The car wash had not yet opened, but its owner was already on edge.
He scanned the street for law enforcement vehicles and hit refresh on a crowdsourced map that showed recent immigration checks.
“They were busy in our area yesterday,” he warned his employees. “Be careful.”
But short of staying home, the workers, mostly men from Mexico, could take few precautions.
The business is located on one of the busiest thoroughfares in Los Angeles. Workers are exposed to the outdoors while cleaning, waxing and polishing the parade of vehicles that runs from 7am to 4pm, seven days a week.
Immigration agents targeted the business several times this summer as part of a broader campaign against Los Angeles car washes. Masked men took away about a dozen workers, most of whom were quickly deported. The Times does not identify the company, owner or employees.
The raids scared the remaining employees, and many stopped coming to work. As replacements, the owner hired mostly other immigrants who showed him Social Security cards that he hoped were legitimate.
However, it was no secret that the car wash, which paid low wages for grueling work, mainly attracted people without legal status.
“Americans don’t want to do this work,” the owner said.
Following the raids, it was forced to close for some time during the usually lucrative summer months. Now he was back to business as usual, but sales were down, his credit cards were maxed out, and he wasn't sure if his business would survive. Clients, frightened by the raids, stayed away.
“My goal is to pay the rent, pay the insurance and pay the guys,” the owner told his manager as they sipped coffee in the early November chill and waited for their first client. “That's it.”
The manager, also an immigrant from Mexico, nodded. He juggled his boss's concerns with his personal ones. He and his team have seen friends, family and colleagues disappear in immigration raids. Every morning he left home, wondering whether he would return in the evening.
The car wash once had a light-hearted atmosphere, with employees joking as they sprayed cars and polished windows. Now everyone, including the manager, watched the street while working. “We say we’re fine,” he said. “But we're all scared.”
A few minutes before 7 a.m., a BMW sedan arrived at the car wash. The manager turned on the vacuum cleaner and said a prayer.
“Protect me. Protect my colleagues. And protect the place where I work.”
The owner was born overseas but moved to Los Angeles after winning the US green card lottery.
He used his savings to buy a car wash, which seemed like a good investment at the time. There are about 36 million cars in California. And in Los Angeles, at least for most of the year, people can't rely on rain to keep things clean.
His business already took a major financial hit this year during wildfires in Los Angeles that filled the air with smoke and ash. Customers didn't bother cleaning cars they knew would get dirty again.
Then came President Trump, who promised to deport record numbers of migrants.
I'm not brave. I need a job
— Car wash employee
Previous administrations have focused on expelling immigrants who have committed crimes. But federal agents, forced to meet arrest quotas, have widened their net significantly, targeting public workplaces that pay low wages.
Car wash employees, as well as street vendors, day laborers, farm workers and gardeners have become low hanging fruit. Since June, at least 340 people have been detained in raids at 100 car washes across Southern California, according to the CLEAN Car Wash Workers Center, which advocates for workers in the industry.
The owner was shocked when agents with rifles and body armor first burst into his store, blocking the exits with their cars and handcuffing employees without even producing a search warrant.
“It was a kidnapping,” he said. “It felt like we were in Afghanistan or Iraq rather than in downtown Los Angeles.”
Some of the men agents dragged away in that and subsequent raids had lived in the United States for decades. Many of them were fathers of American children.
The manager was tormented by survivor's guilt. He was from the same town in Mexico as one of the men detained and later deported. Another worker detained by agents was hired the same morning as the raid.
That's when many employees stopped coming to work. One stayed home for almost a month straight, surviving on food his friends and family brought to his apartment.
But the employee and his brother eventually returned to the car wash. “I’m not brave,” said the brother. “I need a job.”
The brother lived in the country for almost 25 years and had three children born in the United States, one of whom served as a Marine.
He worked all the time at the car wash: squatting to wash tires, stretching on a dry roof and returning home every night with aching heels and knots in his neck. He said less restrictive industries are not suitable for those without valid work documents, especially in the Trump era.
He was at a car wash during one of the raids and only escaped arrest when the owner stood in front of him and demanded that agents talk to him first.
The man said he had come to terms with the idea that his time in the United States might be coming to an end. “At least my kids are grown,” he said.
On this brisk November day, two brothers were working, drying their hands on an Audi, a Mercedes and a classic Porsche. They earned slightly more than minimum wage and received most of the tips.
Their bosses told them that if immigration agents returned, workers should consider locking themselves in the cars they were cleaning. “Don’t run,” the manager said. “They will only harass.”
At the checkout counter, the cashier was browsing a website that tracked Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities throughout the region. So far there has been no activity nearby.
She had been present during the immigration checks and was still angry with herself for not doing anything to stop the agents from taking her colleagues. “You think you can stand up to them, but when you do, it’s different,” she said. “I was like a deer in headlights.”
While workers cleaned his Toyota Camry, a retired history professor waited on a bench and read a biography of Ulysses S. Grant. The ICE raids scared off some customers but prompted others to show their support. He said he decided to patronize the business because he was angry at the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
“They're not getting the worst of the worst, they're getting the easiest,” he said.
He noted that his friend, a Hispanic man born in the United States, now has a copy of his birth certificate. Just in case.
“This is not the America I grew up in,” the buyer said.
The car wash owner was also trying to reconcile the promises of the United States with the reality in which he lived.
“I thought Trump was a businessman,” he said. “But he does terrorize businesses.”
According to him, the owner paid taxes on his employee's income. They too. “They were pushing the economy, paying rent, paying insurance, buying things.”
“Okay, get the criminals, get the bad guys,” he continued. “But these are hard workers. Criminals don't work at a car wash or wait in front of a home improvement warehouse.”
The owner recently received American citizenship. But he was frustrated—by the raids, by the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, by high health care costs. He said his wife was eager to leave the United States and return home.
“This is not the American dream,” he said. “This is the American nightmare.”
As the sun began to sink below the horizon, the last car of the day—a sparkling clean Tesla—drove out of the car wash.
The manager turned off the vacuum cleaner, threw back the hoses and exhaled with relief. He and his staff survived another day. Tonight—at least—they would go home to their families.
