Staff at a California surgical center were captured on video attempting to stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from arresting a Honduran man earlier this week, with one employee reportedly telling an agent, “You don’t even have a warrant for him.”
The incident occurred Tuesday, July 8, at the Ontario Advanced Surgery Center, roughly 30 miles east of Los Angeles. In the video, a staff member in blue scrubs can be heard shouting at agents: “Get your hands off of him… Let him go. You need to get out,” as she shields the man from arrest.
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE officers were conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” to apprehend two individuals suspected of being in the country illegally. The agency said agents—wearing clearly marked ICE vests—approached the men as they exited a vehicle, prompting one of them, Denis Guillen-Solis, to flee on foot.
Guillen-Solis ran toward the surgical center, where the situation escalated. DHS claims that staff “assaulted law enforcement, dragged the officer and illegal alien into the facility,” and then attempted to block the arrest by locking the door, preventing ICE vehicles from leaving, and calling local police to report a ‘kidnapping.’
Video from the scene shows agents struggling to gain control of the man inside the facility as staff members physically intervene.
Javier Hernandez, executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, told the Associated Press that the man was eventually taken into custody following the chaotic scene inside the clinic. Hernandez added that Guillen-Solis had been working as a landscaper and was sending money home to Honduras to help pay for his mother’s dialysis treatments.
The incident adds to a growing number of tense confrontations between immigration agents and local communities in California. On the same day, protesters reportedly clashed with ICE agents wielding batons outside the San Francisco Immigration Court. Two days later, a separate immigration operation targeting a marijuana farm north of Los Angeles also sparked protests and confrontations.
The Biden administration has faced increasing criticism from immigrant-rights advocates, but the Trump administration’s reimplementation of strict enforcement tactics has triggered further outrage across sanctuary states like California.
