A Mexican farmworker died on Friday from injuries sustained during a federal immigration raid the day before in an agricultural region north of Los Angeles, according to the United Farm Workers union.
The farmworker, Jaime Alanís, fell several stories to the ground from a greenhouse on Thursday, when federal agents raided a state-licensed cannabis farm in Ventura County.
“During the chaos, he fell 30 feet or more, and experienced devastating spinal and skull injuries,” Elizabeth Strater, a United Farm Workers vice president, said in an interview.
An official familiar with the circumstances of the farmworker’s death said he was from the Mexican state of Michoacán, had been working at the farm for more than a decade and had been trying to flee from agents when he fell. He was in his late 50s.
Ms. Strater said that after the fall, he was transported to a hospital, where he was on life support for a time, and he died on Friday.
The Ventura County coroner’s office said that it had yet to receive a death report in his name.
Andrew Dowd, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, said that eight people had been transferred to area hospitals in response to 911 calls on Thursday, and that four other people had been treated at the scene.
In a statement, Teresa Romero, president of the U.F.W., said that several farmworkers had been critically injured, and that others, including U.S. citizens, remained unaccounted for after the enforcement actions. She said those citizens who were detained “were forced to delete photos and videos of the raid from their phones” before being released.
The Trump administration last month began to aggressively target work sites in California, including farms, as it seeks to sharply bolster the number of arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants. President Trump has said that he wanted to allow some farmworkers to stay in the country legally. However, raids in agricultural areas have persisted.
Federal agents, backed by National Guard troops in military-style vehicles, raided two locations operated by Glass House Farms on Thursday. One was in Camarillo, a Ventura County town about 50 miles outside Los Angeles, and another was in Carpinteria, a town in Santa Barbara County.
Yesenia Duran, who described herself as Mr. Alanís’s niece on a GoFundMe page she created before his death, said her uncle “was just a hard-working, innocent farmer. He has his wife and daughter waiting for him.” Ms. Duran wrote that her uncle was his family’s provider, adding, “We need justice.”
News of the raids on Thursday rapidly spread, prompting protesters and community members to rush to the scenes. Clashes broke out between hundreds of protesters and the agents.
During the confrontation in the Camarillo area, one protester was seen on video appearing to fire a pistol at officers. The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that the protester fired a gun at law enforcement officers and that the F.B.I. was offering $50,000 for information leading to the person’s arrest. The agency said four U.S. citizens were being criminally processed for assaulting or resisting officers and that the protesters had damaged vehicles.
“At least 10 migrant children were rescued from potential exploitation, forced labor, and human trafficking,” homeland security officials said in a statement.
Glass House Farms said late Thursday that its greenhouses had been visited by federal authorities with search warrants and that the company had fully complied. It is legal for licensed companies to grow cannabis in California.
Miriam Jordan reports from a grass roots perspective on immigrants and their impact on the demographics, society and economy of the United States.
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