With accounts of immigration enforcement spreading on Tuesday in California’s Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley, crucial agricultural regions, some farmworkers hid in the fields between rows of crops, according to Hazel Davalos, a community activist. Many could not leave their ranches and others worried about being detained on their commute home, she added.
Ms. Davalos, the executive director of Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, said 40 workers were detained Tuesday in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
A video published Tuesday night by ABC shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents running after a worker on a farm early that morning in Oxnard, in Ventura County.
Raids were also conducted at farms in Kern and Tulare counties, according to Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers union.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson would not confirm that any raids took place but said in a statement that work-site immigration enforcement “protects workers from exploitation and trafficking.”
The Trump administration is ramping up its immigration crackdown, with a focus on workplaces with undocumented laborers, such as farms, restaurants and construction sites. Estimates show more than eight million undocumented immigrants work in the United States.
Last Friday, federal immigration agents swept through the garment district of Los Angeles, setting off protests that have rattled sections of downtown L.A. and have spread to a number of cities across the country.
For farmworkers — about 42 percent of whom are undocumented, according to the Agriculture Department — the escalation in arrests has created widespread fear.
“Children are terrified,” Ms. Romero said. “They don’t want to go to school because they don’t know if their parents will be home when they come back.”
Local leaders have rebuked the escalation, which could bring hardship to one of California’s agricultural corridors. The Central Valley — which grows almonds, grapes, walnuts and cherries, among other crops — produces a quarter of the nation’s food, worth an estimated $17 billion a year, according to federal data.
“These actions are completely unjustified and harmful,” said Mayor Luis McArthur of Oxnard. “They create chaos in our city without contributing much to public safety. Furthermore these actions undermine the very principles of due process.”
The raids this week represent the first organized immigration enforcement from the new Trump administration to hit California’s agricultural region, which covers about 40 percent of the state, Ms. Romero said. A handful of federal operations have been conducted in other rural communities in recent weeks. Last month, federal agents pulled over a bus in Albion, N.Y., and detained 14 immigrants who worked at a nearby farm. In April, three children and their mother were detained at an upstate New York dairy.
Rural migrants are particularly vulnerable to immigration enforcement because they stand out in towns that are often racially homogenous, said Will Lambek of Migrant Justice, an advocacy organization for farmworkers in Vermont, where eight dairy workers were detained in April.
In California, Ms. Davalos said the agents could have made more arrests had the community been less prepared. Once a volunteer spotted officers in the area, an alert was sent through a network of support.
Federal agents were denied entry to at least nine farms in the Central Coast, Ms. Davalos said. Some growers parked their vehicles in front of their gates. Employees also obscured their cars.
“We demonstrated the power of brave, nonviolent resistance to ICE’s tactics of terror,” Ms. Davalos said, lamenting what she described as politically driven attempts to reach a deportation quota. “At the end of the day, they’re seizing our family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.”
If federal immigration enforcement activities continue, food production will become increasingly difficult, and food prices could rise, warned Bryan Little, senior director of policy advocacy at the California Farm Bureau.
Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, called the targeted raids “unjustified and unconscionable” in a joint statement Wednesday.
“These disruptive raids are harming American businesses and separating families, and will only push food prices higher,” they said.
Pooja Salhotra covers breaking news across the United States.
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