From the street it looked like a small construction job. On the roof, workers could be seen on video jumping between houses as federal agents closed in.
That brief sequence, recorded in Montebello, California, and first described by Fox News, has become a case study in how immigration enforcement plays out far from the border. Federal officials say five people were arrested. A local supervisor initially insisted no one was taken into custody. Almost everything else about the raid remains out of public view.
The Montebello Rooftop Chase
The incident unfolded at a single-story house in Montebello, a city in Los Angeles County. Montebello sits in a heavily populated area of Southern California, far from any physical land border, but within the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, and its immigration agencies.
According to Fox News, video of the incident shows several workers scrambling up a ladder onto the roof of the home as federal vehicles arrive outside the property. Once on the roof, two people move quickly toward the ladder. One person appears to try to knock the ladder to the ground. An officer below catches it and props it back against the house, keeping a way up for agents and a way down for the workers.
The video then shows the workers splitting up and jumping to adjacent rooftops as they attempt to escape the scene. The footage, which Fox News published as a short clip, has not been released by DHS itself in full. Independent outlets, including this one, have not reviewed the raw video or any underlying law enforcement reports.
A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the activity was a U.S. Border Patrol “enforcement operation in the Montebello area.” Border Patrol is part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which describes its mission as securing the nation’s borders and carrying out related enforcement activities across the country, including at and between ports of entry, airports, and coastal regions (cbp.gov).
In a statement to Fox News, the DHS spokesperson said, “These operations resulted in the arrest of five illegal aliens from Mexico and Guatemala who have all broken the immigration laws of this country. These individuals will remain in custody pending further immigration proceedings.” (Fox News).
The spokesperson’s language reflects the terminology DHS used at the time. This article uses “workers” or “people without legal status” except when quoting directly from official or contemporaneous statements.
Conflicting Accounts From The Worksite
Fox News reported that the enforcement action targeted a small construction site. Local station ABC7, which also covered the episode, described the individuals on the roof as workers and quoted their boss as initially claiming that no one had been detained at all, even as video of the rooftop flight circulated (ABC7).
DHS later confirmed to Fox News that five people had been arrested during the operation. The agency described them as nationals of Mexico and Guatemala, all accused of being in the United States in violation of federal immigration law. Those basic facts, including the number and nationalities of those detained, come entirely from DHS. No public charging documents or case files tied specifically to this Montebello worksite have been made available.
The discrepancy between the supervisor’s early claim that no one had been detained and DHS’s confirmation that five people were in custody illustrates a common gap in public understanding of immigration raids. Workers or supervisors may only see part of what happens at or near a worksite. Federal agents may apprehend people in the immediate area, away from the central scene. Agencies then release limited information, often without names, case numbers, or detailed narratives.
It is not clear from public reporting whether any of the five people DHS says it arrested that day remain in the United States. DHS did not publicly state whether they sought asylum or other relief, whether any were released on bond, or whether any were ultimately deported. Immigration court records that might answer those questions are case specific and are not automatically linked to a particular raid location.
What DHS Says About The Raid
DHS framed the Montebello operation as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to increase immigration enforcement across the country. According to Fox News, officials described it as occurring while the White House was preparing what it called the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, a goal that drew resistance from so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that limit local cooperation with federal immigration authorities (Fox News).
At the federal level, DHS and its components conduct worksite operations under a mix of civil and criminal authorities. People without legal status can face civil removal proceedings, which may result in deportation and future bars on returning to the United States. Employers who knowingly hire workers without authorization can face civil fines or, in rarer cases, criminal charges. DHS’s public statements about the Montebello operation focus entirely on the workers, not on the employer who hired them.
DHS did not state whether agents served any warrants on the business, whether they inspected employment records, or whether they referred the employer for any civil or criminal enforcement. Those details matter, because they determine whether a worksite operation targets only undocumented workers or also holds employers accountable for alleged violations of hiring laws.
There is also limited information about which specific agency led the operation. DHS called it a Border Patrol enforcement action, but workplace operations inside the country have historically been associated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. DHS did not publicly explain why Border Patrol agents were deployed to a residential construction site in Montebello or what intelligence led them there.
California’s Legal Landscape And Local Tensions
Montebello lies in Los Angeles County, a region that has, in recent years, taken a more restrictive approach to cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. California’s statewide sanctuary law, often referred to as the California Values Act, limits when local law enforcement can share certain information or resources with federal immigration authorities, while still allowing direct federal operations (California Attorney General).
Nothing in public reporting about the Montebello raid indicates that local police or county sheriffs participated in the enforcement action. DHS describes it as a federal Border Patrol operation. That would be consistent with California’s framework, which does not bar federal agents from carrying out their own arrests but does restrict some forms of local assistance.
California labor agencies, separate from immigration authorities, have their own jurisdiction over wage theft, safety violations, and other workplace issues. There is no public indication that any state labor agency opened an investigation into the Montebello construction site or the employer that hired the workers seen on the roof. Without such inquiries, the only legal consequences identified so far fall on the workers themselves.
What We Still Do Not Know
This Montebello case highlights just how much of immigration enforcement happens out of public view, even when video of a single dramatic moment briefly surfaces.
Key unanswered questions remain.
Item 1: The legal basis for the raid. DHS has not released any warrants, affidavits, or internal directives that would show what information led Border Patrol to this specific address or what legal authority agents relied on to enter the property and detain workers.
Item 2: The status of the five people DHS says it arrested. Public reporting does not identify them by name, nor does it trace what happened in their immigration cases after they were taken into custody. It is not known if any of them had prior removal orders, criminal convictions, or pending applications for legal status.
Item 3: Any investigation of the employer. There is no public documentation that the business owner or contractor who hired the workers faced inspections, fines, or other enforcement related to the hiring of people without work authorization.
Item 4: Safety protocols during the rooftop flight. From the limited video Fox News described, workers appeared to jump between one-story rooftops without safety harnesses or ropes as agents approached. Federal agencies have internal policies about minimizing risk during enforcement, but DHS has not said whether any review took place of how this operation unfolded or whether any changes were made afterward.
Without answers to those questions, the public record of the Montebello raid consists of a short rooftop video, a brief DHS statement citing five arrests, and a contradiction between what a supervisor believed at the scene and what the government later confirmed. The people whose lives changed that day are named only in internal case files, not in any official narrative the public can see.
