When President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office on Monday, the U.S. Border Patrol is poised to play a central role in his promised crackdown on immigration. Californians got a taste of possible tensions Thursday as undocumented immigrants were rounded up in places that rely on their labor.
On one side, a Border Patrol captain posted a video on social media showing a sweep last week in California’s Central Valley. The operation, called Operation Return to Sender, resulted in dozens of arrests. “They think I hide in the shadows, but I am the shadows,” a voice whispers in the film, echoing a popular Batman movie.
United Farm Workers officials, on the other hand, held a news conference to describe the concerns the operation had caused among immigrant communities. They said the arrests showed that “rogue” law enforcement officers, inspired by Trump’s plan, might take matters into their own hands.
Antonio Delora-Brewster, a spokesman for the union, said: “This is part of a new political climate in which people in some institutions feel emboldened.”
The Biden administration and the Trump transition team did not respond to messages seeking comment. U.S. Customs and Border Protection would not answer questions about the operation, saying generally that agents “conducted targeted law enforcement arrests of individuals involved in smuggling throughout our operations as part of our effort to disrupt transnational criminal organizations.” part of the effort.”
Details about the sweeps came primarily from the social media channels of Gregory K. Bovino, the chief of the Border Patrol in Southern California. In a series of posts, he described the three-day operation as an “overwhelming success” with the arrests of 78 people, all of whom were illegal immigrants and some with “serious criminal records.”
United Farm Workers and some farmers in the area said the sweep was much wider.
“Agents were asking people in parking lots for their IDs and their Whether they were here legally or not “Then they took them away in a van. “
What became apparent was that about 60 agents in marked and unmarked cars drove hundreds of miles from their headquarters near the California border to gather in and around Bakersfield, a vast agricultural region that relies on immigrant labor. Agents monitored Home Depots, gas stations and other locations frequented by undocumented individuals.
Bovino, a nearly 30-year veteran of the agency who held a non-political position in the El Centro department, said in his post that the operation had resulted in “two child sexual predators” and others “Serious felons,” including a Chinese citizen suspected of defrauding an American dementia patient of “$70,000.”
He called the sweep a “targeted operation” in which agents “go where there are threats.” In addition to the arrests, agents also seized marijuana and methamphetamine, he said.
On January 10, when a social media commenter noted that Mr. Bovino would be “extremely busy” in 10 days, days before Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Bovino responded: “Elson The Troop Department is ready to bring them to justice.
In other posts, he said unauthorized immigrants should simply get documents: “Being undocumented is what it is. I recommend going back to the country of origin, getting the proper documents, and doing it the right way. If not, we arrest.”
Trump vows mass deportations. Since his election, he has continued to use social media to share his thoughts on the border, writing in late November that “thousands of people are pouring into Mexico and Canada, driving crime and drugs to unprecedented levels.”
Illegal crossings have fallen sharply in recent months after the Biden administration introduced new asylum restrictions and stepped up enforcement from Mexico and other countries along the migration route. About 46,000 people crossed the border illegally in November, the lowest number during the Biden administration and lower than the number at the end of Trump’s term in 2020.
Thomas D. Homan, a former senior official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement who was appointed by Trump as “border czar”, said that the new administration’s enforcement actions will target immigrants with outstanding deportation orders and criminal records. But it has not yet been determined.
Bakersfield straddles State Route 99, a heavily trafficked highway that transports trucks harvesting the harvest in the Central Valley, California’s agricultural heartland. But it is also an important corridor for smuggling illegal substances.
Gunfights have become a feature of life there, with gangs vying for control of lucrative drug sales. Working-class communities are accustomed to law enforcement tracking and arresting people involved in the drug trade.
Chris Magnus, who served as Customs and Border Protection commissioner during the first phase of the Biden administration, said unauthorized immigrants who commit serious crimes should be caught.
“However, large-scale roundups of temporary workers and field workers through analysis will not improve public safety and will waste law enforcement resources,” Mr. Magnus said. “These roundups have created widespread distrust of law enforcement and discouraged many community members from reporting crimes as victims or witnesses.”
In fact, random arrests of people questioned about their immigration status have caused panic in Bakersfield and around Kern County.
Mr Cunha of the Nisei Farmers Union said 30 to 40 per cent of the workforce did not report to the fields in the days after the attack.
Near Bakersfield, citrus grower Pete Belluomini said about two-thirds of his pickers haven’t shown up in two or three days. “This is not the first time something like this has happened, but in this political climate it is a bigger sensation,” he said.
It’s an open secret that most of the people harvesting America’s grain are unauthorized immigrants, primarily from Mexico and Central America, many of whom have been living in the United States for decades. They are often parents of children born in the United States who have lived under the specter of deportation for years.
Alejandra and her partner Pedro, undocumented immigrants from Mexico, had just started picking lemons on the first morning of the sweep, Jan. 7, when their supervisor warned them: “La Migra” — Border Patrol slang — is in the area.
She said they soon learned that a colleague had been arrested and most decided to stay at the scene until dark. The couple returned to Bakersfield before sunset to pick up their 5-year-old son from day care.
“As parents, our biggest fear is, what will happen to our children if we are deported?” said Alejandra, 38, who did not identify herself or her partner for safety reasons surname. Workers were anxious during the week of clearing, she said, and “the fields were almost empty.”
To feel more empowered, Alejandra said she attended three information sessions held by community advocates to learn about her rights.
“I’m nervous, I’m scared,” she said. “We don’t know what Trump has in store for us.”
