One of these organizations is the Save America Movement, which runs the Liberty Vans and includes a bipartisan leadership that is far more politically connected than that of many grassroots organizations. The group was founded by Steve Schmidt, a former top aide to Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Mary Corcoran, a longtime public relations specialist, with a steering committee<\/a> that includes law professors, pastors and strategists. <\/p>\n On this particular Friday, Fabian N\u00fa\u00f1ez \u2014 a member of that steering committee who previously served as speaker of the California Assembly \u2014 was one of those who hopped out of the Liberty Van. He chatted with a day laborer who stopped by to grab a snack, and explained they were there to film any interactions with federal agents, as part of their national rapid-response effort.<\/p>\n The day laborer said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have previously detained other workers at the Panorama City Home Depot and have returned frequently. \u201cMany times,\u201d he said. \u201cFive or six.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the repeated raids, the laborer said workers like himself have little choice but to keep showing up.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have to keep coming,\u201d he said. \u201cOne has to pay the bills.\u201d<\/p>\n The Save America Movement launched the vans first in L.A. and then in Chicago<\/a> and Charlotte, N.C., where federal immigration agents were raiding heavily Latino areas. The motivation behind the project was to provide support and help people understand the impact of the daily immigration raids, Corcoran said in an interview. Outside California, she said, many people don\u2019t get it. <\/p>\n \u201cIf they did, I believe there would be much more urgency around what\u2019s happening,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The vans were inspired by the Liberty ships and Victory ships during World War ll that provided supplies and other relief to the U.S. and its allies<\/a>.<\/p>\n The teams that run the vans document and record video, with the footage published online so the public can watch the enforcement actions and hear testimonies from affected local residents, she said.<\/p>\n For months, the Trump administration has argued that it is merely enforcing the law<\/a> \u2014 and fulfilling a campaign promise \u2014 by detaining and deporting immigrants who lack documentation. But some enforcement actions by ICE and Border Patrol agents have resulted in U.S. citizens being detained<\/a>. Others have been criticized for being unnecessarily violent and traumatizing<\/a>. <\/p>\n Fabian N\u00fa\u00f1ez, a Save America Movement steering committee member who previously served as speaker of the California Assembly, talks with a laborer who stopped by the Liberty Van for some snacks in the parking lot of a Panorama City Home Depot on Nov. 21, 2025.<\/p>\n (Myung J. Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n In Los Angeles, the Save America Movement first launched its vans in MacArthur Park in September, just two months after immigration agents on horses and armored vehicles descended<\/a> on the area carrying rifles and tactical gear.<\/p>\n City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez \u2014 whose district spans from Highland Park, Chinatown and south to Pico-Union \u2014 welcomed the group\u2019s effort, which she described as a tool in a movement of resistance.<\/p>\n Alejandro Maciel, the L.A. bureau chief for the organization and a former Los Angeles Times journalist, takes the van out roughly five times a week, starting around 6 a.m. and wrapping up late into the afternoon. Maciel and volunteers drive to Home Depots across Southern California, going north to Ventura County, east to the Inland Empire and south to Orange County.<\/p>\n On Friday, the van ride included the Rev. Madison Jones McAleese, Navy veteran Brian Kelly and immigration lawyer Juan Jose Gutierrez, who can offer legal support to families or offer \u201cknow your right\u201d basics to laborers. And to capture it all was cameraman Ren\u00e9 Miranda, who started covering raids when a large protest broke out in Paramount<\/a>, where he lives. <\/p>\n For McAleese, she said she felt it was her duty to be part of the effort to stand against the raids because of what she views as unlawful actions being taken by ICE enforcement. McAleese carries holy water and offers to pray with any one who seeks prayer. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I have a choice,\u201d she said. \u201cGod is reflected in the face of every immigrant, documented and undocumented.\u201d <\/p>\n As they headed to the next location, Maciel pulled up on his phone StopIce.Net<\/a>, a website on which people submit reports of ICE activity. Just the day before, there was a raid in Long Beach, later confirmed by local media reports, and nine people were detained<\/a> by masked agents, an L.A. County official said.<\/p>\n The San Fernando Valley was quiet that Friday, but Maciel said it has been important to establish and maintain relationships with both workers and organizers who have created rapid response networks. When he drives the van to a site, he said, he greets such organizers and makes sure the laborers understand they are there to help. <\/p>\n Ernesto Ayala, the site coordinator at the Van Nuys Day Labor Center in the Home Depot parking lot, said ICE agents have been to the site several times, as recently as a few weeks ago. At the Van Nuys Home Depot, volunteers monitor each entry point of the parking lot and alert the center of any suspicious vehicles that could contain federal agents.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very traumatic,\u201d Ayala said of the continuing raids. Ayala himself was detained and sprayed with an irritant by agents after they held him down and accused him of interfering. He was arrested but never charged with any crime, he said.<\/p>\n Organizations such as the Save America Movement help with videos and other documentation that could be used in potential litigation against ICE in the future, Ayala said. He said his arrest was recorded from a distance by a witness.<\/p>\n In October, the organization said<\/a> video by a Save America Movement photojournalist in Chicago recorded federal agents deploying tear gas against protesters and pointing weapons at journalists, which at the time violated a federal court order. The organization made that footage available online<\/a> with time stamps and annotations. <\/p>\n Along with documenting interactions, N\u00fa\u00f1ez said, the group hopes to remind ICE agents of the human impact and make them question their actions, and to move viewers. Such footage, he said, could help Americans see \u201cthat these Gestapo-like tactics are happening and they\u2019re being utilized with our tax dollars.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe think we can convince them to move, to think more compassionately about people and think: Is this the America I signed up for?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Liberty Van rolled into the Home Depot, its driver slowed, lowered the window and waved at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6650,41593,15125,41594,41595,8684,2871,48,52,51,41591,47,50,49,63,1768,592,20396,41596,41592,41597],"class_list":["post-70569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-action","tag-alejandro-maciel","tag-day-laborer","tag-diverse-group","tag-ernesto-ayala","tag-federal-immigration-agent","tag-ice","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-liberty-van","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-organization","tag-people","tag-raid","tag-record-video","tag-save-america-movement","tag-u-s-citizenship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n