Anti-ICE protests continue at Home Depot amid calls for the release of detained day laborers

It’s been almost two weeks since Fernando Mendoza was taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents outside of a Phoenix Home Depot, and the momentum from the community demanding his release has only increased amid reports of elevated ICE activity in the Valley.

Built on the promise of enacting the largest mass deportation in the country’s history, the second Trump administration created a $170 billion “deportation-industrial complex” that has overseen the detention of over 70,000 migrants — a record high, according to CBS News — in facilities across the country; the detention and later deportation of thousands of migrants monthly and the growing number of deaths caused by ICE agents, both in custody and, now, in public.

Amid the nationwide uproar in response to the recent killings of Renee Nicole Good and Keith Porter Jr. by ICE agents, Phoenicians gathered Saturday morning to protest at the Home Depot located on Thomas Road and 36th Street, where federal agents detained Mendoza while he waited for work outside the home-improvement retailer, like many day laborers do across the country. Day laborers, many of whom are migrants, have become the latest group targeted by sweeping ICE raids.

“Day laborers are the face of immigration. They think they’re the most vulnerable, but they’re also the toughest because they’ve been here fighting for the survival of their families for a long time. Ever since Donald Trump got into office, they started persecuting our communities… I think Jan. 4 was the first time [ICE] came [to Home Depot], and now they’re doing it like every week, every two weeks,” Salvador Reza, a longtime immigrant rights activist, said before the crowd outside the store. “But they come in with the purpose of intimidating and scaring. Because they always say they’re coming after one person. However, they take anybody else that they see around. That person is the excuse.”

A CALÓ News analysis of ICE arrest records, obtained via a FOIA request by the Deportation Data Project, shows over 6,000 arrests in Arizona during the 2025 fiscal year (from Oct. 2024 to Sept. 2025).

Notably, most arrests occur behind the scenes in local jails and prisons run by local and state law enforcement agencies. Still, hundreds of others were swept up in the surge of federal agent enforcement operations, as Mendoza was.

“If things don’t look like they look in Chicago, in Los Angeles, in Minneapolis, it does not mean things are not happening here… It does not mean that violence isn’t happening here,”  Raquel Terán, former Arizona Senator and current community organizer, said. “We are here to demand that ICE is out of our community. We are here to say that us, as a community, will be vigilant. We will be here to make sure that people know that everybody — regardless of their immigration status — they have constitutional rights.” 

Erika Andiola with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), an immigrant rights activist who’s been working with Mendoza’s family, spoke at the presser and explained that Mendoza, a 60-year-old diagnosed with diabetes and Valley fever, has been placed in isolation without any access to viable medical treatment while in ICE custody in Florence, Arizona. 

This, unfortunately, isn’t the first time ICE has been reported to have kept detainees in inhumane conditions, including those with medical conditions. It has been almost a year since Arbella “Yari” Rodríguez Márquez, a local woman suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, is being detained at the Eloy detention center without access to adequate medical care, her loved ones say. 

“[Mendoza] is a lot more than just an immigrant. He’s a lot more than just a day laborer… He has been here for over 30 years. He was here seeking work, and he has been working to provide for himself and his family. He has done nothing wrong,” Andiola said. “If they are sick, they are not taken care of. They are isolated. That is a type of inhumane treatment our people are going through, and that’s what Fernando had to go through. Why? Because he was seeking work at Home Depot.” 

Mendoza’s family stood alongside Andiola as well as protestors and organizers from VetsForward, Semillas Arizona and Proyecto Progreso — all grassroots groups that have been at the forefront of additional protests, know-your-rights trainings and press conferences to address ICE activity in Arizona.

And while Democrats are calling for an increase in training for ICE agents — a training period that was originally five months, which has since been reduced to an unspecified amount of time, according to reporting from Poynter News — their constituents present at the Home Depot protest that morning were not only demanding Mendoza’s release, but were also calling for the disbandment of ICE entirely. 

“You have people who are untrained. You have people that don’t know how to de-escalate. Every single time that we see ICE out in public with the people, they always escalate the situation, whether it’s in a stop with a vehicle or whether it’s here at Home Depot,” Ricardo Reyes, a Marine veteran and executive director of VetsForward, said. “There’s masked men running out of an unmarked van with weapons. We have no idea who these people are. We are supposed to just assume that it’s ICE.” 

A year into this administration, grassroots organizers and civil rights activists in the Valley are activating their communities by setting up rapid response programs to keep track of ICE sightings, they’re offering trainings on how to spot and document ICE agents, connecting volunteers for accompaniment programs to assist migrants who are at risk of being detained at immigration court hearings and continue pop-up protests citywide to continue spreading awareness for those in ICE custody.  

“Right now, we cannot wait for the police or for the Army to mobilize in our protection, because they’re not… Most of these policing institutions are being federalized and we need to recognize that. We need to mobilize and we need to talk to each other. We cannot centralize the movement,” Joel Cornejo, the executive director and organizer at Semillas, said.

Following the press conference, organizers marched alongside Mendoza’s family and dozens of protestors around the Home Depot lot and posted up along Thomas Street, encouraged by honks of support and words of praise from passing motorists.

“Donald Trump’s not going to be there forever. In a year, Democrats are going to have the majority. That means you’re going to have to answer for everything that you’ve done,” Reyes said, signaling the upcoming midterm elections. “You will be found. You will be held accountable for all these atrocities that you are doing.”

Analisa Valdez (she/her) is a freelance journalist based in Phoenix. Her reporting includes community & culture, social justice, arts, business, and politics.