In cities across the country, Home Depot parking lots have long served as informal labor exchanges, where day laborers, many of them undocumented, wait for work from contractors who rely on their skill to build homes, fix plumbing, or landscape yards in the surrounding community. At the same time, Home Depot’s billionaire leadership is deeply tied to MAGA politics and has poured millions into pro-Trump causes, including the very agenda of mass deportation. That contradiction sits at the heart of the company’s hypocrisy. Home Depot’s business depends on immigrant labor—much of it undocumented—yet its political allegiances fuel the machinery that criminalizes, deports, and disappears those very workers. The result is a corporate culture where cooperation with ICE isn’t just tolerated, but is encouraged from the top down.

Now, with immigration raids surging across Los Angeles and ICE targeting neighborhoods on the Westside, it’s time to look harder at the role corporations like Home Depot play in enabling, funding and justifying this violence. On the morning of Monday, June 23, ICE agents descended on the Home Depot on Jefferson Boulevard in Playa Vista. Witnesses saw several agents chasing down workers and food vendors operating near the lot. Agents moved aggressively on foot and in vehicles, detaining people in the street and dragging others out of their trucks. LAPD officers stood by and did nothing to intervene—instead, they appeared to provide cover for the agents, shielding them from traffic and bystanders. Around seven unmarked vehicles were at the scene, and while the total number of kidnappings is unclear, one witness estimated that at least eight people were taken. Agents drove recklessly through the lot, mounting curbs and nearly hitting pedestrians. Some appeared to be wearing unmarked or unofficial gear.

This came just days after a massive immigration sweep at the Hollywood Home Depot on Sunset Boulevard, where Border Patrol agents in tactical gear surrounded the lot and detained over thirty people—day laborers, food vendors, and at least one bystander who was simply filming the scene. Among those taken was a U.S. citizen. Vendors who had served the area for decades described the raid as traumatic, a violent rupture in a place that had functioned for years as a makeshift community hub and survival space.

Despite branding itself as a friendly, apolitical big-box chain, Home Depot is deeply entangled with right-wing, anti-immigrant politics. Bernie Marcus, the company’s co-founder and longtime public face, poured millions into supporting Donald Trump, even after Trump’s criminal indictments and repeated promises to escalate deportations. “I’d still probably support him,” Marcus said in 2023, just weeks after Trump pledged mass ICE sweeps and militarized raids in immigrant communities.

And while Marcus officially retired in 2002 and died in November 2024, his politics still shape the company’s values. Under the radar, local Home Depot managers and security staff have repeatedly called police and immigration authorities on the very workers whose labor keeps the home improvement industry alive—day laborers seeking honest work, taqueros selling food in the parking lot, and unhoused vendors trying to survive. These aren’t isolated incidents. They reflect a broader corporate culture of compliance with enforcement.

Meanwhile, the company’s workforce, customer base, and entire economic ecosystem are overwhelmingly Latino and immigrant. Across California, immigrant labor makes up the backbone of construction, gardening, renovation, and home repair, exactly the sectors Home Depot services and profits from. The contradiction is staggering. Home Depot builds its profits on the backs of undocumented labor, then aligns itself with the very forces that criminalize, raid, and deport those workers. In communities like Los Angeles, where ICE is sweeping streets, detaining parents, and terrorizing entire neighborhoods, we need to ask: Whose side is Home Depot on?

In response to these escalating attacks, the Westside branch of DSA-LA has begun monitoring the Marina del Rey Home Depot during morning hours as part of a growing effort in community defense and immigrant solidarity. This work includes observing for ICE activity, documenting abuses, and supporting day laborers and vendors facing harassment. If you’re interested in joining these efforts or learning more, contact us and we’ll connect you directly with the organizers. Community safety won’t come from corporations or police—it comes from showing up for each other.