and disappeared while brown is high, regardless of immigration status.
In an interview with Noticias Telemundo, one of Carlos’ fellow day laborers shares that he witnessed Carlos with his head down and in cuffs after being detained by ICE gestapo officials. He was later informed that Carlos had gotten onto the 210 freeway, but he doesn’t understand how that happened because he recalls seeing him already detained by ICE.
Pablo Alvarado with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) is demanding a full investigation.
Despite witness reports and a video showing Carlos detained by ICE, DHS claims they were not aware of his death until hours later, after they were finished with their operations for the day.
It is not surprising that DHS would try to cover up their criminal and fascist behavior; it is also not surprising that they would receive assistance from the owners of corporate media, who continue to parrot the DHS line that “he was not being pursued at the time of the crash.”
Carlos had a split second to make a decision between being taken to a second location or literally running for his life. He only had a split second to think about how his daughters would survive if he were kidnapped and disappeared, or if making a run for it would allow him to continue to struggle for survival.
While DHS and its cronies are the main murderers, the Home Depot is also complicit. The Community Self Defense Coalition in Los Angeles has called for a boycott of Home Depot because of its complicity in the raids.
The billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, Ken Langone, boasted about how excited he was about the future of the U.S. under Trump.
It is no coincidence that the Home Depots have been center stage for so many horrifying incidents involving the ICE gestapo. They have kicked out community patrollers trying to keep day laborers safe, yet they allow ICE onto their property to terrorize laborers and customers in the parking lots and even inside the stores. In Monrovia, there were a total of 13 human beings who were kidnapped that day.
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