Brian Gavidia can’t sleep. It’s been three months since federal immigration agents accosted him, twisting his arm and pushing him into a metal fence outside a Los Angeles tow yard as he tried to tell them he is a US citizen.
Now, he frequently finds himself awake late into the night, wondering: are they coming for me?
Gavidia, 29, is a plaintiff in a major lawsuit filed by the ACLU and immigrant advocacy groups, accusing Donald Trump’s administration of “blatant racial profiling” in operations in Los Angeles as part of the president’s mass deportation campaign. Gavidia felt some relief in July when a judge found that federal agents were stopping people based on their race, language or job, and ordered the government to halt its indiscriminate raids.
But this week the US supreme court’s conservative majority lifted those restrictions, allowing federal agents to stop people if they appear Latino or speak Spanish, in a decision that immigration advocates warn has “effectively legalized racial profiling”.
The news was a blow to Gavidia.
“They didn’t hear our pleas. They disregarded humanity. They disregarded the people,” he said. “We fought for these rights many years ago, and apparently we’re going back in time.
“It is not OK. Racial profiling is not OK.”
He is one of countless LA residents who have been swept up in Trump’s immigration crackdown, as the Trump administration has made California a center of its deportation campaign. Federal agents have descended near schools and workplaces and Home Depot stores, leaving southern California communities in fear.
Gavidia, who owns a small car dealership, was at a tow yard he rents to work on vehicles on 12 June when a friend came to him and said there were immigration agents outside. At first he thought it might be a joke – as children, Gavidia and his friends would play a game where someone would shout La Migra and they would all run.
As he went to go see, an agent appeared and told him to stop.
“I’m a law-abiding citizen. An officer, an agent, tells me to stop, I’m going to stop,” he said.
Another agent approached, grabbing him by the arm, and demanding Gavidia tell him which hospital he was born in. In video of the incident, Gavidia can be heard insisting: “I’m American, bro.” When he couldn’t recall the hospital he was born in, an agent threw Gavidia against a wall, lifting his arm and twisting it, he said.
They kept him for about 20 minutes until viewing his ID, and eventually left. They later returned in greater numbers. During the incident, the agents, masked and carrying military-style rifles, laughed at Gavidia and others on scene.
“I was helpless. What can you do to a federal agent, even if at that moment they’re breaking the law?” he said. “At that moment, I was the worst of the worst. So what can I say? What can I do to him? I told him I was American. He didn’t care.”
Gavidia describes himself as a proud American. He has a tattoo that reads “We the people” on his back. But what happened that day in June shook him.
As a small business owner, he had hoped Trump would improve the economy. Instead, Gavidia said, the administration is destroying communities and going after day laborers, farm workers and even US citizens like him, rather than pursuing criminals.
His mother was scared and didn’t want him to join the lawsuit. “She was like, no, no, mijo, like, we can’t win against the government,” he recalled. “I told her, Mom, how do I let them attack our people?”
The temporary restraining order issued in response to the lawsuit brought hope to the area, Gavidia, and people were feeling more comfortable going to work and resuming their day to day lives. The supreme court action has left people scared again.
In a concurring opinion, Brett Kavanaugh wrote that immigration officers may briefly stop people to investigate their immigration status. “If the person is a US citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.”
Gavidia’s “brief encounter” left lasting consequences. “I responded to him every question he had to the best of my abilities, in a nice manner,” he said. “He still threw me to the wall. He still twisted my arm and in a violent manner.”
His business remains closed because he fears agents might return, and worries he is being watched. But as the case continues to wind its way through the courts, Gavidia plans to continue the fight, he said.
“I’m doing this with my legs shaking and my voice cracking because I’m scared, but I will not stay quiet.”
