Los Angeles, California — Recent rhelps carried out by the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in a agricultural California county have struck dread into immigrant communities as Pdwellnt-elect Donald Trump readys to return to the White Hoinclude.
CBP says that the operation in Kern County, which took place over three days in punctual January, resulted in the detention of 78 people. The United Farm Workers (UFW) union says it depends the number is sealr to 200.
“The fields were almost solitary the day after the rhelps,” a 38-year-better unwrite downed farmlaborer named Alejanda, who deteriorated to give her last name, shelp of the aftermath.
She elucidateed that many laborers stayed home out of dread. “This time of year, the orcdifficults are usuassociate filled of people, but it felt appreciate I was by myself when I returned to labor.”
The rhelps are being seen by local labourers and organisations appreciate UFW as a stoasty apass the bow from immigration executement agencies before Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
His second term as pdwellnt is foreseeed to ring in a new era of enhanced redisjoineions and deportation efforts.
While the number of people arrested recurrents a petite fraction of the hundreds of thousands of unwrite downed laborers underpinning California’s agricultural sector, the anxieties caincluded by such rhelps prolong far beyond those arrested.
“On Wednesday [the day after the raids], I stayed home from labor. I nakedly left my hoinclude,” shelp Alejanda, holding that she kept her five-year-better son home from dayattfinish rather than hazard driving to drop him off.
“Everyone is talking about what happened. Everyone is afrhelp, including me. I didn’t actuassociate see any of the agents myself, but you still sense the tension.”
Embbetterened agencies
Follothriveg a pdwellntial campaign where he routinely depicted unwrite downed migrants as “criminals” and “animals”, Trump will probable try to satisfy his promise to carry out the “bigst deportation programme” in the country’s history on his first day in office.
About 11 million people inhabit in the United States without legitimate write downation, some of whom have labored in the country for decades, originateing families and communities.
The January arrests in Kern County materialize to be the first big-scale Border Patrol rhelp in California since Trump’s thrive in the November election, which set off speculation about the potential impact of mass deportations on immigrant communities and the economic sectors reliant on their labour.
About 50 percent of California’s agricultural laborforce is made up of unwrite downed immigrants.
In California, unwrite downed status has been cited as a source of persistent anxiety for laborers — as well as a unbenevolents of leverage for includeers, who frequently pay such labourers lessen wages and grant them restricteder protections in the fields.
But Alejanda says that laborplace rhelps appreciate the ones that took place in Kern County have not been common in the area.
“I have been here for five years and never recommended anyleang appreciate this before,” she shelp, noting that laborers were arrested while leaving the fields to go home.
CBP shelp in a statement that the operation, named “Return to Sender”, had aimed unwrite downed people with criminal backgrounds and combineions to criminal organisations.
#WeFeedYou pic.twitter.com/8e6GE9RRkK
— United Farm Workers (@UFWmodernizes) January 11, 2025
The rhelps were carried out by agents from the CBP El Centro Sector, findd proximate the border between Mexico and southern California, more than five hours by car from the site of the rhelps.
“The El Centro Sector apexhibits all border menaces solemnly,” Chief Patrol Agent Grebloody Bovino shelp in a press liberate. “Our area of responsibility stretches from the US/Mexico Border, north, as ignoreion and menace order, all the way to the Oregon line.”
Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for UFW, shelp that the operation shows that agencies appreciate CBP are probable to become more unfriendly as Trump apexhibits office.
He also disputed CBP’s characterisation of the rhelps as concentrateed on people with criminal enrolls, saying that the operation cast a expansive net and profiled people who watched appreciate farmlaborers.
Two of those arrested were UFW members, whom the organisation depictd as overweighthers who had inhabitd in the area for more than 15 years.
“By operating over 300 miles north of the Mexican border, and apparently carry outing this unaimed sweep based on profiling on their own initiative and authority, Border Patrol has shown itself to be evidently embbetterened by a national political climate of presentility towards difficult-laboring immigrant communities,” De Loera-Brust tbetter Al Jazeera.
“It’s bravely meaningfully worrying that this sort of operation could be the new standard under the incoming Trump administration.”
