Los Angeles, California — Current raids carried out by the US Customs and Border Safety (CBP) in a rural California county have struck concern into immigrant communities as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White Home.
CBP says that the operation in Kern County, which befell over three days in early January, resulted within the detention of 78 individuals. The United Farm Staff (UFW) union says it believes the quantity is nearer to 200.
“The fields had been nearly solitary the day after the raids,” a 38-year-old undocumented farmworker named Alejanda, who declined to present her final title, stated of the aftermath.
She defined that many staff stayed dwelling out of concern. “This time of yr, the orchards are often full of individuals, however it felt like I used to be on my own after I returned to work.”
The raids are being seen by native labourers and organisations like UFW as a shot throughout the bow from immigration enforcement companies earlier than Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
His second time period as president is anticipated to ring in a brand new period of enhanced restrictions and deportation efforts.
Whereas the variety of individuals arrested represents a small fraction of the lots of of 1000’s of undocumented workers underpinning California’s agricultural sector, the anxieties attributable to such raids lengthen far past these detained.
“On Wednesday [the day after the raids], I stayed dwelling from work. I barely left my home,” stated Alejanda, including that she saved her five-year-old son dwelling from daycare somewhat than danger driving to drop him off.
“Everyone seems to be speaking about what occurred. Everyone seems to be afraid, together with me. I didn’t really see any of the brokers myself, however you continue to really feel the stress.”
Emboldened companies
Following a presidential marketing campaign the place he routinely depicted undocumented migrants as “criminals” and “animals”, Trump will possible attempt to fulfill his promise to hold out the “largest deportation programme” within the nation’s historical past on his first day in workplace.
About 11 million individuals stay in the US with out authorized documentation, a few of whom have labored within the nation for many years, constructing households and communities.
The January arrests in Kern County look like the primary large-scale Border Patrol raid in California since Trump’s victory within the November election, which set off hypothesis in regards to the potential influence of mass deportations on immigrant communities and the financial sectors depending on their labour.
About 50 % of California’s agricultural workforce is made up of undocumented immigrants.
In California, undocumented standing has been cited as a supply of persistent anxiousness for staff — in addition to a method of leverage for employers, who typically pay such labourers decrease wages and grant them fewer protections within the fields.
However Alejanda says that office raids like those that befell in Kern County haven’t been widespread within the space.
“I’ve been right here for 5 years and by no means skilled something like this earlier than,” she stated, noting that staff had been detained whereas leaving the fields to go dwelling.
CBP stated in a press release that the operation, named “Return to Sender”, had focused undocumented individuals with legal backgrounds and connections to legal organisations.
#WeFeedYou pic.twitter.com/8e6GE9RRkK
— United Farm Staff (@UFWupdates) January 11, 2025
The raids had been carried out by brokers from the CBP El Centro Sector, positioned close to the border between Mexico and southern California, greater than 5 hours by automobile from the positioning of the raids.
“The El Centro Sector takes all border threats critically,” Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino stated in a press launch. “Our space of accountability stretches from the US/Mexico Border, north, as mission and risk dictate, all the best way to the Oregon line.”
Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for UFW, stated that the operation reveals that companies like CBP are more likely to turn into extra aggressive as Trump takes workplace.
He additionally disputed CBP’s characterisation of the raids as centered on individuals with legal information, saying that the operation solid a large web and profiled individuals who regarded like farmworkers.
Two of these arrested had been UFW members, whom the organisation described as fathers who had lived within the space for greater than 15 years.
“By working over 300 miles north of the Mexican border, and apparently conducting this untargeted sweep based mostly on profiling on their very own initiative and authority, Border Patrol has proven itself to be clearly emboldened by a nationwide political local weather of hostility in direction of hard-working immigrant communities,” De Loera-Brust informed Al Jazeera.
“It’s definitely deeply regarding that this kind of operation may very well be the brand new regular underneath the incoming Trump administration.”
