Early Saturday morning, ICE agents descended on the Home Depot parking lot at 43rd Avenue in west Phoenix, detaining several workers who were waiting for jobs. Cell phone video from the scene showed men sitting beside the road surrounded by agents, with several people visible in handcuffs.
According to AZ Family, activists say agents detained 10 people at the store during the operation. Erika Andiola, political director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told the station that some of the workers had simply come to the store to shop and were arrested by ICE as they exited. Andiola said people should be able to visit the store without fear of being detained, and added that Home Depot has the power to ensure customers feel safe entering its locations.
A Familiar Pattern for Phoenix Activists
Activists say the tactics used in this operation are not new, and that enforcement actions at Home Depot locations across the region have become routine. Court testimony reported by the Arizona Republic in July revealed that ICE Mobile Criminal Apprehension Teams routinely conduct undercover operations at the same 43rd Avenue Home Depot, using unmarked SUVs to scan license plates on vehicles with temporary tags or roof racks, cross-referencing owners against federal databases. Greg Fay, vice chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's Arizona chapter, has warned that this growing reliance on plate scanning and parking-lot stops creates legal gray areas over whether the tactic violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Workers at the scene reportedly appeared dressed as day laborers and, in some cases, as unhoused people, though it's unclear from available reporting how that detail factored into the operation. ICE has not publicly released details about Saturday's operation. Protesters and day laborers returned to the Home Depot on Monday, continuing a pattern of community response that has followed similar raids at Phoenix-area stores.
Community Monitoring Network Watches for Patterns
The Phoenix-based People First Project tracks immigration enforcement across the region through a volunteer network called Eyes on ICE. Clarissa Vela, who leads the group, has said that many of the people monitoring these operations are women with detained loved ones, friends, or family members. Arizonans tracking immigration agents say they hope their efforts will eventually lead to more accountability from both federal agencies and the retailers whose lots have become enforcement sites.
This isn't the first time a Phoenix Home Depot has become a flashpoint. In January, protesters rallied outside the Home Depot on 36th Street and Thomas Road after ICE detained multiple day laborers there, and demonstrators demanded the company denounce the agency's presence in its lots.
Record Arrests Fuel National Debate
The federal government reported nearly 51,000 immigration-related arrests last month, marking an all-time monthly record for the third consecutive month, following 50,208 in July and 43,900 in June, according to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said the people arrested every day include rapists, murderers, gang members, and drug traffickers, with the Trump administration maintaining that its operations target high-threat individuals and remove people with criminal records.
But an analysis of federal arrest data by Cato Institute analyst David Bier found that 79 percent of individuals arrested by ICE during the nationwide crackdown had no criminal convictions, and 55 percent had neither convictions nor pending criminal charges. Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, cited in that same analysis, noted that only 4 percent of those arrested had convictions for violent offenses. Many of the people arrested in the operations, activists say, had no criminal convictions, pending charges, or identified gang affiliations.
Home Depot Faces Pressure Over Surveillance
The West Phoenix incident adds to mounting scrutiny of Home Depot's role in these operations nationwide. At the company's annual shareholder meeting in May, corporate directors urged investors to reject a proposal demanding an independent audit of how store surveillance data and automatic license plate readers might be shared with federal immigration authorities, according to The American Prospect. Home Depot has maintained that existing oversight is sufficient and that it does not coordinate with ICE, the outlet reported.
Some municipalities have already taken financial action. The West Hollywood City Council voted in June to remove Home Depot from its cooperative purchasing vendor agreements, citing ongoing concerns over ICE operations and surveillance data collection in store lots. The pressure traces back to a mid-2025 directive from White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller instructing ICE agents to specifically target Home Depot parking lots and informal day-labor hiring sites as core venues for enforcement operations nationwide.
In July, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network convened 80 day laborers and organizers in Pasadena to coordinate rapid legal defense and debate whether to launch a national boycott against Home Depot over parking lot enforcement, a debate 18 months of ICE raids has only intensified. Organizers there weighed whether a boycott would protect workers or simply eliminate one of the few hiring spots left available to them.
