While federal agents working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) are running up on migrant workers in Home Depot parking lots, the home improvement corporation has decided to take a stand — against the migrant workers.
Reporting by The Guardian reveals a cruel new initiative being rolled out to one high-traffic Home Depot location in Los Angeles’ Cypress Park: high-pitched noise machines meant to shoo away day laborers.
The Intituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (Idepsca), an advocacy group for migrant workers, is calling for the removal of three sonic devices they say are causing migrant workers to suffer headaches and nausea.
In some areas, it’s common for day laborers to congregate outside home improvement stores like Home Depot, where they can find new gigs, catch rides to job sites, and quickly buy new equipment or material. It’s all part of the informal gig economy, a system which exploits poor and working class people for cheap labor.
Home Depot’s sound devices, advocates say, are punishing these folks at the bottom of the ladder.
“They chose to weaponize sound,” Los Angeles city councilwoman Eunisses Hernandes said at a conference. “Devices like these are used as torture against our people.”
One worker described to The Guardian how he has to wear ear plugs to block the excruciating noise, saying it “penetrates your bones.”
Hernandez also said that the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has begun using the devices on its property.
“This is the people’s land,” she said. “This is Caltrans land that is owned by Californians who pay taxes. The people’s land is being used to torture the people.”
The noise machine evokes tales of a mythic weapon supposedly responsible for the ailment known as “Havana syndrome,” which specifically seems to effect US intelligence officers stationed in Havana, Cuba.
... continue reading