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For a year now, Trump administration officials have insisted their immigration crackdown is going after, quote, "the worst of the worst," yet most immigrants rounded up have no significant criminal records. Many have been day laborers, cooks, landscapers and street vendors. This week, federal agents apprehended a beloved fruit seller in Los Angeles. NPR's Adrian Florido was there.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: I love sliced fruit, and for seven years, my go-to vendor has been a man named Jesus. I could always find him under two large, rainbow umbrellas next to a gas station in my neighborhood, Echo Park. I visited him two or three times a week. The plate of sliced mango, pineapple, watermelon and coconut he sold me was always perfect. He once told me it was because he would not slice fruit even a day under ripe or a day over ripe. Quality is how you keep or lose a customer, he said. And he was right. It's why I rarely bought from anyone but him.
Jesus was undocumented, so recently, he'd been taking more days off. He feared the federal immigration agents roving LA's streets. But on Tuesday, there he was sitting under his rainbow umbrella, in a folding chair, scanning the street for signs of immigration agents. He greeted me with a big, mustached smile. I didn't see you yesterday, I told him in Spanish. (Speaking Spanish), he said. There's been a lot of immigration agents around. He sliced my order and topped it with a squirt of lemon and chili powder the way he knew I liked it. I paid him, told him to take care and got back into my car.
And that is when I heard a scuffle. Two large, dark SUVs had rolled up. I saw masked agents in Border Patrol vests chase Jesus out from under his rainbow umbrella and across the gas station. He ran between the pumps, and that's where they grabbed and handcuffed him, still wearing his black apron.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR HORNS BEEPING)
FLORIDO: I got out of the car and started to film. I realized that after all these years, I knew his hometown in Mexico, his birthday, that he had no family in Los Angeles, but not his last name. As the agents hurried him to an SUV, I shouted out to ask him.
Jesus, (speaking Spanish)?
JESUS GONZALEZ: Gonzalez (ph).
FLORIDO: Gonzalez.
I and two women who'd been pumping gas followed the agents to the SUV and shouted for Jesus' phone number.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: (Speaking Spanish).
But they pushed him inside and sped off. It was all over in about a minute. We stood there in shock. I walked over to Jesus Gonzalez's abandoned fruit cart.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: I just ran down here 'cause I live right around the corner.
FLORIDO: As word spread, activists, customers and friends of Jesus' started showing up. One of his friends took down the umbrellas and packed up the fruit cart...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: ...Its glass case still brimming with cantaloupe, mango and pineapple packed on ice. Jorge Mejia, a longtime customer, told me what I already knew, that Jesus cared about his customers and about quality, and that's why people loved him.
JORGE MEJIA: (Speaking Spanish, crying).
FLORIDO: "I feel helpless," Mejia said. "It angers me that this is happening to people just working and trying to get ahead." The next morning, I learned from a customer and friend of Jesus' that he was already in Tijuana, Mexico. He had agreed to be deported because he feared languishing for months in LA's notorious immigration detention center. For the last two days, I've driven by his corner and struggled to make sense of the fact that someone who brought so much simple joy to my neighborhood had been whisked away and that that corner will never be the same. Adrian Florido, NPR News, Los Angeles.
(SOUNDBITE OF TALISMAN'S "AIR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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