Oxnard still suffers from immigration raids and deportations at the Glass House

OXNARD — A father became the sole breadwinner for his two young children after his wife was deported. A school district is experiencing absences similar to what it experienced during the pandemic. Businesses are struggling because customers are afraid to go out.

That’s just a sample of how this part of Ventura County is dealing with the aftermath of federal immigration raids on Glass House cannabis farms six months ago, when hundreds of workers were arrested and families separated. In some cases, there remains uncertainty about what happened to minors left behind after one or both parents were deported. Now, as Latino families gather for the holidays, businesses and restaurants are largely quiet as concern persists about more Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

“There is a lot of fear that the community lives in,” said Alicia Flores, executive director of the La Hermandad Hank Lacayo Youth and Family Center. This time of year, clients would usually ask her about her vacation plans, but now no one is asking her. Families are divided at the U.S. border or have loved ones in immigration detention centers. “They were ready for Christmas, to make tamales, to make pozole, to make something and celebrate with family. And now, nothing.”

At the time, the immigration raids on greenhouse farms in Camarillo and Carpinteria were the largest of their kind nationwide, resulting in scenes of chaos, confusion and violence. at least 361 illegal immigrants were arrested Many of them are outside contractors to Glass House. One of these contractors, Jaime Alanis Garcia, died after falling from the roof of a greenhouse in the July 10 strike.

The raids spurred massive protests along the Central Coast and sent a chill through Oxnard, a tight-knit community where many families work the surrounding fields and live in multi-generational homes far more modest than many on the Ventura Coast. It has also raised concerns anew about how farmworker communities — often among the most vulnerable and low-wage groups — have been targeted during the Trump administration’s intensified deportation campaign.

Undocumented workers in California represent nearly 60% of the agricultural workforce, and many of them live in families with mixed immigration status or families where they are not citizens, said Anna Padilla, executive director of the Center for Labor and Society at the University of California, Merced. After the greenhouse raid, Padilla and Edward Flores, an assistant professor at the University of California, Merced, identified economic trends similar to the Great Recession, when private sector jobs declined. Although undocumented workers contribute state and federal taxes, they are not eligible for unemployment benefits that can soften the blow of losing a job after a family member is detained.

“These families are the ones who have been affected by the economic consequences more than any other group,” Padilla said. She added that California should consider distributing “replacement funds” to workers and families who have lost income due to immigration enforcement activity.

Local businesses are feeling the effects, too. Sylvia Lopez, who has run Divine Hair Design in downtown Oxnard for 16 years, said she lost up to 75% of her business after the July raid. She said the salon usually sees 40 clients a day, but the day after the raid, it only had two clients — and four hairdressers who were distraught. She said other salon owners have already had to close their doors, and she has reduced her hours to help the remaining stylists make enough each month.

“Everything has changed for everyone,” she said.

In another part of the city, the owner of a store that sells evening and baptism dresses said her sales had fallen by 60% each month since August, and customers had postponed shopping. An auto store owner, who declined to be identified because he fears government retaliation, said he supports President Trump because of his campaign pledge to help small business owners like him. But he said federal loans have been difficult to obtain, and he feels betrayed by the president’s deportation campaign targeting communities like Oxnard.

“The greenhouse had a huge impact,” he said. “It made people realize: ‘They’re hitting us hard.'”

The domino effect of the raid raised concerns about the welfare of children in affected families. Immigration enforcement actions can have harmful effects on young children, According to the American Immigration CouncilThey may be exposed to severe psychological stress.

Olivia Lopez, a community organizer with the Central Coast United for a Sustainable Economy, highlighted the predicament of a single father. He became solely responsible for taking care of his infant and 4-year-old son after his wife was deported, and he cannot afford child care. He is considering sending the children across the border to his wife in Mexico, who is missing her children.

In a separate situation, Lopez said, an 18-year-old girl was suddenly forced to care for two siblings after her mother, a single mother, was deported.

In addition, she said she heard stories of children left behind, including a 16-year-old girl who didn’t want to leave the United States and reunite with her mother who was deported after the greenhouse raid. She said she suspected at least 50 families – and up to 100 children – lost both parents or their only parent in the raid.

“I have questions after hearing all the stories: Where are the children in cases where the parents responsible for the children have been deported? Where are these children?” she said. “How did we get to this point?”

Robin Godfrey, public information officer for the Ventura County Human Services Agency, which is responsible for overseeing child welfare in the county, said she could not answer specific questions about whether the agency became aware of minors left behind after their parents were taken into custody.

“Federal and state laws prevent us from confirming or denying whether children from Glass House Farms families have entered the child welfare system,” she said in a statement.

The raid was jarring in the Oxnard School District, which was closed for summer break but reopened July 10 to contact families and ensure their safety, said Supt. Anna DiGina said. Its staff contacted all 13,000 families in the district to ask if they needed resources and if they wanted access to virtual classes for the upcoming school year.

Even before the July 10 raid, Degina and her staff were preparing. In January, after Trump’s inauguration, the district accelerated the installation of doorbells at each school site in case immigration agents tried to enter. They referred families to organizations that would help them draft affidavits so that their U.S.-born children could have legal guardians, in the event the parents were deported. They asked parents to provide not just one or two, but up to 10 emergency contacts in case they don’t show up to pick up their children.

She added that in a region that is 92% Latino, almost everyone feels fear, whether they are directly or indirectly affected, regardless of whether they have citizenship. Some families deported themselves and left the country, while children changed families to continue their education. Almost every morning, as raids continue in the area, she receives phone calls about seeing ICE vehicles near schools. She said she knows that when that happens, attendance will drop to near COVID-19 levels for surrounding schools, with parents fearful of sending their children back into classrooms.

But unlike a pandemic, there’s no comfort in knowing they’ve suffered worse, like the greenhouse raid, which saw hundreds of families affected in just one day, she said. The need for mental health counselors and supports has increased.

“We have to be there to protect them and take care of them, but we have to acknowledge this reality that they live in,” she said. “We can’t stop learning, we can’t stop education, because we also know that this is the most important thing that will help them in the future to avoid being victimized in any way.”

Yasmine Cruz, 21, She launched a GoFundMe Page after her father was taken during a greenhouse raid. He remains in custody in Arizona, and the family has hired an immigration attorney in hopes of his release.

Every month, she said, it becomes more difficult to pay rent and utility bills. She was able to raise about $2,700 through GoFundMe, which didn’t quite cover an entire month’s rent. Cruz said her mother is considering returning the family to Mexico if her father is deported.

“I tried to tell my mother that we should stay here,” she said. “But she said it was too much for us without our father.”

Many of the families torn apart by the greenhouse raid did not have plans in place, and some families were resistant because they thought they would not be affected, said Lopez, the community organizer. But after the raid, she received calls from several families who wanted to know if they could get family declaration forms notarized. She said one notary public spent 10 hours working with families for free, including some former greenhouse workers who escaped the raid.

“The way I always explain it is, look, everything this government agency does, you can’t control it,” she said. “But what you can control is having peace of mind knowing that you did something to protect your children and did not leave them unprotected.”

For many illegal immigrants, options are few.

Rodrigo, who is undocumented and concerned about retaliation from ICE, makes a living through his guitar, which he has been playing since he was 17 years old.

As he took a break outside a downtown Oxnard restaurant, he looked tired, wiping his forehead after singing a song to a married couple and a group at a Mexican restaurant. He’s been in the United States for 42 years, but since the summer raid, business has been slow. Now, people no longer want to rent house parties.

The 77-year-old said he wants to retire but has to keep working. But he fears he might be arrested at random, based on how badly he treats customers. He thinks about the new year and returns to Mexico of his own volition.

“Before they take my guitar, I’d better go,” he said.