Authorities say 200 immigrants arrested in raids on 2 Southern California farms

Camillo, California – Federal immigration authorities said on Friday that they had arrested around 200 immigrants suspected of being illegally in the country in raids a day earlier on two Californian cannabis farm sites. The demonstrators embarked on a stretched dead end with the authorities in one of the farms during the operation.

The Ministry of Internal Security said in a statement that the authorities had executed mandates of criminal search on Thursday in Carpinteria and Camallo, California. They arrested immigrants suspected of being illegally in the country and there were also at least 10 immigrant children on the spot, according to the press release.

Four American citizens were arrested to “attack or resist agents,” said the ministry. The authorities offered a reward of $ 50,000 for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of having shot a firearm on federal agents. At least one worker has been hospitalized with serious injuries.

During the raid, crowds of people gathered outside the farms of the glass house on the site of Camillo to demand information on their loved ones and protest of the application of immigration. A chaotic scene emerged outside the farm which cultivates tomatoes, cucumbers and cannabis as a authorities dressed in helmets and uniforms faced with the demonstrators. The hinged and aerial white smoke then forced community members to withdraw.

Friday, about two dozen people waited in front of Camillo’s farm to recover their relatives’ cars and talk to the managers of what happened. Parents of Jaime Alanis, who worked in the picking of tomatoes for 10 years, said that he had called his wife in Mexico during the raid to say that his 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,” said Juan Duran, a brother-in-law of Alanis, in Spanish, his voice breaks.

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

Alanis had a broken neck, a fractured skull and a rupture in an artery that pumps blood towards the brain, said his niece Yesenia, who did not want to share his family name for fear of reprisals.

Maria Sermin, 68, said her son Rafael Ortiz has worked on the farm for 18 years and helped build a greenhouse when federal immigration agents arrived on Thursday.

Servin said that she had spoken to her son, who is undocumented, after hearing about the raid and proposed to come and get him. “He said he did not come because they were surrounded and he was even a helicopter. It was the last time I spoke to him,” said Servin, who is a naturalized American citizen in Spanish.

She said that she went to the farm anyway on Thursday, but that the agents pulled tear gas and rubber bullets, and she decided that it was not sure to stay.

Friday, she returned with her daughter and she was told that her son had been arrested. The family still does not know where he is detained or how to contact him. “I regret 1,000 times that I have not helped him get his documents,” said Servin.

Glass House said in a statement that the company did not violate “applicable hiring practices” and do not use children.

____

Taxin reported to Orange County, California and Rodriguez, reported to San Francisco.