CAMARILLO, Calif.—Donald Trump’s ICE agents have been so vicious and so violent that sooner or later, somebody they chased would die. On July 12, Jaime Alanis, 57, a farm worker in Camarillo, Calif., did.
On July 10, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents raided his workplace, a cannabis production plant. The supervisor there was tear-gassed. Workers fled, and Alanis, working on a roof, also fled, tripped, fell off it 30 feet to the ground, and died two days later of a broken neck, a broken skull, and internal injuries. Protesters gathered during the raid and were tear-gassed.
Word of the Camarillo raid spread quickly, aided by comprehensive reporting, including extensive video, in the local newspaper in nearby Ojai. Crowds gathered to contest the ICE agents, who had arrived in at least 20 military-style vehicles and by helicopter. ICE also stationed transport planes at John Wayne Airport to fly detainees away. They arrested 300 people, including four U.S. citizens.
Alanis had worked for the owners of the Camarillo plant at another farm—which ICE also raided–for at least 10 years. Alanis was not a union member, and the Camarillo cannabis plant is, so far, non-union. But the United Farm Workers are grieving for him and reaching out to garner help, including a GoFundMe campaign, for Alanis’s wife and daughter back in Mexico.
The union also joined a class action lawsuit, filed the day after Alanis fell off the roof, by the ACLU and other civil rights groups, demanding a temporary and permanent injunction to end the 36 days of ICE raids which terrorized workers and families in Southern California. On the evening of July 11, U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong in Los Angeles, a Joe Biden appointee, issued the temporary one.
“The workers who feed America go to work in fear,” Farm Workers President Teresa Romero said. “Their children are terrified, wondering if their parents will come home. Farm workers deserve better.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union recently tweeted on X.
“We’ve seen these unconstitutional and un-American tactics before, with Border Patrol targeting random farm workers and anyone with brown skin in Kern County during their large sweep in January. We sued then and we are suing now,” Romero added.
Raids also occurred in Downey, Santa Ana, Van Nuys, Carpinteria, and Oxnard, at farms and other enterprises. Rep. Salud Carabajal, D-Calif., who represents the area, arrived in Camarillo to investigate what was going on, and ICE physically barred him from entering the plant.
The ICE agents show a particular viciousness against anyone with brown skin, regardless of their immigration status. The ACLU produced evidence that ICE rounded up, beat, and took away only brown-skinned people, including a U.S. citizen, in a raid at a local car wash. Two white workers were unmolested. That put the lie to a claim by the Trumpite spokeswoman for ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, that agents were not targeting people based on skin color.
After the temporary restraining order, the 36 days of ICE arrests and community protests, and Alaris’s death, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a strong supporter of L.A.’s status as a sanctuary city, announced area philanthropies would start giving cash cards—several hundred dollars a month—to ICE victims.
“You have people who don’t want to leave their homes, who are not going to work, and they are in need of cash,” she said. The money will come from philanthropic partners and distributed by migrants’ rights groups. And the city government, the AFL-CIO, and the L.A. County Federation of Labor started joint courses in non-violent resistance. Santa Ana also created an emergency fund.
Monitoring social media, People’s World reported ICE agents in the Camarillo raid “used tear gas and shot so-called non-lethal rounds at families who showed up to protect and demand the return of loved ones, in some of the most violent U.S. immigration raids to date.
“ICE agents were filmed using tear gas on children fleeing through the fields in Camarillo. When Rep. Carabajal showed up and ICE blocked him, crowds chanted ‘let him go in.’”
Disproportionate displays of force
Afterwards, Carabajal issued a statement, denouncing ICE’s “disproportionate displays of force against local farm workers and our agricultural community. As a member of Congress and representative of the Central Coast, I have the right to conduct oversight and see firsthand what ICE was doing here.” Barring his entry was completely unacceptable.
“There’s been a troubling lack of transparency from ICE since the Trump administration started. I will be demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security to find out who they detained and where detainees are being taken. Let me be clear: these militarized ICE raids are not how you keep our communities safe. This kind of chaos only traumatizes families and tears communities apart.”
ICE agents weren’t the only feds in the Camarillo raid. Joining them were agents from the Customs and Border Patrol, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration “and an assortment of unidentified—usually masked—bounty hunters, mercenaries, and soldier-of-fortune cos-players” social media said.
All the raids drew U.S. and international attention “to the legalized thuggery, as well as the indomitable fightback being waged by farm workers and their communities and allies.”
In a separate but related case, migrant rights groups, speaking for seven detainees, plan to go to federal court in San Francisco on July 14 to join a nationwide class action suit to preserve the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. Trump plans to abolish it and evict a million people. All are people of color from Latin America, the Caribbean, and North Africa. Many have lived in the U.S. for decades, checking in with authorities and paying annual fees to stay here, as the law mandates.
One of the seven is Maria Elena Hernandez, 67, a member of Service Employees Local 32BJ and a Nicaraguan native. TPS lets migrants into the U.S. who are fleeing civil wars, gangs, or natural disasters disasters such as massive earthquakes.
“I have good reason to fear what will happen to me if I return to Nicaragua, so I decided I have to be brave now,” Hernandez told her union. “I have had the same job and lived in the same apartment for decades. My union helped me learn to fight for myself and my coworkers. Now, I have to fight for myself and others with TPS.”
Preserving TPS (Temporary Protected Status) has been a key cause of the Painters and other building trades, as a high proportion of their members came here under TPS.
“I have always had faith in doing the right thing. I always believed that the government of the United States would honor all my contributions. I am 67 years old. I have paid all my taxes, obeyed all the laws. Why is the government trying to get rid of so many people who have contributed so much to this country?” Martinez asked.
“Maria Elena and many others like her have spent decades working hard, quietly paying taxes, following the law, and building up their neighborhoods,” 32BJ Vice President Helene O’Brien said in a statement. “Ripping long-time TPS holders from their jobs and communities won’t create a single new opportunity for anyone.
“It will yank skilled, tax-paying workers out of classrooms, airports, hospitals, and hotels, drain billions from local economies, and tear families apart. Instead of deporting people who have spent decades keeping our cities running and our businesses open, we should honor their contributions and give them the stability every hardworking American deserves.”
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