Khan County, California – US Border Patrog agents from the U.S. El Centro Sector launch a three-day raid on rural Kern County territory, resulting in undocumented worker score detention and dismissal It’s been more than six weeks since then.
An unusual job took place over 300 miles from El Centro near the US-Mexican border – came to the tail end of the Biden administration. Gregory Bovino, a veteran of the Border Patrol, who is more than 25 years leading the Imperial County Force, performed the surgery without involvement in US immigration and customs enforcement.
Bovino said it was “victimized” in the January attack, and Bovino said he requested anonymity as three former Biden administration officials requested anonymity. Two of the former officials didn’t know much about the surgery before seeing the unspool in real time, as two former officials said.
Farm workers tend to be grapes from the vineyards of Kern County.
Instead, it appears to be a play by some border patrol agents on the eve of President Trump taking office, “a new boss comes and that shows that they have their loyalty.”
In an official statement, Bovino justified the attack by noting that the sector’s responsibility area extends from the border to the Oregon Line. Border Patrol officials said the operation arrested 78 undocumented immigrants, including child rapists. The agency does not specify how many of the migrants detained have a criminal history.
Meanwhile, supporters on the ground said the operation indiscriminately targets Latinos farm workers commuting from the fields along California Route 99, and Deiraulers are recruiting work in the parking lot of a large box store. He said there was. They estimate that nearly 200 people have been detained.
Border Patrol officials rejected a request from the Times to interview Bovino and did not answer a list of high-level questions via email, including why Kern County was targeted. .
What’s not in controversy is a glimpse into the “bold” approach to immigration enforcement, which what unfolds in Kern County, is expected to become the norm under the Trump administration.
Immigrants say that during the January raid in Kern County, Border Patrol agents were able to stake Field Hand and Day during the January raid in Kern County, regardless of whether they committed a criminal offence or not. They say they targeted workers.
Trump took a job that promised the biggest deportation effort in US history, and initially focused his rhetoric on tracking undocumented immigrants accused of violent crimes. However, his administration says that he is now violating immigration laws and considers all US immigrants without criminalization without legal permission.
This shift sent shockwaves to Central Valley. There, it helps the largely migrant workforce harvest a quarter grown in the US.
Undocumented workers and their supporters interviewed in the wake of the Kern County attacks said that Border Patrol agents were performing the surgery on similar grounds and field hands regardless of whether there was a criminal offence or not. He said he would cut off Day workers and send them back across the border. In some cases, workers said they left their spouses or children behind.
“From our perspective, it was definitely meant to terrorize the community, especially the Latino and farm communities,” said Sofia Corona, a supervising lawyer at the UFW Foundation in Bakersfield, in the operation. It is stated about. “And sadly, it really had an impact.”
Some of the deported people in the January attack in Kern County were longtime farmers who left their spouses and US-born children behind.
Maltese families are among those injured in the attacks in Khan County.
Malta said she and her husband left a village in southern Mexico about a decade ago, and their first child led it. She joined her sister Victoria and her brother-in-law, working hard in the area’s abundant fields and orchards, and eventually moved to Central Valley with the goal of earning enough to return to her home country and build. He said. house.
The sisters shared their stories with the times in interviews and asked them that they would be identified by their names alone, due to concerns that their families could be further targeted by immigration authorities.
Their family has since taken root. Along with an 11-year-old child, Marta and her husband have three American-born children, three year-old twins and four-year-olds. Victoria has three children, all US citizens. I’m 1, 2, and 11 years old.
On January 7th, Malta was harvesting mandarins with her husband and brother-in-law. Some people reported seeing white and green boundary patrol vehicles on local roads. Others were warned in texts and social media.
By the end of the shift, Marta said she and her husband had chosen enough mandarins to fill five huge boxes. They joined her brother-in-law in his Honda sedan and started for the home.
Soon, she said Border Patrol agents had drawn them on Highway 99.
The family said the agents accused Maltese stepbrother of driving without proper permission. The brother-in-law produced his car insurance, they said, and the agent corrected himself.
Nevertheless, the trio were ordered to leave the vehicle, Marta said. They were taken to a processing centre in the middle of Bakersfield, and the car was eventually locked up.
During the wait at the centre, Marta said she screamed sparklingly, worried about leaving her children. She said the sympathetic agent eventually set her free. But her husband and brother-in-law didn’t make it.
She and her sister will later learn that her husband was brought to El Centro for processing.
Malta and Victoria said their husbands were not documented but were not accused of crimes in the United States, but there were no criminal cases against two men in Calun County Superior Court or the Eastern District of California. .
However, according to families who are in contact with the man, they were given options. They were either detained for months while awaiting deportation proceedings or were able to sign voluntary departure orders to drop them across the border. They chose to be deported.
By the next afternoon, the two men had been deported to Mexicali. According to their wife, they returned to their country village. There, there was little work, minimal cell service, and communication became sporadic.
According to the ACLU in Southern California, they were among about 40 people who were arrested during an operation that agreed to a voluntary departure, agreed to a voluntary departure and were among the approximately 40 people who were expelled from the country.
“From our perspective, it was definitely meant to terrorize the community, especially the Latino and farm communities,” Attorney Sofia Corona said of the attack on Kern County.
The administration, dubbed “It focused on breaking US federal law and disrupting transport routes used by dangerous substance trafficking, non-citizen criminals and cross-border criminal organizations,” I’m back to the sender,” the U.S. Border Patrol said. statement.
That was different in many ways from what lawyers and supporters would expect from immigration enforcement during the Biden era. The Biden administration prioritized the deportation of recent border crossers and those seen as a threat to public security or national security.
The Kern County attack appeared to target food markets and parking lots where farm workers are known to gather for carpooling in the morning, according to Bakersfield immigration lawyer Anna Alicia Fuerta said.
Rather than treating people at local ice field offices and holding them in one of the two local detention centers, at least some of the arrested people were lucky to reach the pop-up processing center before being transported to El Centro. She said she was found out.
“It was very aggressive,” she said. “And that really surprised us.”
In the weeks since the business, the ACLU in Southern California has been interviewing people affected by the attack. They said they had heard of “malicious conduct,” but according to the Myra Joahin Prosecutor’s Office, Border Patrol agents stopped people without a reasonable doubt that they violated immigration law. , including arresting people without a warrant.
According to the 2021 Legal Sidebar of Congress Research Services, immigration enforcement officers have broad powers, but their powers are limited by the ban on the 4th Amendment on unreasonable searches and seizures .
“We are scared, but we are working,” one farm worker said of the looming threat of the attack. “We need to work because we need to pay rent, buy food and support Mexican families.”
Under federal law, immigration enforcement officers can question people about their right to be in the country, unless they have a warrant, unless they are inadvertently detained for such interrogation. According to Congress’s research services, a more intrusive encounter requires reasonable doubt that the crime is ongoing.
Border Patrol agents can arrest people without a warrant if they enter the country illegally in the agent’s opinion, or if they have reason to believe they are likely to flee before a warrant is obtained.
Bakersfield’s operation failed to comply with Fourth Amendment protections and other regulations governing immigrant arrests, Joachin said.
“In general, border patrols cannot do what they did through returns to operations returns. It’s the colour that makes them look like they are simply either day workers or agricultural workers. It is that people were stopped just because they were people, and then ask them to identify themselves and sometimes to search for them without warrants from individuals or consent. ” she said.
The ACLU is still evaluating potential legal responses, Joachin said.
Border Patrol officials did not answer questions regarding the group’s allegations.
Back in Karn County, Victoria and Malta stay close to their home and are worried about what their family will next.
That means avoiding grocery trips and no longer letting kids play in the park.
“Every day I hear rumors about Lamigra,” Victoria said. “I’m very afraid to leave.”
The women returned to the farms everywhere for work. Each time, they weigh the risks. Should they take a long drive to earn a daily pay? Or do you reduce your resources and drill holes in your home to reduce the chances of being pulled?
Throughout the area, most farmers have opted to return to their fields. But that’s a question about everyone’s mind.
“We work even when we’re scared,” one worker said, pruning grape vines on a recent afternoon. “We need to work because we need to pay rent, buy food and support Mexican families.”
Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this report.
This article is part of the Times Equity Report initiative funded by the James Irvine Foundation, which examines the challenges faced by low-income workers and efforts to address economic disparities in California.
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