Relentless immigration raids are changing California’s way of life

When the immigration agents came to the farm where he worked, Jaime Alanis tried to hide.

Cutting a greenhouse with a greenhouse, while the agents gathered and stopped dozens of his colleagues below, Mr. Alanis hoped to stay out of sight.

Then he fell.

His neck was broken and the skull broke. He died later in the hospital.

Meanwhile, immigration agents fired tear gas on a crowd of some 500 demonstrators, who had gathered to stop raids outside of two legal cannabis farms. Some threw rocks and the FBI said that one pulled a firearm on federal agents.

The death of Mr. Alanis and the violent clashes that followed in these cannabis farms are the last examples of the type of chaos that has swept away southern California since early June, when immigration raids began to intensify in the region.

These repression triggered demonstrations, which led US President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard and the US Marines, to protect the federal officers from the demonstrators and to ensure that his mass deportations, which he had promised for a long time, were carried out.

While many Americans support the difficult immigration policies of Trump, the raid in the region has also sparked a fierce reaction from neighbors and activists. South California is home to around 1.4 million undocumented immigrants, many of which were forced to hide – too afraid of going to work, school or even grocery store.

In doing so, the raids have changed the landscape of one of the most populous regions in the country. Companies are closed, cities have canceled community events – including fireworks celebrations on July 4.

“Everyone looks over the shoulders,” said a “Raspado” seller in Los Angeles a recent Sunday, where the normally crowded football fields and the picnic tables were mainly deserted. While she was preparing the shaved ice with sweet strawberry syrup, she seemed suspicious of the questions but grateful for a client.

“It’s never like that,” she said.

The raids of the two cannabis farms are now presented as the largest immigration operation since Trump took office.

Of the 361 migrants held during these raids, four had “extended” legal records, including rape, kidnapping and attempted sexual assault, the media reported. Immigration agents also found 14 migrant children who, according to the administration, were “saved from potential exploitation, forced labor and the trafficking in human beings”.

While the administration frequently highlights condemned rapists, the murderers and drug traffickers they have arrested in operations, dozens of immigrants – a lot without criminal conviction that have spent decades building businesses, families and houses – have been taken in the reticulation.

“They kidnap you,” explains Carlos, who did not want her full name to be used for fear that he could be expelled to his native Guatemala. He is too afraid to go to work since his sister, Emma, was detained while he sells tacos outside a house depot last month. “If I’m brown, if I’m Hispanic, they just come to catch you and take you.”

The Trump administration says that the statements are targeted due to their “disgusting” and false skin color.

Carlos says he feels a little more security because a federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to arrest “without discrimination” to hold people with “itinerant patrols” of federal agents. But he does not trust that they will stop and he must return to work.

“How will I pay my rent,” he said. “I am stuck inside.”

The churches and groups of immigrant rights organized food delivery for people to hide. They also trained people to protect immigrants in the streets using applications, text channels and social media to alert people when federal agents are nearby.

When dozens of camouflage armed agents came down to the MacArthur on horseback park and in armored vehicles earlier this month, little was surprised.

The word had quickly spread from the operation – and rumors had swirled according to which “the migra” arrived for hours before the arrival of the troops. Dozens of demonstrators have invaded to greet the troops – including the mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass, who demanded to leave the park.

Witnesses say that no arrest has been made and that no one was seen running to escape. As the troops arrived – with teams of professional appearance cameras recording the manifest demonstration of the Force – the only people in the park were demonstrators, children in a summer camp and sleeping homeless in the grass.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Betsy Bolte, who lives near the park and presented himself to protest and shout obscenities against agents.

“It is the war against the people-the heart and the soul of the economy. And everything is intentional. It is part of the plan,” she said, crying while showing journalists her images.

Activists accuse the government of terrorizing its own people.

“This is part of a program of terror. From Los Angeles to the central coast, the Trump administration arms the federal government and the military against the Californians,” said the cause of the defense group.

But not all Californians agree.

Trump won 38% of voting ballots in November. Recently, the BBC presented the story of a woman who is still devoted to the president and her mass deportation plans, even if she is locked as an illegal immigrant.

And a supporter of a solitary Trump introduced himself to the demonstration at the Farm of Cannabis last week, only to be beaten and dreamed and spit by demonstrators.

Ironically, the architect of many Trump expulsion policies is himself an Angeleno. The White House assistant, Stephen Miller, was raised in the Liberal Santa Monica where even in adolescence, he was known on the conservative radio for having condemned the use of Spanish in his school.

He told Fox News this week that California’s “violent” democratic politicians arose to protest against violence against federal immigration agents.

“No city can help and abandon an invasion of this country on the will of the American people and the officers responsible for the application of laws authorized to promulgate the wills of the American people,” he said.

Trump’s “border tsar” Tom Homan said that Los Angeles has himself been to blame because Los Angeles sanctuary laws prevent local police from cooperating with immigration agents inside prisons, where they could hold immigrant offenders outside the public eye.

“We are going to double, triple the sanctuary cities,” Homan told journalists, adding that they do not have such public raids in Florida because all the sheriffs there allowed immigration agents entering prisons to hold immigrants.

“If they do not let us stop the villain of the county prison, they will stop them in the community. We will stop them on a site.”

In Los Angeles, the impact of the month of raids is noticeable. In the parks and districts that have been animated with buyers, pedestrian traffic, music and street sellers, the absence of familiar sounds is strange.

There are 88 cities in the County of Los Angeles and many of them have canceled public summer events due to the activity in the process of immigration.

“Many residents have expressed fear and uncertainty, leading them to stay inside, abstain from work and withdraw from daily public life,” the city of Huntington Park said in a statement on canceled events. “Our priority is and will continue to be the security and peace of mind of our community.

Now, some immigrants are afraid of presenting themselves for their planned audiences because they are detained outside the court.

Pastor Ara Torosian of Cornerstone Church in West said that most of his faithful in the Persian language were asylum seekers. A couple with a three -year -old girl was arrested outside the court when they presented themselves for what they thought was a “routine” audience. Now they are in Texas in a family detention center.

Five members of his congregation were detained in June – two of them in the street while Pastor Torosien filmed and begged the agents to stop.

“They are not criminals,” he said. “They obeyed everything, hiding nothing.”