Two weeks after a federal immigration raid outside a Pomona Home Depot, activists called for the release of those detained.

“We demand the release of all the day laborers abducted by border patrol on April 22, 2025, for the constitutionally protected act of waiting for work,” Claudia Bautista Perales, executive director of the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, told those assembled at a news conference Tuesday, May 6, outside Pomona Superior Court, across from Pomona City Hall.

According to a post by the center on Instagram, none of the three men detained in April — identified as Jesus Domingo Ros, Edwin Roberto Juarez and Yoni Ronaldo Garcia — have a criminal record.

Immigration rights organizations, legal advocates and family members of the three Guatemalan men reportedly detained after the Home Depot raid gathered Tuesday to call for the immediate release of the men. Protesters held up signs in English and Spanish, reading “Free the Pomona Jornaleros,” meaning day laborers.

“I’m asking for my son’s release,” said Garcia’s father, who just gave his name as Bernardo. “He’s a worker, a day laborer, with no criminal record.”

All men three had been scheduled to have a bond hearing Tuesday morning. But according to Alexis Teodoro, worker rights director at the PEOC, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement representatives told the court the three men had been in the country for less than a year and thus qualified for an expedited deportation process. The three are scheduled to have a follow-up bond hearing Friday.

“We demand that their due process rights are respected, that they are at least given the opportunity to post bond,” Perales said.

A request for information from federal immigration officials had not been answered by midday Tuesday.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump said he “didn’t know” if he had to follow the Constitution and allow the people he’s deporting to have due process, as required under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

“It might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We have thousands of people that are — some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.

“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he continued.

During his second term in office, Trump has conducted an unprecedented immigration enforcement campaign. The White House’s stated goal is deporting 1 million people a year. According to his administration, between his inauguration on Jan. 20 and April 1, more than 100,000 undocumented immigrants have been deported.

The speakers are Tuesday’s news conference said the three detained men pose no threat to the public.

“They are not a flight risk or a safety risk to the community,” Perales said. “Jesus, Edwin and Yoni have been here for more than two years.”

She asked the community to show their support for the three Guatemalan immigrants by calling the Imperial Regional Detention Facility, an ICE detention facility in Calexico.

On April 22, federal agents detained a group of day laborers in a Home Depot parking lot at 2707 S. Towne Ave. in Pomona. Between 15 and 20 day laborers were reportedly taken into custody. At Tuesday’s news conference, speakers said the location of some of the other people detained is still unknown.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, two people were targeted in the operation at Home Depot, including one with an alleged active arrest warrant and another facing an alleged felony immigration charge. Others detained during the Pomona operation, according to the DHS official, were suspected of being in the country illegally. Among those taken into custody were allegedly those who had previously faced charges of child abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, DUI, forgery and drug possession. It’s not clear if those charges were for a single person.

People who are deported after being convicted of certain crimes — including drug crimes, assault or a broad category of crimes referred to as “aggravated felonies” — who then reenter the United States without authorization are guilty of a felony, under federal law.

Both Home Depot and the Pomona police said they had no knowledge of the April 22 raid before it happened and did not participate in it.

On May 1, Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff and Rep. Norma Torres sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding answers about the Home Depot raid and two others that took place in the city in late April. The letter cites Pomona barber Martin Majin-Leon being detained at gunpoint in front of his barbershop on April 22, and a raid at a Pomona auto body shop on April 25.

More about immigration in Southern California

• Federal immigration agents detain day laborers in a Pomona Home Depot parking lot
• Undocumented workers still look for jobs in Pomona after immigration raid
• Trump’s executive order targeting ‘sanctuary’ laws called ‘extortion,’ xenophobic
• Schiff, Padilla, Torres demand answers after Pomona immigration raid