Hidden in the fields – Farm workers worried about being deported staying in the shadow of California

The women squatted motionlessly, kneeling between the endless fruit bushes, almost hiding the invisible fruit bushes.

“Are you ice?” one of the women, a farm worker wearing a hat and purple turban, asked us horriblely.

After assuring her that we do not attack with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (ICE) (ice) and arresting workers in the past week, she straightened her back and rose slightly from the dirt.

“Have you seen any ice van? Are there patrol cars there?” she asked, still not sure if we could trust her.

The woman, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, has been picking berries in Oxnard, California since she arrived in the United States two years ago. This is a small town with the “strawberry capital of the world”.

When her job transition ended Wednesday, she and her colleagues hid in the fields, waiting to be picked up by friends, unsure if she could venture into the parking lot safely.

Local activists said the day before, ice division agents visited nine farms in the Oxnard area, but without a search warrant, they were denied entry, but instead picked up people in nearby streets and arrested 35 people.

Workplace raids are part of President Donald Trump’s target of arresting 3,000 undocumented immigrants a day. During the campaign, he vowed to expel non-citizens accused of violent crimes, a promise that has been widely supported even among some Hispanics.

But in Los Angeles, there was a public opposition and street protests that sometimes became violent, prompting him to controversially send his army to the second largest city in the United States.

The woman said: “They treat us like criminals, but we just come here to work and live a better life.

“We don’t want to leave home anymore. We don’t want to go to the store. We’re afraid they’ll catch up with us.”

Lucas Zucker, a community organizer in the Central Coast region of California, said massive raids of workplaces in the heart of California’s agriculture over the past 15 years.

But this seems to have changed over the past week.

“They are just sweeping in immigrant communities like Oxnard, looking for people who can find politically driven quotas,” he said.

More than 40% of American agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants. According to USDA report for 2022. In California, more than 75% of people have no proof Merced University, University of California.

Raids by farms and businesses that rely on agricultural industries in California and throughout the country, the attacks have intensified this month.

If immigrants are arrested or forced to hide and fear of going to work, arresters are worried about food supply shortages in the United States.

This effect has not been lost in the White House. Despite winning the election decisively after pledging mass deportations, Trump admitted on Thursday that his crackdown was causing trouble to the agricultural sector.

“Our farmers were seriously hurt. You know, they had great workers. They worked for them for 20 years. They were not citizens, but they turned out to be great.”

He said in April that he might have the right to continue working in the U.S. on condition that they have formal advice from their employer and that they left the U.S. first.

The result of a raid Tuesday in Oxnard, a municipality 60 miles (100 kilometers) from downtown Los Angeles that can be posted to Instagram in a local flower businessman.

A brief clip display A man ran through a huge crop, passing through a thick morning mist as agents hiked and truck chased. Then, when the agent arrested him, he was seen falling on the ground in the row of plants.

When the BBC visited Oxnard on Wednesday, it was seen a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) truck parked outside the Organic Products Truck Company. Security personnel insisted that their visit had nothing to do with immigration, saying: “It’s not ice. We will never let ice come in here.”

Many tractors and trucks are surrounded by idle farmland as unknown workers choose to stay at home.

The impact is a chain reaction to other businesses. Watching from the family’s Mexican restaurant, Raquel Pérez sees masked CBP agents trying to enter Boskovich Farms, a vegetable and herb packaging facility on the street.

Now, her business, Casa Grande Cafe, has only one client during the usual busy lunch hours as farm workers stay at home. She estimates that at least half of normal customers have no documents.

“No one came today,” said her mother, Paula Pérez. “We are all on the edge.”

Raquel said she is now more concerned about the future of the restaurant – serving Chilaquiles, Flan and other Mexican cuisine than during Covid, when her customers continued their work as usual to get the country to serve fresh food.

“They didn’t realize the domino effect this would have.” Other companies around her that rely on agriculture have been affected. Nearby businesses have traded wooden pallets closed and are also local auto mechanics.

“Without picking strawberries or vegetables, it means there will be nothing in the packaging house. It means there will be no trucks to get things.”

An immigrant sold strawberries from his truck, which the raider has had a devastating impact – hope for his business and becoming a legal resident of the United States.

From Traxcala, Mexico, although there is no record in the United States, they bought very few people from me, and they bought very few from me. ” Oscar said.

“I’m scared, but I can’t stop going to work. I have to provide it to my family,” he said.

Óscar said he has been working to finalize his immigration status, but with Icefield agents now waiting outside the court for immigrants seeking paperwork, he is not sure what to do next.

“With legal circumstances, there aren’t many ways to be here.”