It Begins
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Last week, the Border Patrol conducted raids on farm workers in Bakersfield, California.
Acres of orange fields sat unpicked in Kern County this week as word of Border Patrol raids circulated through Messenger chats and images of federal agents detaining laborers spread on local Facebook groups.
The Border Patrol conducted unannounced raids throughout Bakersfield on Tuesday, descending on businesses where day laborers and field workers gather. Agents in unmarked SUVs rounded up people in vans outside a Home Depot and gas station that serves a breakfast popular with field workers.
This appears to be the first large-scale Border Patrol raid in California since the election of Donald Trump, coming just a day after Congress certified the election on January 6, in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency. The panic and confusion, for both immigrants and local businesses that rely on their labor, foreshadow what awaits communities across California if Trump follows through on his promise to conduct mass deportations.
“It was profiling, it was purely field workers,” said Sara Fuentes, store manager of the local gas station. Fuentes said that at 9 a.m., when the store typically gets a rush of workers on their way to pick oranges, two men in civilian clothes and unmarked Suburbans started detaining people outside the store. “They didn’t stop people with FedEx uniforms, they were stopping people who looked like they worked in the fields.” Fuentes says one customer pulled in just to pump gas and agents approached him and detained him.
Fuentes has lived in Bakersfield all her life and says she’s never seen anything like it. In one instance, she said a man and woman drove up to the store together, and the man went inside. Border Patrol detained the man as he walked out, Fuentes said, and then demanded the woman get out of the vehicle. When she refused, another agency parked his vehicle behind the woman, blocking her car. Fuentes said it wasn’t until the local Univision station showed up that Border Patrol agents backed up their car and allowed the woman to leave.
Fuentes says none of the regular farm workers showed up to buy breakfast on Wednesday morning. “No field workers at all,” she said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment. On social media, Gregory K. Bovino, the Border Patrol chief in El Centro, called the sweeps “Operation Return to Sender.”
“We are taking it to the bad people and bad things in Bakersfield,” the El Centro Border Patrol said in response to a comment on its Facebook page. “We are planning operations for other locals (sic) such as Fresno and especially Sacramento.”
“We’re in the middle of our citrus harvesting. This sent shockwaves through the entire community,” said Casey Creamer, president of the industry group California Citrus Mutual, on Thursday. “People aren’t going to work and kids aren’t going to school. Yesterday about 25% of the workforce, today 75% didn’t show up.”
He pushed back on the Border Patrol’s claims they’re targeting bad people. He said they appeared to be general sweeps of workers.
“If this is the new normal, this is absolute economic devastation,” said Richard S. Gearhart, an associate professor of economics at Cal State-Bakersfield.
Video at the link.
The United Farmworkers Union published advice in Spanish and English on Bluesky. I saw these graphics again last night, so another raid may be in progress or expected.
BTW, if you’re on Bluesky, the UFW feed is well worth following. They publish a lot about how our food is grown and harvested.
There have been demonstrations against the raids in Fresno, Salinas, and Bakersfield.
More to come.