A tense standoff unfolded at the Ontario Advanced Surgery Center in Southern California when staff members intervened to prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from detaining a Honduran landscaper. The incident, captured on video and shared widely on social media, shows clinic staff in blue scrubs confronting an armed ICE agent who was attempting to detain the man. One staff member is heard saying, “Get your hands off of him. You don’t even have a warrant. Let him go. You need to get out.”
The Department of Homeland Security stated that officers were conducting a targeted operation to arrest two men illegally present in the country when the 30-year-old Honduran man fled into the clinic. ICE claims the surgery center staff “assaulted law enforcement” and tried to obstruct the arrest. Javier Hernandez, executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, said the agents eventually arrested the man, who was sending money to Honduras for his mother’s dialysis treatments. Hernandez expressed doubt over ICE’s claim of a targeted operation, noting that agents also questioned two co-workers who were found to have legal status.
Hernandez praised the clinic staff’s courage in standing up to the agents, highlighting the increasing frequency and violence of such detentions.
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