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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Juan Vega Paredes now has a new way of introducing himself to people he meets.

“I’m el hombre de los aguacates,” he says, with a smile on his face.

Avocado man, his new nickname, was born out of one of the worst days of his life: On January 26, Vega Paredes was arrested by federal immigration agents as he was walking to buy some avocados.

He’s one of some 500 Dominican migrants arrested in Barrio Obrero, the heart of the Dominican community in San Juan, since President Trump took office in January.

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“Once I got intercepted, I thought, ‘Oh, this is because of Donald Trump,'” Vega Paredes says. “I resigned myself.”

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According to ICE , about 75 percent of the people arrested on the island so far have been Dominicans. Fewer than 80 of the 500 people detained by ICE had criminal records.

Many of the arrests have happened in this poor, working-class community. These sweeps have neighbors on edge, and have transformed the once-lively barrio. Now, many restaurants are largely empty during the day and at night. Fewer people are going to church and everyone talks about immigración, the immigration agents.

All of this has driven immigration rights advocates, lawyers and some politicians to form an alliance to try to push back against Trump’s policies.

El hombre de los aguacates

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Vega Paredes came to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico in 2021 in a yola, a flimsy open boat made of wood, packed with other Dominicans traversing the dangerous 80-mile stretch of ocean between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

“I came to work, prosper, and give my daughters in the Dominican Republic a better life,” Vega Paredes said.

Since then, he’s been living in the U.S. territory without legal status.

“Sometimes, when you migrate, you feel weird,” Vega Paredes said. “But when I got here I felt supported… despite my pain.”

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He’s built a stable life here. He works in construction seven days a week building homes.

He rarely takes days off. But on Sunday, January 26, he was tired, so he didn’t go to work.

Instead, Vega Paredes woke up, and went to buy some avocados for his wife who was cooking at home. While walking down one of Barrio Obrero’s streets, he was surrounded by immigration agents.

Vega Paredes is married to a U.S. citizen and he doesn’t have a criminal record. But he’s been living on the island illegally and immigration agents arrested him. He spent a few weeks at the troubled Krome Detention Center in Miami , a place some immigrants detained there have described as “hell on earth.”

Vega Paredes said he remembers men there crying in fear, uncertain about what was coming next.

“I kept telling one of them, ‘be brave,'” Vega Paredes recalled saying. “But inside I was about to break down.”

Vega Paredes was later relocated to a federal prison in Miami, and eventually released on a $10,000 immigration bond. His next ICE hearing is in July. It’s unclear what will happen next. The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to questions from NPR about the process.

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On a recent hot day, Vega Paredes walked by the spot where he was arrested and stood under a beautiful tree with lilac flowers. A woman, Digna Gómez, approached him.

“Do you remember a man who was arrested right here?” he asked her.

Gómez did remember.

“I’m the famous hombre de los aguacates,” he told the woman.

Gomez, who lives in the house with the beautiful tree, is also Dominican. She’s in the U.S. territory legally, but is still scared.

She says she knows of many Dominicans picked up by ICE, including the barber who hid in a dumpster, or the man known as El Pescador, the fisherman who was arrested with his son.

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“Now we have to carry our immigration documents at all times because you never know when you might get picked up,” she said.

Alliances to push back

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“Barrio Obrero is being stigmatized as a community with these persistent interventions at all hours,” said Annette Martínez-Orabona, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Puerto Rico. The group is leading efforts to push back against the enforcement operations in immigrant communities on the island.

She said immigration raids are not new in Puerto Rico, but this time they are different.

“There’s no reason for the government to repeat the raids in the same streets, in front of the same churches, in front of the same plaza,” Martínez-Orabona said. “No reason, besides wanting to criminalize that community.”

In an interview with NPR , Rebecca González-Ramos, ICE’s top investigator in Puerto Rico, dismissed the allegations of discrimination.

“There’s been people detained from all sorts of countries. It’s not just Dominicans,” González-Ramos said. “Most of them have been Dominicans because they are the highest population here from a foreign country.”

In response to the detentions, the ACLU of Puerto Rico is spearheading an alliance between lawyers and the medical guild, whose members are already visiting patients at their homes, since many are scared and not going out to receive medical care.

“We are not going to violate the law, or the President’s orders,” Dr. Carlos Díaz Vélez, the president of the Association of Physicians and Surgeons of Puerto Rico, said. “But we want to save people’s health, safety, and give access to health care.”

Churches in Barrio Obrero, like the San Pablo Methodist Church, are also helping migrants with food, and access to legal aid.

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A small tree-lined plaza is across the street from the Methodist church. Plaza Antonio R. Barceló is nestled between homes, bars like El Cibao and Arriba El Son, and places for migrants to send money back to the Dominican Republic.

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It’s the heart of Barrio Obrero, the place where people meet and play dominoes, and take breaks.

Susana Rosario, 61, sits on a bench there every day. She’s Dominican and has a green card now, but she used to live here without legal status. She works for the city of San Juan as a street sweeper and Barrio Obrero is part of her route.

“You barely see people out,” Rosario said.

She said she has mixed feelings about Trump’s immigration policies.

She wants him to remove “those who are getting drunk or doing bad things,” but not the people who are hard workers, she says.

Rosario lives about three miles from the center of Barrio Obrero.

A few days later, after her first encounter with NPR, we found her crying on a bench.

Her two Dominican neighbors — good kids, as she describes them — were just picked up by ICE at a construction site nearby.

The Trump Administration continues reshaping its approach to corporate crime, with the DOJ issuing major revisions of its corporate enforcement policy. Changes establish guaranteed declination paths for qualifying self-reporters, revise focus for the department’s whistleblower program and seek to massively curtail the use of corporate monitorships (and cap their costs).

The DOJ has moved to further formalize the Trump Administration’s pivot on corporate crime, revising the Criminal Division’s corporate enforcement policy (CEP), restricting monitorships and outlining clearer paths for companies to avoid prosecution.

Revised policies establish three distinct resolution paths, with companies that voluntarily self-disclose misconduct receiving a guaranteed declination rather than just a presumption if they meet certain other qualifications, while simultaneously repositioning the DOJ’s whistleblower program to prioritize tips on tariff fraud, violations of immigration law and cases involving cartels and terrorist organizations. The focus on cartels and terrorism reflect changes made earlier this year, when Attorney General Pam Bondi issued orders pausing FCPA enforcement and redirecting resources toward combating cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs).

Speaking at a May 12 conference on financial crimes and AML, Matthew R. Galeotti, head of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, said the changes were designed to eliminate burdensome investigations that hamper American business and economic growth.

“Excessive enforcement and unfocused corporate investigations stymie innovation, limits prosperity and reduces efficiency,” Galeotti said. “So that ends today.”

The DOJ’s changes, as announced by Galeotti, aren’t necessarily ground-quaking, said Justin Danilewitz, chair of Saul Ewing’s white collar and government enforcement practice, but they do signal a more business-friendly environment.

“[C]hanges in policy emphasis and focus matter, even if on the margins,” Danilewitz said. “When Mr. Galeotti talks about the burdens and costs to companies from government investigations, it reflects a degree of concern for corporate America that is new and different. Businesses will feel more comfortable about making voluntary self-disclosures if they are convinced they have a fair-minded adversary who understands business realities and challenges and is willing to reach resolutions that reflect those realities.

CEP changes

Perhaps the most consequential changes come in the revised corporate enforcement and voluntary self-disclosure policy, which outlines resolution paths for companies facing potential criminal prosecution.

Under the new policy, companies can earn a declination — not just a presumption of one — under a series of circumstances, highlighted in a flow chart (seen above). They must:

Self-report

Meet all voluntary self-disclosure requirements (self-reporting to the Criminal Division or, with good reason, another DOJ section; report conduct previously unknown to the DOJ; have no pre-existing obligation to disclose; make disclosure prior to imminent threat that DOJ would learn of misconduct; and make a reasonably prompt disclosure)

Fully cooperate

Timely and appropriately remediate

Lack aggravating circumstances

“Companies that meet our core requirements … will not be required to enter into a criminal resolution,” Galeotti said. “This is a clear path to declination.”

The new CEP also creates a middle ground for companies that self-report in good faith but don’t meet all other voluntary self-disclosure requirements. In these “near-miss” cases, companies can still receive substantial benefits: a non-prosecution agreement with a term under three years, no corporate monitor and a 75% reduction of the low end of sentencing guidelines. In cases where companies aren’t eligible for other resolutions, prosecutors retain discretion but are limited to recommended fine reductions of at most 50%.

Notably, the policy now stipulates that corporate resolution terms should not exceed three years except in “exceedingly rare cases,” and prosecutors are directed to review existing agreements for potential early termination.

The DOJ’s push toward self-reporting in the form of a possibly guaranteed declination may not turn many heads inside corporate America, but the addition of a path toward non-prosecution for companies that don’t fit the parameters of the guarantee could have a bigger impact, said Gina Castellano, a partner in Cadwalader’s compliance, investigations and enforcement practice.

“[It] remains that a company cannot have certainty that a self-disclosure will qualify under the department’s definition, which requires that the misconduct not be known to the department prior to the self-disclosure and that the department deem the self-disclosure ‘reasonably prompt,’ neither of which is within a company’s control,” she said. “It’s hard to see that the revised CEP’s attempt to offer the guarantee of a declination, where that guarantee is conditional on factors outside of the company’s control, will really move the needle for a company when deciding whether to self-disclose. That said, the revised CEP’s ‘near-miss’ category — which offers a non-prosecution agreement and no monitor if a company discloses but does not meet the department’s definition of voluntary self-disclosure or has aggravating factors — is a significant carrot that will undoubtedly factor into a self-disclosure analysis, especially where the conduct is more egregious.”

Monitorships

In the months since Donald Trump was inaugurated, the DOJ has moved to end several corporate monitorships ahead of schedule. Monitorships have been halted early for Glencore and Albemarle, and Galeotti’s announcements suggest the DOJ under Trump and Bondi won’t often mandate corporate monitors.

“Without appropriate oversight from the Criminal Division, monitors can create an adversarial relationship with the companies they monitor, impose significant expense, stray from their core mission and unduly interfere with business,” Galeotti said in his speech. “At times, the money companies spend on their monitor could be better spent investing in their compliance programs or, if they haven’t already, making victims whole.”

The DOJ’s new corporate monitor selection policy introduces limitations on when prosecutors can impose monitors and lays out four factors prosecutors must consider before imposing a monitor: the risk of criminal conduct recurring that impacts US interests; the availability of other independent government oversight; the efficacy of the company’s compliance program; and the maturity of the company’s controls and ability to test its compliance program.

When monitors are imposed, the new policy also mandates cost controls, including fee caps, budget approvals for all work plans and required biannual meetings among the DOJ, monitor and company.

DOJ whistleblower program

The DOJ will also change tack with its whistleblower program to ensure it aligns with the Trump Administration’s chosen enforcement priorities. Launched last fall under the Biden Administration to offer potential million-dollar payouts to tipsters with information on financial fraud and bribery, the program instead will focus on immigration enforcement, cartels and national security, among other areas, reflecting broader Trump Administration policy.

As with the original program, tips must result in forfeiture to be eligible for an award.

“Today, we have added the following priority areas for tips: procurement and federal program fraud; trade, tariff and customs fraud; violations of federal immigration law; and violations involving sanctions, material support of foreign terrorist organizations or those that facilitate cartels and TCOs, including money laundering, narcotics and Controlled Substances Act violations,” Galeotti said.

The changes to the whistleblower program come amid a broader departmental shift in focus. According to Reuters reporting, the FBI has directed agents to scale back white-collar crime investigations and devote approximately one-third of their time to immigration enforcement efforts.

Stories in this Series

Donald Trump’s second presidency is reshaping the United States: slashing the federal workforce, ramping up immigration enforcement, imposing tariffs on U.S. trading partners, defunding universities and research programs, and more.

Reuters is tracking how the Americans who voted for Trump are faring under these changes by periodically interviewing 20 of them from around the country. They were selected from respondents to a February 2025 Ipsos poll who said they voted for Trump in November. They are not a statistically representative portrait of all Trump voters, but their ages, education backgrounds, races/ethnicities, locations and voting histories roughly correspond to those of Trump’s overall electorate.

This series offers a long-term view of how 20 Trump voters are experiencing and reacting to the policies of the president they helped elect. Reuters will follow these voters for months, as the United States heads into 2026 midterm elections that will determine whether Congress remains in the control of Trump’s fellow Republicans.

The Voters

JOYCE KENNEY, 73, is a retired banker and financial consultant who lives in Prescott Valley, Arizona, with her husband of 32 years. She voted for Trump hoping to see tighter border control, although she has many friends who are immigrants and hopes the administration opens more legal immigration pathways. She also wants to see reductions in interest rates as well as grocery and fuel prices.

“With a lot of things that he’s doing, it’s still too early to see what’s going to happen. Everything’s going so fast, like a whirlwind. I’m just waiting for the dust to settle and see what actually materializes.”

JUAN RIVERA, 25, is a self-employed social media content creator who lives with his family near San Diego. As a bisexual Latino man in California, he knows he doesn’t fit the profile of most Trump voters. He hopes the president reduces inflation and gas prices, and is tough on crime and immigration. These are personal issues, Rivera says, because he has been assaulted in “drop-off” zones for migrants near his home.

“Overall I would say that I’m definitely getting what I voted for.”

RON DAILEY, 63, recently started working at a Denver-area auto dealership after a 40-year career in the corporate world. Originally from Arizona, Dailey and his wife moved to Colorado several years ago to be closer to their grandchildren. Both belong to the Evangelical Covenant Church, where his wife was formerly a pastor. Dailey voted for Trump primarily because he wanted to see a reduction in illegal immigration.

“He’s playing three-dimensional chess to everyone else’s checkers. I think bold moves like that are what we need.”

STEVE EGAN, 64, has a business selling promotional products from his home in Tampa, Florida. He’s not a registered Republican, but he voted for Trump in November’s election because he wanted U.S. borders to be more secure. A former state park superintendent, Egan loves the outdoors and is hoping to retire soon so he and his girlfriend can move to a quieter part of the state.

“Even though I voted for Trump, I’m glad he’s not eligible for a third term. Right now I’m just not happy with what he’s doing.”

DAVID FERGUSON, 53, is a mechanical engineer and account manager for an industrial supply company in western Georgia, where he and his wife moved several years ago from Florida. Ferguson chose Trump largely because he wanted to see domestic manufacturing revitalized in the United States. He has two adult children, the older of whom uses they/them pronouns.

“I’m eager to see what can happen over the coming years with these changes, but it’s gonna take time, and I really hope people are patient.”

AMANDA TAYLOR, 51, works for an insurance firm near Savannah, Georgia. Taylor and her husband, a former Marine who works for the federal government, have two adult children and have lived all over the United States, from Colorado to Delaware. She voted for Joe Biden in 2020, but switched to Trump in November because she wanted to see tighter border security and a stronger economy.

“I’m just watching the economy, really. That’s a big reason for why I voted for him, and I know it takes time, but I’m ready for it to change.”

LOU NUNEZ, 83, is a retired security manager for a computing company and lives with his wife of 21 years in Des Moines, Iowa. An Army veteran who was stationed in Okinawa for two years during the Vietnam War, Nunez relies on his local Veterans Affairs hospital for most of his healthcare needs. He voted for Trump in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and hoped this time Trump would reduce inflation and illegal immigration.

“I’ve seen presidents come and go, some good, some bad, but never to this extreme. We got four years of hell coming.”

KATE MOTTL, 62, is a secretary at a municipal office in the Chicago suburbs, where she lives with her fiance and near her two grown children. A lifelong Republican nearing retirement, she was mainly hoping for lower interest rates and taxes, especially on Social Security benefits, when she voted for Trump in November. Mottl also says she believes Joe Biden weaponized the Justice Department against Trump.

“I believe in what Trump is doing. I’m applauding Elon Musk, I’m applauding all of Trump’s picks for each department.”

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JON WEBBER, 44, is a retail worker at a Walmart in a rural part of northeastern Indiana, where he lives with his wife, teenage stepdaughter and three dogs. He voted for Trump in hopes that he would stabilize prices and boost domestic manufacturing. Immigrant farmers and delivery drivers are an important part of his local economy, but Webber wants to see criminals and gang members from other countries deported.

“I’m not a ‘Trumper’ where everything he says and does is gold. I voted for him, I believe in what he can do, but I know he’s not always gonna get stuff right.”

TERRY ALBERTA, 64, is a pilot and flight instructor in southwestern Michigan. He and his wife have seven children and five grandchildren combined from prior relationships. Alberta considers himself a moderate rather than “hardcore” Republican. He is eager to see the Trump administration crack down on government spending and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, and for them to hire more air traffic controllers.

“I’m not a fan of Trump the person, but I’m a fan of the policies, the direction that he’s trying to move, and so far he’s keeping his promises.”

RICH SOMORA, 61, is an engineer for an automated machining company that builds pile drivers. Originally from Chicago, work brought him several years ago to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he lives with his girlfriend. Somora, who has four grandchildren, wants Trump to bring down the prices of goods like groceries and gas, and he supports the administration’s efforts to curb immigration, especially criminals from other countries.

“He’s lived up to his promises. What I’ve seen so far is better news than what we had the past four years.”

GERALD DUNN, 66, is a martial arts instructor in New York’s Hudson Valley, where he lives with his wife of 24 years. He wasn’t seeking drastic change when he voted for Trump, and describes himself as a “middle-of-the-road” voter who leans conservative. Dunn voted for Trump because he admired Vice President JD Vance’s personality and hoped Trump would curb illegal immigration.

“It seems like things have kind of settled down and stabilized, which is pretty much what I was hoping for.”

CHAD HILL, 49, is a supervisor at a nuclear power plant near his home in northwestern Ohio, where he lives with his wife and three kids. He hopes Trump brings down grocery and energy prices and ends the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars, partly because his eldest child wants to join the Air Force. Hill also wants the U.S. Education Department shut down because he thinks states should control their own education systems.

“All the changes that Trump’s enacting, they don’t happen instantaneously, they take time to build in. My expectation is about 6 months to a year.”

BRANDON NEUMEISTER, 36, works for Pennsylvania’s department of corrections. He lives an hour north of the state capital of Harrisburg with his wife and two children, who attend Catholic schools. A former Pennsylvania National Guardsman for eight years, he’s active in his local veteran community and his union. He voted for Trump mainly in hopes that prices and inflation would be brought under control, but he also wanted better border security.

“I tend to be an optimist and give things a chance, but right now I’m very uneasy. It’s just a lot of uncertainty.”

LORETTA TORRES, 38, is a stay-at-home mom of three boys who lives near Houston, Texas. Her main reason for voting for Trump was because she wants to see a “big boost” in the economy, and because she likes his anti-abortion and immigration policies. She also wanted a president who wouldn’t let the United States appear weak on the world stage.

“I appreciate the attitude and the strong persona he gives off as far as the way the country appears to other countries.”

HERMAN SIMS, 66, is a night operations manager for a trucking company in Dallas, Texas, where he lives with his wife of 40 years. He plans on retiring on November 11, 2026 (his wife’s birthday). He voted for Trump in hopes of cheaper food and consumer goods, better future economic and job prospects for his three children and seven grandchildren, and tougher immigration restrictions.

“I was hoping things would turn around, and so far so good. He’s doing what he said he was going to do.”

LESA SANDBERG, 57, runs an accounting business, rents properties and works for a former Republican congressman’s political action committee in St. George, Utah. She and her husband of 37 years also own a yard care business and have two adult children. A longtime Trump supporter, Sandberg expects him to curb government spending, lower taxes and defend states from undue federal interference.

“I was one of those who was on the Trump train the day he got into the race [in 2015]. But I also recognize I don’t agree with every single thing he does.”

DON JERNIGAN, 74, retired in 2011 from his job at a masonry manufacturer and lives in Virginia Beach with his wife and his 94-year-old mother. He has three grandchildren and wants them to have the same economic opportunities as he did. Jernigan considers Trump arrogant and crass but voted for him because he liked Trump’s approach to protecting U.S. borders, language and culture, and believed his policies would improve the economy.

“I’m happy that Trump’s in the White House over everybody else that was running, but I’m not 100% happy with him.”

ROBERT BILLUPS, 34, is an accountant searching for his next job in northwest Washington state, where he lives with his husband of five years. While on the public health insurance program Medicaid he grew frustrated by the cost of basic care and medicine, such as an inhaler he needs for a lung condition. Billups voted for Trump in hopes of seeing more transparency and common sense in government spending.

“The things that are happening are kind of expected, but maybe I didn’t expect it to be so radical.”

WILL BROWN, 20, is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wants to pursue a career in finance. In May 2025, before his senior year, he traveled to Puerto Rico to intern for several weeks with a company that processed disaster relief grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Brown, who volunteered for Trump’s campaign, especially supports Trump’s approaches to lowering prices and illegal immigration.

“I’m very impressed with the work they’ve been doing, with the policies Trump has passed. I approve of many, if not all of them.”

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump stand holding flags on Election Day, near Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 5, 2024. REUTERS/Marco Bello

Methodology

These voters were selected from 429 respondents to a February 2025 Ipsos poll who said they voted for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election and were willing to speak to a reporter. Reuters reached out to all 429 respondents to seek participants for this project and interviewed about 75 people who expressed interest.

The final 20 participants were selected with the aim of including voters from as many U.S. states as possible as well as the main demographic groups comprising Trump’s 2024 electorate. They do not constitute a statistically representative portrait of Trump voters in 2024. But these individuals were chosen in part because their distribution of ages, education backgrounds, races/ethnicities, locations, and voting histories roughly correspond to those of Trump’s overall electorate. Other factors taken into consideration included gender, job and employment history, marital status, and household income. Additionally, preference was given to voters from states and/or congressional districts that are expected to have especially competitive national races in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections. Ipsos experts reviewed the group of participants to ensure it did not paint a misleading picture of Trump voters, and noted that respondents to any poll could be more outspoken than average voters.

Over the coming months, Reuters will periodically interview these voters about how the Trump administration’s actions are affecting their lives and publish regular articles based on their responses, often accompanied by photos and/or videos. Their dispatches are not meant to be indicative of Trump voters as a whole. Rather, this series provides an unusually in-depth and longterm view into how 20 of the Americans who elected Trump are faring amid his dramatic reshaping of the country’s domestic and foreign policy.

Sign up here.

Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Claudia Parsons; Photo illustrations by Catherine Tai; Photographs by Rebecca Noble, Mike Blake, Kevin Mohatt, Marco Bello, Alyssa Pointer, Rachel Mummey, Vincent Alban, Megan Jelinger, Kristen Norman, Sam Wolfe, Cindy Schultz, Ruddy Roye, Hannah Beier, Callaghan O’Hare, Shelby Tauber, Ronda Churchill, Jay Paul, Matt McKnight, Ricky Arduengo

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toggle caption Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

They’re cousins, uncles, brothers, or in-laws.

“We’re a close community. We all kinda know each other,” Carlos Gonzalez told NPR. He said that’s why he was getting call after call. “My phone was just ringing.”

When he finally picked up, he said, his heart dropped. It was a friend of the family calling Friday to tell him that ICE had shown up at the Los Angeles warehouse where his older brother, Jose Paulino Gonzalez, has worked for the last 2 1/2 years.

They were rounding people up.

Federal agents arrested more than 40 people in workplace raids, including about two dozen employees from Ambiance Apparel in downtown LA’s Fashion District. Many of those workers formed part of a close-knit community, with ties to the same indigenous Zapotec town in Veracruz, Mexico.

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So as soon as he heard, the younger Gonzalez threw on some clothes and rushed out toward the Fashion District.

The scene was already a melee by the time he got there, he recounted. Protesters were chanting and yelling at officials who were outfitted in tactical gear, helmets and masks as they executed a federal search warrant.

In an emailed statement, ICE officials wrote, “ICE and its federal partners are doing their job, enforcing immigration law and removing criminal aliens from Los Angeles communities.” Forty four people were arrested in Friday’s raid, ICE said.

According to the statement, ICE, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Marshals Service, among other agencies, assisted in carrying out the arrests for alleged “administrative immigration violations in support of worksite enforcement operations.”

(Administrative immigration violations include overstaying a permitted visa, entering or reentering the U.S. without proper authorization, or making false statements on immigration forms.)

toggle caption Vanessa Romo/NPR

Amid the chaos, Carlos Gonzalez said he worked his way up to the gate and finally caught a glimpse of his brother.

“They had him up against a wall. Him and a bunch of other people were lined up and then I saw [officials] put chains on him and that was hard,” Gonzalez said.

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The 22-year-old said he was close enough to see the expression on his brother’s face.

“Most people would think that it was very stoic, very calm,” Gonzalez said. “But I grew up with him and I was able to see that he was scared. … I know he was scared.”

In those few terrifying moments, he said, it was as if he could see that his older brother was processing the possibility that he’d have to leave behind the entire life he’d built for himself over the years.

Gonzalez said he tried shouting to tell his brother he was there but the chaos around them made it impossible to communicate. So he stood there, watching as his brother and several other people he knows, were handcuffed and loaded into white nondescript vans.

Gonzalez declined to share how long his 35-year-old sibling has been in the United States. But he confirmed that his family, and the families of about a dozen others who were swept up in Friday’s raid at the Ambiance Apparel warehouses, all come from the same small area in Veracruz, a Mexican state with a large indigenous Zapotec population.

How did they all end up packaging clothes or loading and unloading boxes out of cargo containers in Los Angeles?

“Word of mouth,” Gabriel Vasquez told NPR in Spanish. Vasquez’s brother, Jacob, was also among those arrested at the warehouse.

Gabriel Vasquez explained that over the years, word has spread about the jobs available at this particular company. “Someone finds out there’s an opening, and then you tell your sister or your cousin, … and that’s how my brother got his job,” he said. “He heard from a childhood friend who now is also detained.”

Ambiance Apparel did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment.

toggle caption Vanessa Romo/NPR

Apparently the arrival of ICE and other federal agents was not entirely unexpected. Sarai Ortiz told NPR that her father, Jose Ortiz, who was also detained by ICE on Friday, had been following immigration raids in the news.

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Jose Ortiz was a floor manager and had been with the company for 18 years — he’s been in the U.S. for 30 years. He was proud of working his way up the ladder and being a good manager. So, he made it his job to get informed, she said. He started taking Know-Your-Rights cards to work, according to his daughter.

“He’d tell them to be informed and not to be afraid. He told them it was all going to be OK,” she said, breaking into tears. In January, she says, he’d also made it a point to memorize her number “so that way, if his phone got taken away he could still call me. He’d have the number.”

She still hasn’t heard from him.

One of the few details Carlos Gonzalez has been able to gather keeps him up at night. He’s heard from a handful of people that his brother tried to evade officials during the raid.

“He and some other coworkers tried to get away from it. They tried hiding. … And just knowing that he tried and failed, it hurts,” he said.

It makes him think that ICE officials arrived at the warehouse with a list of names, Gonzalez said. “I feel like if it’s just a quick raid or just an unexpected raid, you pick up the people that you can and you leave. But considering that they made sure to get every last person, that’s kind of I don’t know, to me, it’s suspicious. Sketchy.”

Their small family is devastated, he said. His mother is beside herself, and his sister, who lives with the elder, now-detained Gonzalez, is frantically trying to get information about where he is. They have lined up a lawyer, he said, who still hasn’t been able to locate where Gonzalez is being held.

The same day he was arrested, Gonzalez and his sister went to the LA County Jail, where many of the people arrested by ICE are being detained. Gonzalez said they were told to come back the following day, Saturday, because several of the arrestees hadn’t been processed yet. Then, when they showed up on Saturday, they were told to come back again on Sunday, for the same reason. “On Sunday they told us that they moved him to Santa Ana but we don’t know where,” he said.

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County jail officials did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment.

And that’s where things currently stand. Gonzalez says he’s afraid his brother will be moved to a detention center in Adelanto, a two-hour drive away. Or worse, that his sibling will be taken out of state.

In addition to trying to track him down, Gonzalez says he and other families are trying to figure out how to get the workers’ most recent pay. Friday was payday.

toggle caption Sergio Martínez-Beltrán/NPR

NEW YORK — “ICE out of New York!”

Those were the words thousands of people chanted near the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office, and throughout the streets of Manhattan Tuesday night as part of a series of nationwide rallies against President Trump’s immigration sweeps and the deployment of the U.S. military in California.

“There are many voices in my community that can’t be here today out of fear of what the administration is doing, so I want to be here for them,” 19-year-old Jeanet told NPR as she joined hundreds of other protesters in lower Manhattan Tuesday night.

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She asked for her last name to not be included for fear of her safety. She said she wants to join the military, and that also played a role in her going to the protest.

“I feel like it’s more important for me, as somebody who is going to be part of the government, to voice my opinion and show that there can be people that are for the U.S., but still against what this administration is doing today,” Jeanete said.

Across the country, protesters also took to the streets in Chicago , San Francisco, and Seattle , Dallas and half a dozen other cities.

The Trump administration has vowed to arrest 3,000 migrants a day . To accomplish that goal, the Department of Homeland Security has conducted raids all across the country — from a parking lot in a Los Angeles Home Depot , to a Dominican neighborhood in Puerto Rico , to a meatpacking plant in Nebraska .

In New York City, the protest was peaceful. That’s a contrast with those in Los Angeles, where police and protesters clashed in some parts of town over the weekend sparked by immigration raids conducted by federal immigration agents.

The New York Police Department did not immediately reply to questions about how many arrests were made, but NPR reporters saw at least half a dozen people placed in handcuffs.

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Paula Lopez, 66, said what’s happening is giving her flashbacks of when she was arrested by immigration agents in a New York factory in 1980.

“It hurts me to see families being separated, because I lived that,” Lopez, who came to the protest with her sister, told NPR in Spanish. “We come here to work … to progress — it’s not fair.”

Arfraz, a 43-year-old man from Queens, also remembers when decades ago ICE took away a family member. It was traumatizing, he said.

So, joining Tuesday’s protest felt important to him, especially for those he knows are scared.

“They can’t necessarily show up to rallies because they might get picked up by ICE, so I think we have to stand up,” said Arfraz, who asked NPR to not use his last name out of fear for his safety. “And those who are able to stand up have a higher and urgent responsibility to do it today.”