For a few hours on El Dorado Street, outside Stockon’s old City Hall, cars honked from across the block.
Just past noon on Thursday, a little less than a dozen people stood alongside the curb of an auto repair shop. A white hatchback equipped with a megaphone blasted the reason why protestors had gathered.
“Do not do business with United Auto Repair,” said part of the looped recording. “This business is in support of DHS and ICE — not in support of our community. ”
That afternoon, United Auto Repair responded to public backlash of a post circulated widely online. The video, which has garnered over 30,000 views from the Instagram account @wingswithoutborders209, captured a van with a Department of Homeland Security license plate being towed into the business. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is an agency housed under DHS.
Across the country, protests have come in response to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Some demonstrators have gathered outside detention centers to show solidarity with detainees. June saw a record 43,138 immigrant arrests, an analysis from The Guardian notes — the highest monthly number recorded since Donald Trump assumed office last year.
In July, protests reignited after extrajudicial killings of two men — Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Guerrero. According to the New York Times, 23 people have been shot by federal agents since the start of Trump’s second term, six of who were killed.
Organizers from the Central Valley Community Resistance Network, formerly known as Hands Off Stockton a grassroots group that runs a community booth outside the city’s removal and enforcement office, said the group believes the van operates out of the local Stockton office. The group does not publicly identify its members to the media because of concerns about potential retaliation.
One protester, equipped with her pink megaphone, was especially bothered by DHS’s ties to the auto shop. Suzana Magana, a student at San Joaquin Delta College, runs the account that posted the popular video. Magana said she and her brother spotted two vans outside the shop as they walked to a nearby doctor’s appointment. Each van, she said, bore a license plate marked “DHS.”
“The community should know,” said Magana about why she posted the video. “If there’s someone in the community that doesn’t support ICE in any type of way, they shouldn’t be going to a company that supports them.”
As the sounds of honks and shouts continued outside his auto shop, the owner said he was agitated. As he instructed his crew to keep working, one bay door remained open to continue letting customers inside, even as protestors urged people to not do business with the shop.
“They can protest,” said the man who identified himself as the owner but refused to provide his name to Stocktonia. “It’s their right. But I don’t want nothing to do with this.”
The owner said that the auto shop, established in 1993, services “everybody” and confirmed that he had worked on a DHS van. He said that it had broken down when it was brought in and that he only provided an oil change.
It was also the first time he had serviced a DHS van, he said. And although he said he would like to have a “discussion” with the agents who brought in the van, he wouldn’t answer whether he would refuse to service them again.
As protestors shouted profanities, the owner gestured toward himself and his crew, who he claims are all immigrants.
“Look at (us), we’re all minority,” said the owner, born in Vietnam. “I just want to do an honest living.”
For some demonstrators, local businesses like the auto shop should avoid servicing DHS agents, even if those businesses are just trying to earn money. Holding a red fabric with blue lettering that read “ALL EYES ON ICE” for most of the demonstration, 26-year-old protestor Maryann said she was upset that the shop had serviced the van.
“I would love some transparency from this business,” said Maryann, a volunteer at the community booth who declined to provide her last name for safety and security concerns. “Hopefully we’re able to come to an agreement that servicing ICE agents and servicing ICE vans is wrong.”
At the end of the day, Maryann said, businesses servicing DHS agents are only “welcoming” ICE into the community and profiting off of the pain caused by separation and deportations.
“That’s what they’re doing when they choose to service these vehicles,” she said.
