They aren’t even waiting until their Dear Leader is inaugurated:
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.
Growers and agricultural leaders in California and across the nation have warned that Trump’s promised mass deportations will disrupt the nation’s food supply, leading to shortages and higher prices. In Kern County this week, just the word of the deportations inspired workers to stay away from the fields.
“People are freaked out, people are worried, people are planning on staying home the next couple of days,” said Antonio De Loera-Brust, director of communication for the United Farm Workers. De Loera-Brust said the Border Patrol detained at least one UFW member in Kern County as they “traveled between home and work.”
They were stopping cars and asking for papers.
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. We are planning operations for other locals (sic) such as Fresno and especially Sacramento.”
Sacramento would be the state capitol.
And so it begins.