A transportation services company rebuked the Trump administration after its rental trucks were used during an immigration raid in Los Angeles by Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and CNN's Pamela Brown was surprised by its vehement opposition to the move.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents hid in the back of Penske box trucks as they pulled up to a Los Angeles-area Home Depot store as part of "Operation Trojan Horse," advertising work to the day laborers there, and witnesses say they jumped out of the rear doors and started detaining anyone nearby.
"Los Angeles has, in many ways, been the epicenter of the aggressive immigration strategy that the Trump administration has been executing on, and the Los Angeles mayor [Karen Bass] has been the face of the opposition in that, and she weighed in on this yesterday, calling it unacceptable," reported CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.
A federal judge temporarily blocked federal agents last month from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate arrests, and last week the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that order.
"A federal judge did order or rather block the Trump administration from indiscriminate operations, which appears to be what was happening here, because what the video shows us is U.S. Border Patrol agents going into this moving truck, then unloading in a Los Angeles Home Depot parking lot where, according to the Department of Homeland Security, they arrested 16 undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua," Alvarez reported. "Now, in addition to the pushback from Los Angeles, there has been pushback from the company of this truck, that would be the Penske truck."
The company stated that "Penske strictly prohibits the transportation of people in the cargo area of its vehicles under any circumstances" and made clear DHS had not notified the company of the way in which its trucks would be used.
"The company was not made aware that its trucks would be used in today's operation and did not authorize this," Penske said in a statement. "Penske will reach out to DHS and reinforce its policy to avoid improper use of its vehicles in the future."
Brown was stunned by the company's statement.
"That was a strong statement from Penske there, saying it didn't authorize this," she said.