By Jose Monterojo
From Jan. 7 through Jan. 10, immigration agents carried out a series of unexpected raids in California’s Central Valley, in an operation dubbed “Operation Return to Sender.” In Bakersfield, Calif., undercover agents in marked and unmarked vehicles confronted farm workers in front of a gas station and a shopping center, asking for their documents and arresting dozens of those without citizenship papers.
In order to justify their actions in the Central Valley, the Border Patrol stated that they had arrested immigrants with serious criminal records. As bystanders noted, however, immigration agents apprehended anyone who looked like a farmworker. Far from being a case of enhancing community security, these raids racially profiled Latino farmworkers to spread fear across the community.
News of these raids spread rapidly through the immigrant and Latino community. In the days following the raids, agricultural companies stated that up to 75% of their total workforce did not show up to work. Many children also didn’t attend school. People also reported seeing Border Patrol officers in Fresno and Madera, also in the Central Valley. The BP said they would expand raids to Fresno and Sacramento. The Border Patrol claims the right to conduct warrantless searches throughout any territory that lies within 100 miles of a U.S. border, including its coasts and international airports.
In response, immigrant rights organizers mobilized about 1000 people in Bakersfield. Activists decried the racist arrests as illegal since they were based on nothing but the color of workers’ skin and their work attire. They also discussed the importance of the immigrant community understanding their democratic rights.
These raids by the Border Control foreshadowed the more extensive raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that have taken place nationwide since Trump took office. On Feb. 1, ICE announced that it had arrested 7400 immigrants nationwide in the days following Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Ice has claimed that these were “targeted campaigns” against undocumented migrants with serious criminals records, such as murder, rape, sex trafficking or belonging to gangs. However, NBC News, for example, found that of the close to 1200 arrests made on Sunday, Jan. 26—mainly in Chicago—only 613 (almost 52%) were considered “criminal arrests.”
These raids are Donald Trump’s way of signaling that he will live up to his plans to deport undocumented workers en masse without any regard for due process or legality. The Biden administration arrested about 450 people per day in 2023 and about 310.7 per day last year, according to an ICE report. But they are now happening in the context of sweeping changes in immigration policy from the new regime.
Trump’s new executive orders on immigration include declaring a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, sending of 1500 troops to the border, deporting migrants who came legally under programs authorized by Biden, eliminating birthright citizenship (currently halted by the courts), and raiding sanctuary spaces such as schools, hospitals, and churches.
Sanctuary city policies are very limited in the protections they afford undocumented workers. While they can complicate federal agents’ deportation raids in places like San Francisco, Oakland, or Los Angeles, they cannot stop these agents from doing so, as demonstrated last week in Newark, N.J.
Moreover, Eric Adams, mayor of New York City—one of the key immigrant cities in the U.S.—stated recently that he would comply with Trump’s federal agents to arrest those with criminal records. While he upholds New York City’s sanctuary city status, he also plays into Trump’s anti-immigrant policies by accepting the racist framework in which Trump plans to carry out these raids: that they are meant to ensure the safety of U.S. citizens, even though evidence demonstrates that immigrants are less likely than the general citizen population to commit crimes.
We cannot depend on the goodwill of Democrats at any level of government to stand up for immigrant rights. We need to build a broad, independent mass movement for immigrant rights that unites all pro-immigrant forces, such as immigrant organizations, unions, religious groups, student forces, legal teams, etc. Such a wide coalition would need to focus on the strategy of mass action—that is, of taking to the streets, organizing labor actions, and blocking deportations through collective struggle wherever they occur.
End deportations! Close all the detention centers! Democratic rights for all undocumented workers! Citizenship for all!
