Los Angeles, California — Recent raids by United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in a rural California county have sent fear into immigrant communities as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.
CBP says the operation in Kern County, which took place over three days in early January, resulted in the arrest of 78 people. The United Farm Workers (UFW) union says it believes the number is closer to 200.
“The fields were almost lonely the day after the raids,” a 38-year-old undocumented worker named Alejanda, who declined to give her last name, said of the aftermath.
She explained that many workers stayed at home due to fear. “At this time of year the orchards are usually full of people, but I felt like I was alone when I went back to work.”
Local workers and organizations like the UFW see the raids as a raid on immigration agencies ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
His second term as president is expected to mark a new era of increased restrictions and deportation efforts.
While the number of people arrested represents a small part of the hundreds of thousands undocumented workers supporting California’s agricultural sector, the anxieties caused by such raids extend far beyond the detainees.
“On Wednesday [the day after the raids]I stayed home from work. I barely left the house,” said Alejanda, adding that she kept her five-year-old son home from daycare rather than risk driving and dropping him off.
“Everyone is talking about what happened. Everyone is afraid, including me. I haven’t actually seen any agents, but you can still feel the tension.”
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After a presidential campaign in which he routinely portrayed undocumented migrants as “criminals” and “animals,” Trump is likely to try to make good on his promise to implement the “largest deportation program” in the nation’s history on his first day in office.
About 11 million people live in the United States without legal documentation, some of whom have worked in the country for decades, building families and communities.
The January arrests in Kern County appear to be the first major Border Patrol raid in California since Trump’s election victory in November, sparking speculation about the potential impact mass deportations on immigrant communities and economic sectors that depend on their work.
About 50 percent of California’s agricultural workforce is made up of undocumented immigrants.
In California, undocumented status is cited as a source of constant anxiety for workers — as well as a leverage over employers, who often pay such workers lower wages and grant them less protection in the fields.
But Alejanda says workplace raids like the one in Kern County are not common in the area.
“I’ve been here for five years and I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” she said, noting that the workers were detained while leaving the fields to go home.
CBP said in a statement that the operation, dubbed “Return to Sender,” targeted undocumented people with criminal histories and ties to criminal organizations.
#WeFeedYou pic.twitter.com/8e6GE9RRkK
— United Farm Workers (@UFWupdates) January 11, 2025
The raids were conducted by agents from CBP’s El Centro sector, which is located near the Mexico-Southern California border, more than a five-hour drive from the raids.
“The El Centro Sector takes all border threats seriously,” said Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino in a news release. “Our area of responsibility extends from the US-Mexico border north, as the mission and threat dictates, all the way to the Oregon line.”
Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesman for the UFW, said the operation shows that agencies like CBP are likely to become more aggressive as Trump takes office.
He also disputed CBP’s characterization of the raids as targeting people with criminal records, saying the operation cast a wide net and profiled people who looked like farmers.
Two of those arrested were UFW members, described by the organization as fathers who had lived in the area for more than 15 years.
“Operating more than 300 miles north of the Mexican border, and apparently conducting this untargeted profiling-based sweep on its own initiative and authority, the Border Patrol has demonstrated that it is clearly emboldened by a national political climate of hostility toward hardworking immigrant communities,” De Loera-Brust said. for Al Jazeera.
“It is certainly deeply troubling that this type of operation could be the new normal under the incoming Trump administration.”
