On Wednesday December 17, community members, press, and day laborers gathered in the parking lot of the Cypress Park Home Depot for a press conference to demand the removal of several anti-loitering, noise-making devices. The devices were installed by Home Depot next to the store’s day laborer center in late November.
The noise devices are presumably built by the brand Mosquito and designed to discourage people from gathering in a certain place through the use of high-pitched sound. They were placed on the light posts in the parking lot of the Cypress Park Home Depot, a spot frequented by street vendors, day laborers, customers, and, most recently, community patrols against ICE. The devices sit near a day laborer center operated by the Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA). The center has been in that exact spot for over 25 years.
“That’s why today we are here to specifically call out the installation of three, noise terrorism devices,” said Meagan Ortiz, the Executive Director of IDEPSCA. “These are torture devices that until this morning, emitted a 24-hour, high-frequency, high-pitched tone.”
Andres Salazar, the site coordinator for IDEPSCA at the Cypress Home Depot day laborer center, stated that the noise was not just an annoyance. It produced concrete, negative health impacts to the people exposed to it, including headaches, dizziness, and nausea.
“We are experiencing effects on our health,” Salazar said to the press. “Who knows where that will lead in the future?”
At the time of the press conference, the noise emitters were off. Ortiz told press conference attendees that she had been contacted by Home Depot corporate the day before. They asked if IDEPSCA would call off the press conference if they were to stop the noise emission during certain hours.
“Home Depot is clearly very concerned about their image but they are less concerned about their complicity,” Ortiz told the crowd. “Here’s the thing, Home Depot — you cannot have it both ways. You are here because we are here, because the day laborers are here. That’s why we will accept nothing less than the removal of these devices.”
Ortiz also said that a vendor from the parking lot had approached her during the press conference to say that Home Depot security was watching and taking pictures of the faces of all attendees.
Since June, federal agents have led immigration-related raids and kidnappings across Los Angeles County. When ICE and other agencies descended upon Southern California, the public responded with spirited resistance. While community self defense and patrols against ICE have been most visible, community organizers and concerned neighbors have also banded together to name the Home Depot as one of the biggest culprits of fascist complacency.
“This has been the literal hunting ground that the federal government has used to take over 50 workers,” said Ortiz. “50 street vendors, 50 neighbors, moms, dads, sisters, and brothers from our community.”
In August, a group of grassroots organizations, labor groups, and clergy banded together to form the Home Depot Boycott Coalition. Their demands include a full stop of immigration raids, the prohibition of access of federal immigration agencies, the protection of day laborers, and justice for the families of people kidnapped. In a statement released earlier this year from Home Depot’s corporate wing, the company said that the corporation “is not notified that ICE activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations.”
Ortiz went on to explain that, recently, yellow metal barriers had been erected in the walkway right next to the IDEPSCA day laborer center, a move that organizers saw as another infringement on the movement and rights of jornaleros (day laborers). The combination of the noise emitters and the barriers sent a message to IDEPSCA and their community that Home Depot had aligned with the federal government’s endeavor to disappear the immigrant population of Los Angeles.
“Turning the machines off for a press conference doesn’t erase the harm and it doesn’t resolve the issue,” Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said to the press. “It tells us they knew all along that these devices were wrong, harmful, and indefensible.”
In an official statement from Home Depot, the company labeled the statement of noise machines being installed to deter day laborer presence as “categorically false.”
“The Cypress Park location is unique due to its proximity to the Caltrans facility overhead to ensure the safety of the state, the community and the infrastructure,” the statement read. “Home Depot has implemented localized technology to address specific operational challenges. The noise devices and K barriers are used to deter and prevent illegal overnight parking and related issues.”
As Councilmember Hernandez stated during the press conference, the Cypress Park Home Depot rests on land that is publicly owned by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). This means that Home Depot, as a private corporation, is using publicly-owned land to fall in line with the federal government’s fascistic directive to erase and disappear immigrants.
“This is like our house right here,” said a long-time member of the IDEPSCA Cypress Park center, who requested their name not be included in this article. “And the company across the street is just trying to get rid of us. To disappear us. To get rid of the [day laborer] center.”
In the days following the press conference, community members have reported the noise machines being switched off and on randomly. This is a marked change from the 24-hour loop that was playing before. While a tiny step in the right direction, Councilmember Hernandez summed up the end goal of community pressure against Home Depot with a succinct statement:
“Remove the machines. Not just turn them off. Remove them and not just for today, but permanently.”
Rosalind Jones (she/they) is a queer, Los Angeles–based writer and community organizer. She is a contributor to the online publication Knock LA, a founding member of the social justice organization Community Solidarity Project, and authors a Substack titled Another World is Inevitable. Rosalind holds a BA in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College and a certification in Creative Writing from the UCLA Extension.
