200 immigrants arrested in raids on California cannabis farms

By AMY TAXIN, DAMIAN DOVARGANES and OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ

CAMARILLO — Federal immigration authorities said Friday they arrested about 200 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally in raids a day earlier on two California cannabis farm sites. Protesters engaged in a tense standoff with authorities at one of the farms during the operation.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that authorities executed criminal search warrants in Carpinteria and Camarillo, California, on Thursday. They arrested immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally and there were also at least 10 immigrant children on site, the statement said.

Four U.S. citizens were arrested for “assaulting or resisting officers,” the department said. Authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of one person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents. At least one worker was hospitalized with grave injuries.

During the raid, crowds of people gathered outside Glass House Farms at the Camarillo location to demand information about their relatives and protest immigration enforcement. A chaotic scene emerged outside the farm that grows tomatoes, cucumbers and cannabis as authorities clad in helmets and uniforms faced off with the demonstrators. Acrid green and white billowing smoke then forced community members to retreat.

ALSO SEE: Protesters and federal agents clash during raid at Camarillo farm

On Friday, about two dozen people waited outside the Camarillo farm to collect the cars of their loved ones and speak to managers about what happened. Relatives of Jaime Alanis, who worked picking tomatoes for 10 years, said he called his wife in Mexico during the raid to tell her immigration agents had arrived and that he was hiding with others inside the farm.

“The next thing we heard was that he was in the hospital,” Juan Duran, Alanis’ brother-in-law, said in Spanish, his voice breaking.

It was not immediately clear how Alanis was injured. A doctor told the family that others who brought Alanis to the hospital said he had fallen from the roof of a building.

Alanis had a broken neck, fractured skull and a rupture in an artery that pumps blood to the brain, said his niece Yesenia, who didn’t want to share her last name for fear of reprisal.

Maria Servin, 68, said her son Rafael Ortiz has worked at the farm for 18 years and was helping build a greenhouse when federal immigrations agents arrived Thursday.

Servin said she spoke to her son, who is undocumented, after hearing of the raid and offered to pick him up. “He said not to come because they were surrounded and there was even a helicopter. That was the last time I spoke to him,” Servin, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, said in Spanish.

She said she went to the farm anyway Thursday, but agents were shooting tear gas and rubber bullets, and she decided it wasn’t safe to stay.

On Friday, she returned with her daughter and was told her son had been arrested. The family still doesn’t know where he is being held or how to contact him. “I regret 1,000 times that I didn’t help him get his documents,” Servin said.

Glass House said in a statement that the company does not violate “applicable hiring practices” and does not employ children.

Taxin reported from Orange County, Calif. and Rodriguez reported from San Francisco.