Update on January 8, 2026: L.A. TACO received video showing Pasadena Police Officer asking Madera to identify himself before arresting him.
“All we need to know is that you’re not some crazy person, that you’re just following. That’s fine, I don’t care if you’re following. We just need to make sure who you are, that’s it,” a Pasadena Police Officer tells Madera.
Another officer asks bystander, Elizabeth Castillo with Grupo Auto Defensa Dena, who is recording the incident to move back, before asking if she has her I.D.
Eventually officers arrest Madera, after he hands his I.D. over.
Jose Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, started his morning preparing for an event hosted by the PCJC to honor workers who have helped rebuild Altadena, but ended up arrested and detained for hours by Pasadena Police. The event fell on the one-year anniversary of the Eaton fire that devastated the community, a day that Madera, a Pasadena resident, remembers clearly.
Madera was on his way to work sites to remind workers about the event when he received an alert from a local rapid response team notifying people that a federal immigration agent vehicle had been spotted in the area. He began driving around to find the federal immigration agency vehicle in question.
He found members of the rapid response team that had initially spotted the unmarked vehicle as they were observing, documenting, and alerting the community about the federal immigration agent activity around 9 a.m. this morning.
The unmarked vehicle was confirmed from a list of known ICE vehicles, according to Caleb Soto, staff attorney from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. According to the Stop ICE Plate Tracker the plate has been confirmed at least one other time in federal immigration activity.
Madera tells L.A. TACO that he had observed the unmarked vehicle “driving recklessly” and making u-turns “in places they shouldn’t.”
Madera says he observed the agent do a U-turn right in front of the rapid response vehicle and flash undercover lights at them, in an attempt at intimidation.
Madera and a group of rapid responders inside of a separate vehicle observed the federal immigration agent for about 20-30 minutes. Madera says that he followed the vehicle towards Pasadena City Hall, near the Pasadena Police Department. The unmarked vehicle circled the police department three or four times, he recalls.
Madera tells L.A. TACO that when he drove by the police department, officers were already outside. He saw two police officers on foot, a police officer on a motorcycle, and a police SUV.
“They didn’t stop the ICE agent, but they stopped me,” says Madera.
Madera says the officers then questioned him aggressively, asking him what he was doing and why he was running red lights, accusations that he claims he politely denied. The officers asked him for his drivers license, insurance card, and registration. He asked if he was being detained or arrested.
Officers told Madera that he would be detained if he did not provide the materials they requested. Madera asked for clarification as to why he was being detained, to which the officer replied that he was “running red lights.” The police officers also mentioned that a helicopter had been following him. Madera requested more clarification on why he was being detained.
“We’re gonna detain you, and if you don’t open your door, we’re gonna break down the window,” Madera claims the officer told him.
He handed one of the officers his driver’s license, and told them he was going to look for his insurance information on his phone.
“That’s when they put their hand inside the car and opened the door without my consent,” Madera says. “ They took me out of the car and arrested me.”
Video footage shared with L.A. TACO shows Madera handcuffed in the back of the police vehicle.
About 20 to 30 people later protested outside of the Pasadena Police station this morning, demanding his release, which came around 11 a.m. Madera was released with a citation for obstructing a public officer, he says.
“They mentioned it was a traffic violation that I was doing, but what they charged me with was obstructing,” he says.
A second protest was held following his release, which Madera attended. About a dozen people gathered in the office of Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo to protest his arrest, holding signs that read, “ICE out of DENA!” and “ICE out of SGV.”
Update on January 8, 2026: L.A. TACO spoke with Mayor Gordo.
“First off, not only was it offensive, insensitive, and I believe intended to inflict emotional harm–by being present in our city on the day that we are remembering the lives lost, and those who lost their home during the Eaton Fire. I believe it's evil to have done that. To show up on the very day that the fire occurred just one year ago, when this community is trying to come together in recovery, is just wrong, ” Mayor Gordo told L.A. TACO.
“We need to look no further than what happened in Minneapolis to understand that it is also dangerous,” said Mayor Gordo.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was confirmed to be in Pasadena yesterday, according to Mayor Gordo.
“It needs to be a public investigation and it needs to be something that allows us to see exactly what happened today,” Soto says. “They need to be ready to protect the people of Pasadena, not federal ICE kidnappers.”
Madera says that this is not the first time he has seen behavior from the Pasadena Police Department that appears to show them protecting federal immigration agents.
“Why is this happening, especially on this day, where we're remembering what happened a year ago with the Eaton Fire,” he says. “There were ICE agents in our community, and instead of helping the community, the police department arrested us.”
Earlier today, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. Citizen, in South Minneapolis, just four blocks from where George Floyd was killed by police.
“It’s not a crime to document. It’s not a crime to patrol. It's not a crime to protect your community, and for sure it is not a death sentence to protect your community,” Madera says. “That’s where we are at as a country right now, where people who are protecting their community are being kidnapped, people who are protecting their community are being killed.”
L.A TACO reached out to the Pasadena Police Department this morning for comment and did not hear back.
L.A. TACO reached out to Pasadena Mayor Victor M. Gordo’s office.
