Oxnard still reeling from Glass House immigration raids, deportations

OXNARD — A father who became the sole guardian of his two young children after his wife was deported. The school district is seeing truancy rates similar to those seen during the pandemic. Businesses are struggling because customers are afraid to go out.

This is just an example of how this part of Ventura County is coping with the fallout from federal immigration raids. at Glass House hemp farms six months ago, when hundreds of workers were detained and families were torn apart. In some cases, it is still unclear what happened to minors left behind after one or both parents were deported. Now, as Latino families gather for the holidays, businesses and restaurants remain largely silent as concerns persist about more raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“There is a lot of concern about the community,” said Alicia Flores, executive director of Hank Lacayo's La Hermandad Youth and Family Center. At this time of year, clients usually ask her about her vacation plans, but no one asks now. Families are separated at the U.S. border or have loved ones in immigration custody. “They were ready for Christmas, making tamales, pozole, cooking something and celebrating with the family. And now nothing.”

At the time, immigration raids on Glass House Farms in Camarillo and Carpinteria were among the largest of their kind in the country and resulted in chaos, confusion, and violence. At least 361 illegal immigrants detained. many of them are third-party contractors to Glass House. One of these contractors, Jaime Alanis Garcia, died after falling from the roof of the greenhouse during the raid on July 10.

Raids catalyst for mass protests along the Central Coast and brought a chill to Oxnard, a close-knit community where many families work in nearby fields and live in multigenerational homes far more modest than many on the Ventura coast. It has also renewed fears that farmworker communities — often among the lowest-paid and most vulnerable segments of the workforce — will be targeted during the Trump administration's intense deportation campaign.

In California, undocumented workers make up nearly 60% of the farm workforce, and many live in households with mixed immigration status or in households where no one is a citizen, said Ana Padilla, executive director of the Community and Labor Center at the University of California, Merced. After the Glass House raid, Padilla and UC Merced assistant professor Edward Flores identified economic trends similar to the Great Recession, when private sector jobs fell. Although undocumented workers pay state and federal taxes, they are not eligible for unemployment benefits, which could cushion the impact of losing a job after a family member is detained.

“These households have suffered the economic impact 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 actions.

Local businesses are also feeling the effects. Sylvia Lopez, who has run Divine Hair Design in downtown Oxnard for 16 years, said she has lost 75 percent of her business since the July raid. She said the salon usually saw 40 clients a day, but the day after the raid there were only two clients and four stylists, who were stunned. Other salon owners had already had to close, she said, and she cut back on her hours to help the remaining stylists earn enough each month.

“Everything has changed for everyone,” she said.

In another part of town, a store owner selling quinceañera and christening gowns said her sales have dropped 60% each month since August and customers have put off shopping. The auto shop owner, who asked to remain anonymous because he fears government retaliation, said he supports President Trump because of his campaign promise to help small business owners like himself. But access to federal loans is difficult, he said, and he feels betrayed by the president's deportation campaign targeting communities like Oxnard.

“Glass House had a big impact,” he said. “It made people realize, 'Oh, they're hitting us hard.' »

The domino effect resulting from the raid has raised concerns about the welfare of children in affected families. Immigration enforcement actions can have harmful consequences for young children according to the American Immigration Counciland they may be at risk of experiencing severe psychological distress.

Olivia Lopez, a community organizer with the United Alliance for a Sustainable Economy of the Central Coast, highlighted one father's predicament. He became the sole caregiver of his infant and 4-year-old son after his wife was deported and cannot afford child care. He is considering sending the children across the border to join his wife in Mexico, who misses her children.

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

She also said she has heard stories of children left behind, including a 16-year-old girl who doesn't want to leave the U.S. to reunite with her mother, who was deported after the Glass House raid. She said she suspects at least 50 families – and about 100 children – lost both or only parents in the raid.

“After all these stories, I have questions: where are the children in cases where two parents responsible for the children were 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 the welfare of children in the county, said she could not answer specific questions about whether the agency was aware of minors remaining at home after their parents were detained.

“Federal and state laws do not allow us to confirm or deny whether children from Glass House Farms families have entered the child welfare system,” she said in a statement.

The raid sparked outrage in the Oxnard school district, which was closed for summer break but reopened July 10 to contact families and ensure their well-being, Supt. Ana DeGenna said. Her staff called all 13,000 families in the district to ask if they needed resources and wanted access to virtual classes for the upcoming school year.

DeGenna and her staff had been preparing since before the July 10 raid. In January, after Trump's inauguration, the district accelerated the installation of doorbells at all schools in case immigration agents tried to enter. They referred families to organizations that would help them create affidavits so their U.S.-born children could have legal guardians if their parents were deported. They asked parents to provide not one or two, but as many as 10 emergency contacts in case they didn't show up to pick up their children.

In a county that is 92% Latino, nearly everyone feels fear, whether they have been directly or indirectly affected, or whether they are citizens, she said. Some families self-deported, leaving the country, and children changed households to continue their education. Almost every morning, while raids continue in the region, she gets calls about seeing cars with internal combustion engines near schools. When that happens, she said, she knows attendance at nearby schools will drop to near COVID-19 levels and parents will be afraid to send their children back to class.

But unlike the pandemic, there is no relief from knowing they've been through the worst, like the Glass House raid that left hundreds of families affected in just a day, she said. The need for mental health counselors and support has only increased.

“We have to be there to protect them and care for them, but we have to accept that this is the reality that they live in,” she said. “We can't stop learning, we can't stop education because we also know that that's the most important thing that will help them in the future to potentially avoid any casualties.”

Jasmine Cruz, 21 years old, launched a GoFundMe page after her father is kidnapped during the Glass House raid. He remains in custody in Arizona, and the family has hired an immigration lawyer in hopes of winning his release.

Paying rent and utilities is becoming more difficult every month, she said. She raised about $2,700 through GoFundMe, which didn't fully cover a month's rent. Cruz said her mother is considering moving the family back to Mexico if her father is deported.

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

Many of the families separated by the Glass House raid had no clear plans, and some families resisted because they believed 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 notarize family affidavits. One notary, she said, spent 10 hours for free working with families, including some former Glass House employees, who evaded the raid.

“The way I always explain it is that anything that is done by this government agency is beyond your control,” she said. “But what you can control is the peace of mind knowing that you did something to protect your children and didn’t leave them unprotected.”

For many undocumented immigrants, there are few choices.

Rodrigo, who is undocumented and worries about reprisals from ICE, made a living from his guitar, which he has played since he was 17.

During a break outside a restaurant in downtown Oxnard, he looked tired and was wiping his brow after serenading a couple, a couple and a group at a Mexican restaurant. He's been in the U.S. for 42 years, but business has been slow since the summer raid. Now people no longer want to hire employees for house parties.

The 77-year-old said he wants to retire but must continue to work. But he's afraid he'll be caught at random, given how brutal the agents were. He thinks about the new year and returns to Mexico of his own free will.

“Before they take my guitar,” he said, “I better leave.”