Three days after federal immigration agents detained day laborers at a Home Depot in Pomona, undocumented immigrants say their need for work still outweighs the dangers of being caught up in another raid.

“Yes, I feel safe, but it’s unexpected. At any moment, we could be taken back,” said Juan Carlos, 20, who has been looking for work outside the store for five years.

Like other day laborers interviewed for this story, he declined to give his last name, fearing legal repercussions.

“We all come for something,” Juan Carlos said through a Spanish-language interpreter. “I come to fulfill my dreams. I just want to work.”

On Tuesday morning, Border Patrol agents detained a group of day laborers at the Home Depot at 2707 S. Towne Ave., according to activists and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis. Between 15 and 20 day laborers were reportedly taken into custody. Their whereabouts have not been made public.

“The raid against day laborers at a Home Depot in Pomona does not make our country safe,” Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said in a news release issued by a coalition of Southern California immigrant rights groups.

Such raids “steal food from children’s mouths and leave families shattered,” Alvarado said. “Like this administration’s many other attacks on immigrants, the Pomona raid is needless, destructive and based on vicious falsehoods.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security, two people were targeted in the operation Tuesday, including one with an alleged active arrest warrant and another facing an alleged felony immigration charge.

People who are deported after being convicted of certain crimes, including drug crimes, assault or a broad category of crimes referred to as “aggravated felonies,” who then reenter the United States without authorization are guilty of a felony, under federal law.

Others detained during the Pomona operation, according to the Homeland Security official, were suspected of being in the country illegally. Among those taken into custody were allegedly those who had previously faced charges of child abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, DUI, forgery and drug possession. It’s unclear if those charges were for a single person. The department did not share the names of those detained on Tuesday, so the Southern California News Group could not verify those charges.

Home Depot was not “notified that this operation was going to happen and we weren’t involved in it,” company spokesperson Beth Marlowe wrote in an email Friday. The company’s “longstanding policy” prohibits anyone selling goods or services in the company’s parking lot, she noted.

The Pomona Police Department does not participate in immigration enforcement and was not involved in the operation at Home Depot, the department wrote on Facebook.

Friday morning at the Towne Avenue store, two women stood behind their cars, shaping masa dough by hand, filling it with cheese and beans, and pressing it onto a hot griddle. They sold $4 pupusas to a small crowd of day laborers who had gathered near their cars.

A handful of laborers stood nearby eating. Others sat in parked trucks, watching and waiting, hoping someone would arrive to offer them work for the day.

Malio, 58, has come to the lot for 10 years, mostly picking up painting jobs.

“We want respect because people come to work and work hard,” Malio said through a Spanish-language interpreter. “A lot of us, we don’t have papers, but we come for our families, for a better future.”

He wasn’t there when federal agents arrived earlier in the week, but said he is still worried.

“I feel scared, but I still come here for work,” he said.

“Most of the people they took were relatives or friends,” he added. “We are just trying to survive. In this parking lot, you see all kinds of people looking for work, Latino, Chinese, Hispanic.”

Nearby, a man loading equipment said he was hiring for a tree-trimming job. He declined to give his name but said he’s hired from this spot for years.

“They’re good people,” he said. “They work hard. I normally hire a group of employees for my business.”

An estimated 10 million to 16.8 million undocumented residents live in the U.S.

In his second term in office, President Donald Trump has unleashed an unprecedented immigration enforcement campaign. The White House has set a goal of deporting 1 million people a year. As of April 1, more than 100,000 undocumented immigrants have been deported since Jan. 20, when Trump took office for the second time, according to his administration.

The names of those detained in Tuesday’s sweep and where they are now had not been made public Friday.

“We are asking the community to please call our hotline if you believe your loved one was taken or if you have any information about what happened Tuesday morning,” Lizbeth Abeln, deputy director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, said in the organization’s news release.

The organization’s hotline is 909-361-4588.

“This is what real safety looks like — showing up, organizing together and refusing to be silenced,” Abeln said.

Though a new Fox News poll shows that Trump is the least popular of any president in the 21st century at this point in a president’s term, immigration remains his strongest issue. A new Associated Press survey finds that 46% of U.S. adults approve of his handling of immigration, almost 10 percentage points higher than his approval rating on the economy and trade with other countries.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., condemned Tuesday’s action in Pomona in a social media post Thursday.

“Donald Trump says he’s only targeting violent criminals, we know that’s not true,” Padilla said in a video posted to Instagram and other social media sites. “They’ve been detaining and deporting so many others in the process. In fact, they’re doing so without respecting due process rights, which everybody enjoys in the United States, regardless of your immigration status.”

According to his office, Padilla is looking into the incident and “demanding answers” from the Department of Homeland Security.

At Home Depot on Friday morning, 39-year-old Pomona resident Michael Griffin, who was looking for wood, said he believes immigration enforcement is necessary.

“Look, I respect that people want to work hard,” Griffin said. “But the law is the law. If they’re undocumented, I don’t think they should be gathering here. It creates a difficult situation for everyone.”

But not everyone felt that way.

Leticia Delon, 54, of Ontario, on her way out of the store, pushing an orange shopping cart full of bags, said she felt heartbroken hearing about the raid.

“All they want is to work,” Delon said. “They are trying to work and not begging for money.“

About one in nine people living in the U.S. without legal authorization — roughly 1.44 million people — live in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside or San Bernardino counties, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan group that tracks immigration issues.

“They’re not hurting anyone,” Delon said. “I see them here in the morning all the time, and they are respectful, quiet, just trying to survive. I can’t imagine living a life in fear all the time. It’s heartbreaking.”

Photographer Milka Soko contributed to this report.