A multi-billion dollar corporation that made $157 billion in revenue last year can’t afford security guards. So they’re using acoustic weapons instead. Against workers. In a parking lot. In Los Angeles.

The Innovation

Home Depot’s Cypress Park location in Los Angeles has discovered a revolutionary new approach to labor relations: high-frequency sound torture.

Since late November, the company has deployed three machines in its parking lot that emit a piercing, high-pitched tone designed to drive day laborers away from the premises. The sound, described by workers as something that “penetrates your bones,” runs all day. Every day. Like a corporate tinnitus that says “we value your business but not your presence.”

Day laborers now wear earplugs—provided by the nonprofit IDEPSCA, because Home Depot certainly isn’t offering them—just to wait for work at a location where they’ve gathered for over two decades.

“It wouldn’t hurt you,” one worker named Jose told reporters, “but you can feel it in your bones.”

Imagine the brainstorming session that produced this policy. “We need to get rid of the workers in our parking lot.” “Hire security?” “Too expensive.” “Put up signs?” “Too polite.” “What if we just… tortured them with sound until they leave?”

Innovation.

The Denial

Home Depot, naturally, denies everything.

According to a company press release, the noise machines are “not intended to deter day laborers or assist in immigration enforcement.” They’re about “sanitation and safety concerns” and preventing “illegal overnight parking.”

The machines were installed, purely coincidentally, just days after an ICE raid at the same location detained multiple workers and injured IDEPSCA staff members. This timing is, of course, completely unrelated to the noise machines’ purpose. The company would never install acoustic deterrents targeting a specific population immediately after that population was violently removed from the premises by federal agents. That would be coordinated.

“This is a unique location,” Home Depot explained. “We do not have this particular technology at any other stores in the LA area.”

Unique. That’s one word for “the only store where ICE raids have detained 50 people this year.”

The Context

About 50 people have been detained by ICE at the Cypress Park Home Depot in 2025 alone.

In August, a man was killed running onto a freeway while fleeing an ICE raid at this location.

In early November, ICE agents detained a man and then drove off with his toddler still in the back of their vehicle.

The noise machines arrived shortly after.

But remember: the machines are about “sanitation and safety.” Not about making the parking lot so physically unbearable that vulnerable workers leave and don’t come back. Not about assisting in the displacement of a workforce that Home Depot’s own customers rely on. Not about making ICE’s job easier by dispersing the population they’re targeting.

Safety.

The Health Effects

Workers report headaches. Nausea. Dizziness. The sound follows them home, ringing in their ears long after they’ve left the parking lot.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the district, called it what it is: “a deliberate choice by a multibillion-dollar corporation that absolutely knew what it was doing and chose to weaponize sound literally. Devices like these are used as torture against our people.”

Torture. Strong word. But when you’re inducing physical pain through sustained acoustic assault on a population you want to disappear, what else would you call it?

The machines were turned off during the press conference. They were turned back on an hour after the cameras left.

The Irony

Home Depot relies on immigrant and Latino communities. Inside the store: customers buying lumber, tools, supplies. Outside the store: day laborers offering skilled work to those same customers.

These aren’t strangers. These are the people who build, repair, and maintain the homes that Home Depot equips. They’re the reason customers come to this location. They’re an informal extension of the business model.

And now they’re being sonically attacked for waiting in a parking lot.

“This space is something truly beautiful,” Jose said of the IDEPSCA day laborer center, which is bursting with plants the workers themselves cultivate. “We’re here to help serve the community, not steal from the company.”

The day laborer center has operated at this location for over two decades. Through global pandemics. Through economic crashes. Through changing administrations. They’ve been there, providing services and creating community.

Home Depot installed sound torture machines in late November.

The Response

A nationwide boycott of Home Depot is spreading.

Protesters in Encinitas sang Christmas carols outside a store. In Monrovia, activists bought cheap ice scrapers and returned them immediately—gumming up the store’s operations with the company’s own return policy.

IDEPSCA’s executive director, Maegan Ortiz, was clear: “We have been here and remain open through global pandemics, providing services and creating community. We’re not going to let sound machines, gates and intimidation get rid of us. Day laborers are here to stay. IDEPSCA is here to stay. The immigrant community is here to stay.”

The Bottom Line

A $157 billion corporation is using acoustic weapons against workers in a parking lot.

They installed them days after an ICE raid.

They claim it’s about “safety.”

They turn them off when cameras are present and turn them back on when the press leaves.

The workers experience headaches, nausea, and chronic pain.

The machines are targeting a population that’s already traumatized from raids, detention, and death.

And Home Depot’s response is a press release saying this has nothing to do with day laborers.

This is what corporate evil looks like in 2025. Not mustache-twirling villainy. Not dramatic announcements of malice. Just quiet, deniable cruelty. Sound machines on lamp posts. Press releases about “safety.” Plausible deniability wrapped in acoustic assault.

The noise penetrates your bones.

So does the lie.

What You Can Do

  • Support IDEPSCA: The Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California has been supporting day laborers for over two decades. They’re at idepsca.org.
  • Join the Boycott: Stop shopping at Home Depot until they remove the noise machines and publicly commit to not assisting ICE operations.
  • Contact Home Depot: Their corporate customer care line is 1-800-466-3337. Their investor relations email is investor_relations@homedepot.com. Let them know that sonic torture is not “standard property management.”
  • Contact LA City Council: Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez is investigating. Support her efforts and pressure other council members to act.

Sources: ABC7 Los Angeles, FOX 11 Los Angeles, L.A. TACO, NBC Los Angeles