The National Guard faced people who protested against immigration raids in Los Angeles.
Juan and several friends snuggled in the parking lot of a hardware store near Los Angeles, where the protests have exploded against the repression of immigration of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
In general, their meetings include boxes of workers of the day, many of which are undocumented immigrants, seeking work of buyers or contractors.
But on Sunday, only two small trucks announced that they could help with the roofs, repairs or paintings of work outside this home depot branch in the suburb of Paramount, whose population is more than 82% Hispanic.
It was a day after the store the Immigration Protests Center, caused by rumors that the day workers had been rounded and arrested here.
Many of those living in the community told the BBC that they saw immigration application vehicles in the area.
It caused instant fear and panic. Then came reports on raids and judgments of the day workers in Home Depot, a place where many undocumented migrants in the United States will find work.
The protests exploded in this Hispanic majority city, becoming violent as rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown. The authorities used pepper spray, rubber bullets and smoke pumps to submit to the crowd.
But demonstrations in Paramount seem to have left erroneous information.
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While migrant boxes have stopped the legs by the authorities in other parts of the area, rumors of raids in the store were erroneous information, according to the United States National Security Department (DHS).
“Despite the false reports, there was no ‘incursion’ of ice in a deposit in home in Los Angeles,” the DHS told the BBC.
While leaning on the bed of a small Toyota truck with his two friends, Juan said: “No one really knows what happened. Everyone is afraid.”
The riots in Paramount, who also saw a car in flames and companies looted, became a catalyst of what federal authorities have described as disturbances through the Los Angeles area.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump used his authority to call the California National Guard, something typically decided by the governor of a state, since a second day of protests convulsed the city.
As the protests exploded for the third day on Sunday, the National Guard armed troops watched a closed business park on the other side of the hardware store.
They parked Humvees blocking the area and faced with protesters throwing insults and stirring Mexican flags and banners.
Getty images“You are not welcome here!” A man with an Los Angeles Angels ball cap shouted at the soldiers as another manifest painting in the spray without limit and writes an obscenity aimed at the application of immigration and customs of the United States.
DHS told the BBC that the cautious area is home to one of its offices and authorities were using it “as a staging area and the rioters found it.”
The agency told the BBC that they arrested 118 illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area this week, including five, for example, gang members.
The agency said that some of these migrants had anterior criminal record that included drug trafficking, assault and robbery.
While preparing to address Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday, Trump told journalists that there were “violent people” in Los Angeles “and will not go out with his.”
Dora Sánchez was still incredulous of the shocking images that transformed her city last night.
He met Sunday with others in the community in the church of the Change Chapel, less than one block from the protests center the previous day.
She and others in the Church talked about how this Hispanic community was revitalized over the years and became a very close community where neighbors know each other and care for each other.
The protests felt as a “breakdown” for the immigrant community, he said.
Los Angeles is one of the majority cities of the minority in the United States.
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Hispanics not only constitute a majority of the population that any ethnic origin, but the immigrants, specific to those of southern Mexico, are a central part of history and culture here.
The city has its status as a sanctuary city, which does not cooperate with the federal immigration application.
Some said that they felt a bubbly tension that seemed to explode when the administration of the Republican president attacked the undocumented immigrants of the.
“It was time,” said Maria Gutiérrez, who protested in Paramount. “This is my people.”
She said she was born in Mexico, but has lived here since she was a child.
She, like many here, say they have relatives who are in the United States illegally.
“This is Los Angeles,” he said. “It touches us all.
“Everyone has familiar or knowing someone who has no papers.”