Gilberto Gomez-Garcia has been working at the car wash for over 20 years to provide for his children.
His daughter tells Eyewitness News that the family had become increasingly fearful that this would happen, even sitting down to make a checklist of action items to take care of, just in case. They were hoping for the best while preparing for the worst, and now, they're navigating their difficult new reality.
"That morning, my dad had told me that he had a dream. He had a dream that ICE came to his job," said one of Gomez-Garcia's children, Andrea.
That dream, hours later, turned into a nightmare as the Anaheim car wash where he works on State College Boulevard and La Palma Avenue was raided by federal immigration agents on July 3.
Bystanders captured cellphone video of the incident, showing the chaotic moment Gomez-Garcia and several others were taken into custody around 10 a.m.
According to his family, Gomez-Garcia is originally from Colima, Mexico, and has been working at the Anaheim car wash for over 20 years. He was working to provide for his children, ages 21, 19, and 18.
"It was just so heartbreaking seeing how they treated them, how they just took them," 19-year-old Andrea said. "He is the most hardworking man I've ever known. He worked 10-hour shifts every single day for the past 20 years to provide for me and my family."
Andrea is calling her father's detention a kidnapping, saying things worsened as her father was transported to the L.A. County processing center.
"A bystander threw a rock at the ICE van and the window shattered," Andrea said. "My dad had to drive a whole hour all the way to L.A. with glass in his eyes, glass in his face, until he got actual treatment."
Days after he was taken into custody, Gomez-Garcia's family saw him for the first time. They say he has various medical issues, including suffering from seizures, diabetes, and high blood pressure. He was still wearing the same blue work shirt he had on when he was taken into custody.
"They are offering those papers often, to people to go ahead and self-deport themselves," Andrea said. "We did tell him to not sign the papers, that we will figure it out as a family, and that we will suffer if we have to suffer to get him out of there."
The family is doing what they can to help him. They held a community car wash on Sunday to raise funds for his legal proceedings. They have also set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for legal aid as they work to free their father from custody.