The War Inside 7-Eleven

The sun hadn’t yet risen over Gurtar Sandhu’s 7-Eleven store near downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 10 when four plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swarmed inside. The place was busy; a lot of Sandhu’s customers are day laborers and other working people who start early. As dozens of customers poured themselves coffee and lined up to pay for morning snacks, the agents flashed badges and told employees to stay put. Three other agents, wearing dark ICE jackets, guarded the entrance, blocking anyone from coming in. The tension was heightened when one cashier darted out the back door into the dawn.

The night manager, Billy Davenport, watched from near the coffee urns. One of the agents handed him paperwork giving Sandhu 72 hours to produce records about every person who’d worked there in the past three years. Then the agents fired questions at Davenport and the other four employees left in the store: Do you have identification? Where were you born? How long have you been in America?