When the roving immigration raids began in 2025, some of the first places to be consistently hit with brutal force by ICE were locations of The Home Depot, among other sites frequented by day laborers.
That corporation’s retail locations have remained a major focus of raids and targeted enforcement actions, even leading to the establishment of community defense hubs that specifically patrol Home Depot parking lots and other hotspots for ICE and Border Patrol and provide mutual aid.
The Border Patrol agents working out of Terminal Island conducted some of these raids across Southern California cities, from Santa Ana to the San Fernando Valley, including the infamous “Trojan Horse” raid in which Border Patrol jumped out of a Penske truck at Home Depot’s Wilshire location in Los Angeles.
There was even a fatality during one of these parking lot raids, when Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdes was killed by the driver of a moving vehicle as he attempted to flee from ICE agents who were detaining people at a Home Depot in Monrovia.
This made it shocking for many to see Home Depot named as a sponsor of “El Grito City of Los Angeles 2026,” the city’s official celebration of Mexican Independence Day, being held today at City Hall in Downtown L.A.
The event is organized by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks and hosted by Concrete Live, with District 6 Councilmember Imelda Padilla as the “Madrina” (godmother).
In a post shared on social media hours before the event, Imelda Padilla stated that she has rescinded the event’s partnership with the Home Depot, saying she apologizes for “the distress caused by featuring the company.”
In a post shared on social media, Imelda Padilla stated that she has rescinded the event’s partnership with the Home Depot, saying she apologizes for “the distress caused by featuring the company.”
The Boycott Home Depot Coalition, a national grassroots campaign calling for a boycott of Home Depot, pressured on Padilla by posting calls to action on social media urging people to phone and email Padilla’s office to remind her about the raids at Home Depot.
In a template it posted, the organizers state: “You represent Panorama City & Van Nuys, two of the hardest-hit communities by ICE. The Van Nuys Home Depot has been raided over 10 times, including twice in one day. You know this because you have visited the Van Nuys Home Depot more than once after a raid.”
L.A. TACO spoke with a spokesperson for the Boycott Home Depot Coalition about Padilla’s rescission, who said, “It’s not enough to rescind the logo or the partnership. We want to know who approached who. We want confirmation that Padilla’s office wasn’t the one who approached Home Depot for this because it doesn’t undo the harm that they’ve done.”
“It’s not enough to rescind the logo or the partnership. We want to know who approached who. We want confirmation that Padilla’s office wasn’t the one who approached Home Depot for this because it doesn’t undo the harm that they’ve done.”
The spokesperson tells us, “We are using this as an opportunity for Padilla to push Home Depot to meet our demands, especially if she is having these one-on-one meetings with Home Depot.”
Before Home Depot’s sponsorship was canceled, L.A. TACO spoke with Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), about the Home Depot sponsorship.
“100% of the day laborers in Los Angeles have been impacted [by the raids] at exactly the same time day laborers are being called upon to rebuild the city after the fires,” Newman says.
“We continue to do work for Home Depot to mitigate a human rights crisis that Home Depot itself is attracting, and they continue to do absolutely nothing,” he continues. “The anger that we feel is not just directed to Home Depot, but also to the Los Angeles city government, which has not used its existing land use authority to compel Home Depot to do more than it's currently doing . . . which is nothing,” he says.
Home Depot continues to partner with Flock Safety, an automated license plate reader system at the center of a raging privacy debate in the United States during this age of surveillance, especially over how the company shares data with local and federal authorities.
In January of this year, several Home Depot shareholders asked the company to review its partnership with Flock after a report that the vendor shared data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
L.A. TACO reached out to Councilmember Imelda Padilla for comment. We have not yet received a response.
