Jose left the Home Depot store in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, where three immigration raids have taken place between June and August, with his cart full of hardware products.

Are you aware that today there is a call to the community not to shop at stores like Home Depot, Target, Walmart, and McDonald's in protest of their collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the arrest of immigrants?

Yes, said Jose timidly, to immediately reply that the items purchased were not for him, but rather for the department store he works for, which sent him to do the shopping and he couldn't refuse.

If it were with my money, I wouldn't buy anything. "I don't have the money to buy all of this either," said Jose.

Moises, another Latino who was loading his truck with various items he had purchased at Home Depot, was surprised when we asked him if he knew that today, Tuesday, August 12, was a boycott day in protest against the fierce immigration operations of the last two months carried out at the facilities of corporations where he had just bought something.

"I work in construction. Maybe if I had known about the boycott, I don't know if I would have stopped coming to buy because we have to look for him, but of course it is very wrong that these stores are willing to collaborate with ICE.

Without stopping to put his things away, he said that we must not give up because they want to scare us.

And then he emphasizes: I didn't know anything about the boycott, but we have to keep going.

Roberto, a construction contractor, was sweating profusely placing the sheets of wood that he had just bought at Home Depot in the back of his vehicle with the help of a day laborer who offered to help him.

Did you know that today a boycott was called to not buy in stores like Home Depot because of its collaboration in the arrest of immigrants?

"No, but we can't do anything. These stores have the right to do this. We're the ones who aren't from here," he said, sweat running copiously down his brown face.

Armed with banners and signs repudiating ICE and the Trump Administration, dozens of immigrants took to the streets of Los Angeles and MacArthur Park to support a boycott that urged them not to shop this Tuesday, August 12, at stores like Home Depot, Walmart, Target, and McDonald's for collaborating with immigration arrests.

"They are not going to defeat us. We are taking our city back. We are reclaiming our power. "Your terror will not stop us," said Angelica Salas, leader of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), in an impassioned speech at MacArthur Park, where a riot of federal agents arrived last June to display the force they use to detain immigrants. "This is our park, and we are telling this Administration that all your hate will not stop us. All your federal agents will not stop us. We are a people fighting for our people."

He recalled that they won the lawsuit in court against the agents who were breaking the law by conducting indiscriminate, racist raids, destroying families with their hatred.

"The courts told us we were right, and that these raids had to stop. And what did this Administration and the federal agents do?... they continued the raids."

So," he stated, "they are not going to let them violate their civil rights, which is why they are willing to take to the streets peacefully.

"Here we are and we are not leaving!" It won't be easy, but we're here for the people and for the nation," he shouted as the crowd applauded amidst a scorching sun and threatening temperatures.

Organizations such as CHIRLA, Carecen, and several unions such as the seamstresses demonstrated in favor of a 24-hour commercial boycott.

The demands of this coalition are: an end to the raids and the expansion of detention centers; an end to the military occupation in Los Angeles; a stop to law enforcement collaboration with ICE and the release of detained families.

The call was not only to not buy from corporations but to support local businesses and street vendors, and to join the various demonstrations that took place throughout the day.

The action began at midnight on Tuesday, August 12, with the first work stoppage at a fast-food restaurant near MacArthur Park; and another at five in the morning.

At six in the morning, coffee and breakfast were served at the corner of Park View and Wilshire Boulevard in MacArthur Park. At 10 in the morning, there was a demonstration, and from there a caravan of cars left for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors building in downtown Los Angeles.

At 5:00 p.m., another rally took place at Olvera Plaza, where they marched to the ICE Metropolitan Detention Center a couple of blocks away and held a vigil.

Salvadoran Lorena Zepeda, a beneficiary of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), said that when one immigrant is under attack, everyone is under attack.

Today we embrace DACA, TPS holders, asylum seekers, our undocumented brothers and sisters, and every immigrant who struggles. Today we come to support this boycott, and to show solidarity and the dignity of the people.

Many of the corporations that were called to boycott have had arrests and raids carried out on their facilities.

We are not asking much of these corporations other than to protect the people who go to their stores and businesses. This means putting policies in place to not allow federal immigration agents to enter their properties to terrorize their customers and the communities they kidnap and detain, said Martha Arevalo, director of Carecen in Los Angeles.

We are not going to spend our money in their stores, businesses, and fast food restaurants. We have power and hope, and they will never take that away from us. We make America great, and we're not going to give up.