By Sarah Nassauer, Sean McLain and Haley Zimmerman

President Trump's immigration crackdown is starting to show up in and around the parking lots of Home Depot stores across the country.

The usual crowds of day laborers have begun to dwindle, scared off by increasing and unannounced immigration raids. These laborers often lack legal status in the U.S.

Outside a Home Depot in northern New Jersey on Tuesday, a handful of people -- far fewer than would have come a few months ago -- waited for contractors to come by. At two locations in Los Angeles, the few men who showed up were told by store security to stay on the sidewalk. And at three Home Depot stores around Houston, there were no laborers in sight.

The Trump administration's sweeping deportations threaten a symbiotic and contentious relationship that stretches back decades. The laborers provide a service for Home Depot's customers -- contractors and homeowners -- in need of help on construction projects. Officially, Home Depot doesn't endorse the activities.

Home Depot has long had a "no solicitation" policy. It means that laborers can only gather off store property, a Home Depot spokeswoman said.

The company has been criticized by both pro- and anti-immigrant camps. Some groups have attacked Home Depot for acting as a facilitator for an undocumented workforce; other groups have pressed the company to do more to make these workers' conditions better.

Immigration agents conducted a sweep Friday at a strip mall that includes a Home Depot in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Westlake in Los Angeles. It set off days of protests around Los Angeles County. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a number of other raids in the region over the weekend, including at other Home Depot locations.

In late May, Stephen Miller, a top White House aide and architect of the president's immigration agenda, asked ICE officials to step up the pace of immigrant deportations, including in Home Depot parking lots and at 7-Eleven stores, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Home Depot hasn't been notified when immigration raids are happening around their stores and isn't involved in any type of coordination with immigration officials, the company spokeswoman said.

In Los Angeles, Home Depot regional leaders have reminded store managers that they should quickly report any immigration actions near their stores to corporate headquarters, said the Home Depot spokeswoman. The regional leaders also have reminded workers to avoid interactions with immigration officials for their own safety, she said. Home Depot offers workers in affected areas the option to leave work with pay, she said.

In April, Customs and Border Protection agents detained at least nine day laborers outside a Home Depot in Pomona, Calif. The agents had traveled to Pomona, where they arrested Martin Majin-Leon, a Mexican immigrant, at gunpoint in the parking lot of his business, according to court records. The agents then went to a nearby Home Depot for a debriefing, according to the court records. There, the agents saw day laborers trying to leave and arrested them.

In May, a federal judge in San Diego issued a temporary restraining order halting the expedited removal of three Guatemalans picked up that day. "Serious questions remain as to whether these encounters were lawful," the judge wrote. The government canceled expedited removal orders for the three men and is now seeking to deport them in removal proceedings before an immigration judge.

A spokesman for CBP said the agency does not comment on events associated with active or pending litigation.

Home Depot acknowledges that day laborers are a well-known feature of some stores. The company has reported sluggish sales in recent quarters, after a Covid-era boom when many consumers spent heavily on home-improvement projects. Professional contractors have long made up a large part of Home Depot's shopper base, and the retailer has worked to attract even more of them in recent years and for a wider selection of goods. Laborers outside Home Depot often find work with these contractors.

Groups of day laborers tend to congregate around Home Depot's metro locations, the company spokeswoman said.

The Westlake strip mall where Friday's raid occurred was developed with the informal workforce in mind, said Martha Arévalo, executive director of the Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles. Arévalo's organization operates a support center for day laborers there, providing a bathroom, snacks, water, services and training, she said. The group estimates that about eight laborers were detained in Friday's raid.

"Now a handful of workers are in the parking lot, when it used to be hundreds," she said Tuesday. Management at the local Home Depot store has resisted joining with the group to offer bathroom privileges, and store security is generally aggressive with day laborers, she said.

"We'd love to collaborate with them," said Arévalo, but "Home Depot has never been an entity where it's been easy to work with them."

Ten miles south, in the parking lot of a Home Depot on the west side of Los Angeles on Tuesday, dozens of pickups and panel vans were being loaded with lumber and drywall. Absent were the normal group of day laborers who walk up to vehicles, looking for work.

Standing on the sidewalk at the parking lot exit, a group of eight men tried to wave down vehicles as they exited the lot, shouting in English and Spanish: "You have work?"

A security guard in the parking lot had told them to stay on the sidewalk, the men said.

Write to Sarah Nassauer at Sarah.Nassauer@wsj.com, Sean McLain at sean.mclain@wsj.com and Haley Zimmerman at haley.zimmerman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 11, 2025 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)

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