On Saturday, community activist Arturo Gonzalez said he received a video from an employee who works at a business next to Peacock Nails in Lemon Grove.
It shows ICE agents arresting a woman described by firsthand witnesses as a nail tech.
Gonzalez said when he arrived on scene, cars with immigration agents were already leaving.
He said this arrest outside a nail salon marks the first time he’s seen ICE agents at businesses like this one since he started documenting arrests about 18 months ago.
“I have not seen anything like this in particular. But I have seen restaurant workers and hotel workers get picked up by ICE,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said he’s been documenting ICE arrests on social media with a network of community activists in the greater San Diego area.
“That same day the woman was picked up, we got a tip almost 30 minutes later that ICE was staging in the Hazard Center plaza in Mission Valley,” he said. “When we arrived to the scene we noticed the vehicles were faced towards another nail salon.”
Mimi Phùng is the interim executive director of Viet Voices, a nonprofit organization that serves the Vietnamese community across San Diego County on a wide variety of issues.
After seeing reports of the arrest outside the nail salon online, she went to the business to provide educational and legal resources.
“I asked if they were in contact with the family, if she had an attorney, but they said they didn't know or weren't in contact with the family,” Phùng said. “Generally, the reaction was very mixed, which I think represents the general feelings in the Vietnamese community around immigration enforcement.”
Phùng said some people in the community are in denial about the surge in ICE enforcement, while others are scared.
“Previously it used to be if you were Vietnamese that came to the U.S. as a refugee pre-1995, you could not get deported to Vietnam. That has since been reversed,” Phùng said.
In February 2025, Vietnam agreed to fast-track U.S. deportation requests within 30 days and began rapidly issuing travel documents.
Following reports of the arrest near Peacock Nails, paperwork has been taped on an electrical box outside the business, warning of ICE activity in the area.
Management and staff at the Lemon Grove Peacock Nails salon would not comment on the matter.
KPBS reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment on the arrest. They did not respond before our deadline.
