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united farm workers
Farmworker in Critical Condition After Fall From Greenhouse During California ICE Raid
"ICE is out of control," said one Democratic congresswoman. "This is not law enforcement. It is state violence."
Jul 11, 2025
[UPDATE: An earlier version of this piece reported that the farmworker, Jaime Alanís Garcia, had died from his injuries, which was based on a statement from the United Farm Workers that was widely reported. Following the publication of this piece, the Ventura County Medical Center released a statement saying that he was alive and in critical condition. The piece has been updated to reflect this new information.]
A Mexican farmworker who reportedly fell from a greenhouse while trying to hide during a Trump administration raid on a Southern California farm is in critical condition, according to the Ventura County Medical Center. He was initially reported dead by several media outlets following a statement from the United Farmworkers.
Federal authorities including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, many clad in military-style gear, stormed farms in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties on Thursday to execute search warrants for undocumented people. At Glass House Farms in Camarillo—which grows state-legal cannabis as well as tomatoes and cucumbers—the invading agents were met with spirited resistance from hundreds of community members who rushed to the site in support of targeted workers. Federal officers responded by firing tear gas and less-lethal projectiles at crowds of protesters who were blocking area roadways in a bid to prevent arrests.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that officers "arrested approximately 200 illegal aliens" from Glass House Farms and another farm in Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County, where protesters also descended, and were met with tear gas and pepper balls, according to local news outlets. DHS also said they found at least 10 immigrant children on the farm.
The Associated Press reported that a farmworker, identified as Jaime Alanís, phoned his wife in Mexico and told her about the raid in progress, saying he was hiding with other workers. Alanís fell from his hiding place and suffered broken neck, fractured skull, and a rupture in an artery that pumps blood to the brain, his niece Yesenia—who did not want to give her full name—told the AP.
"They told us he won't make it and to say goodbye," she said.
The Ventura County Medical Center later released a statement saying that Alanís "is currently hospitalized at VCMC and remains in critical condition."
United Farm Workers (UFW) said Friday that "other workers, including U.S. citizens, remain unaccounted for."
"Our staff is on the ground supporting families," UFW said in a statement. "Many workers, including U.S. citizens, were held by federal authorities at the farm for eight hours or more. U.S. citizen workers report only being released after they were forced to delete photos and videos of the raid from their phones."
"UFW is also aware of reports of child labor on site," the union continued. "The UFW demands the immediate facilitation of independent legal representation for the minor workers, to protect them from further harm. Farmworkers are excluded from basic child labor laws."
"These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives, and separate families," UFW added. "There is no city, state, or federal district where it is legal to terrorize and detain people for being brown and working in agriculture. These raids must stop immediately."
The raids appear to be ramping up, even before ICE receives an historic $46 billion funding infusion via the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump last week. Video footage posted on social media in recent days showed ICE officers and other federal agents arresting people in courthouses, a hospital, and marching through a suburban Utah neighborhood.
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Democratic U.S. lawmakers were among those condemning the Trump administration's crackdown.
"This is a heartbreaking and deeply troubling development," Congresswoman Norma Torres (D-Calif.) said on social media. "Immigrant communities deserve safety and dignity. I'm calling for a full investigation and accountability."
"Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said that "ICE is out of control."
"This is not law enforcement," she added. "It is state violence."
Some observers called on Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom—who has overseen several legal challenges to the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants and protesters who defend them—to do more to help people targeted by ICE.
"If Newsom really cared about defending our state and our communities, he'd be on the line with other farmers by last night," Murshed Zaheed, a former U.S. Senate Democratic leadership staffer, said on the social media site Bluesky.
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Lawsuit Aims to End 'Systematic' Snatching of Brown-Skinned People by Trump Agents
"These guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end," one attorney in the case said of Department of Homeland Security agents.
Jul 02, 2025
Immigrant rights defenders in California on Wednesday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, accusing the Trump administration of "abducting and disappearing community members using unlawful stop and arrest practices and confining individuals at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to attorneys" as part of its mass deportation effort.
The lawsuit was brought by five individual workers, three advocacy groups, and a legal services provider: The Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers (UFW), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Their complaint accuses DHS of unconstitutionally arresting and detaining people, according to the ACLU, which is assisting with the legal challenge, "in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration."
According to the complaint:
The raids in this district follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody. In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.
"DHS—at explicit direction from the Trump administration—has gone after day laborers, car wash workers, farm workers, street vendors, service workers, nannies, and others who form the lifeblood of communities across Southern California," said ACLU Foundation of Southern California senior staff attorney Mohammad Tajsar, who is representing plaintiffs in the case. "Everyone deserves to feel safe going about their daily lives. DHS must stop disappearing people from our communities."
Tajsar told the Los Angeles Times that "these guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end."
Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center and a plaintiff's attorney in the suit, said in a statement that "the federal government is waging a campaign of terror across Southern California, abducting community members off the streets and warehousing them in deplorable conditions away from their loved ones, all while denying them access to legal counsel."
"It's blatantly unconstitutional, cruelly inhumane, and a violation of any common decency," Huerta added. "If the Trump administration insists on trampling Angelenos' rights, we'll see them in court."
Plaintiffs in the case—who are seeking to represent people subjected to random stops and arrests—are asking the court to certify the case as a class action. They have also requested preliminary and permanent injunctions barring further violations of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and self-incrimination, as enshrined in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, respectively.
As the lawsuit notes, "one of the clearest patterns that have emerged in the raids in Southern California... has been stops and interrogations... on the basis of apparent race and ethnicity."
"These raids have targeted the most vulnerable members of our workforce, essential workers who are the backbone of our local economy," said Los Angeles Worker Center Network executive director Armando Gudino. "We cannot allow racial profiling, warrantless arrests, and denial of due process to become the standard operating procedure in our communities."
DHS has been holding arrested people in the basement of a federal building in downtown Los Angeles commonly referred to as B-18. The lockup has no beds, showers, or medical facilities, according to the ACLU of Southern California. Furthermore, B-18 is meant to hold only a small number of people on a temporary basis while they are processed.
"We have heard from over 100 families of Individuals taken to B-18 and other detention centers that attest to their loved ones being kept in overcrowded, cold, and inhumane conditions," said CHIRLA executive director Angelica Salas. "They are held in small windowless rooms with dozens or more other detainees, in extremely cramped quarters while being verbally humiliated and pressured into signing papers they don't understand."
The ACLU of Southern California said: "The ongoing raids have led to the disappearance of more than 1,500 people. The suit details how federal agents consistently refuse to identify themselves or what agency they are with when asked, using anonymity as a tactic to shield lawlessness."
UFW president Teresa Romero noted in a statement that "the raids in the greater Los Angeles area have not been limited to the urban center; we have also seen horrific instances of Border Patrol agents chasing down farm workers in the fields of Ventura County. The spouse of a UFW member was among those unjustly detained."
"Now the very workers who feed America go to work in fear," she added. "Their American-born children are scared not knowing if their parents will come home. Farm workers deserve better. 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."
While U.S. President Donald Trump, members of his administration, and Republican lawmakers and supporters claim the DHS crackdown is targeting dangerous criminals, critics have noted that people legally seeking asylum, families, relatives of American citizens, and even citizens themselves have been swept up in the mass deportation dragnet.
According to the libertarian Cato Institute, 65% of people taken by ICE had no criminal conviction whatsoever and 93% had no conviction for violent offenses.
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US Farmworkers' Advocates Calls for Greater Protections as Bird Flu Spreads
"The focus should be on the dairy farmworker" as the government tries to stop the spread of H5N1, said one advocate.
May 30, 2024
U.S. health officials in recent months have said the avian flu that's been detected in chickens and cows in some states poses little risk to the general population and to commercial dairy products, but as a third farmworker's diagnosis with the illness was reported Thursday, advocates said officials must do more to protect the laborers who are most at risk.
A farmworker in Michigan was the second person in the state to test positive for H5N1, the avian flu that's currently circulating, and was the first person to report respiratory symptoms. A worker in Texas was also diagnosed with the illness in March and had mild symptoms.
The person whose case was announced Thursday contracted the disease after being exposed to infected cows.
As of late last week, there were 58 cow herds known to be infected across the United States.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that there have been "anecdotal reports" of other farmworkers exhibiting mild symptoms, and last week federal officials said an unspecified number of people are being "actively monitored" for signs of avian flu, but noted that only 40 people connected to dairy farms had been tested.
Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters on May 22 that authorities are preparing 5 million doses of a vaccine against H5N1, often referred to as bird flu. Offiicals have not yet decided whether shots will be offered to farmworkers when they're deployed later this year.
Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for United Farm Workers (UFW), said that while vaccines are being prepared, authorities must ramp up a testing campaign to stop the spread of the virus and protect the country's 150,000 dairy farmworkers.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled a push earlier this month to encourage workers at affected dairy farms to get tested, offering them a financial incentive of $75.
But with undocumented immigrants who lack health insurance making up a large portion of the agricultural workforce, said Strater, many will likely feel they can't risk testing positive and being required to stay home from work for just $75.
"That's not even a day's lost work," Strater told The Guardian on Wednesday. "And that's a very bad gamble for someone that might miss weeks... They're unlikely to go to the emergency room for anything that isn't life-threatening. In fact, they're avoiding testing because they know they won't get any compensation if they're ordered to stop working."
Bethany Boggess Alcauter, director of research and public health programs at the National Center for Farmworker Health, told USA Today that farmworkers are currently being treated as "canaries in the coal mine," but "they could be trained to be frontline public health defenders," with authorities sharing far more information about the disease with them.
"Education needs to be a part of testing efforts, with time for workers to ask questions," Alcauter told the outlet.
As the third human case of H5N1 was reported on Thursday, UFW called for "protective equipment and paid sick leave" for farmworkers.
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked states to provide personal protective equipment to farmworkers. USA Today reported this week that the response has varied from state to state:
State health departments in California, Texas, and Wisconsin, which have large dairy industries, all said they have offered to distribute such equipment.Amy Liebman, chief program officer for the Migrant Clinicians Network, criticized the federal government's current response to the spread of H5N1, and told The Guardian that "the focus should be on the dairy farmworker."
Chris Van Deusen, a Texas health department spokesperson, said four dairy farms had requested protective equipment from the state stockpile. He said other farms may already have had what they needed. Spokespeople for the California and Wisconsin health departments said they did not immediately receive requests from farm owners for the extra equipment.
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