![\"Jeannie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792022052_771_.jpeg\"\/)
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Jeannie Parent is the co-founder of the nonprofit Kern Welcoming and Extending Solidarity to Immigrants. <\/p>\n
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. \u2013 On a Wednesday afternoon in September, the terminal inside the Bakersfield Amtrak and Greyhound station sat mostly empty.<\/p>\n
It was a regular day on the job for Ismael Larralde, who volunteers at the station to help passengers get to their bus or train.<\/p>\n
But since the Trump administration has pushed for mass deportations and Congress approved historic funding for immigration enforcement and detention, Larralde has found himself doing something new: assisting people who have just been released from immigrant detention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re very scared. They don’t know which direction to go, and if sometimes we approach them, they’re hesitant because of all the negativity they’ve been through,\u201d Larralde said.<\/p>\n
On this day, Larralde stood next to two men inside the train station who had just been released hours earlier from a nearby detention center.<\/p>\n
Kern County is home to four Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities. It’s the highest concentration of any county in California. People released from the two detention centers in McFarland \u2013 Golden State Annex and Central Valley Annex \u2013 are sent to Fresno\u2019s ICE field office for processing. Those released from the California City Detention Facility and the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center are received at the Bakersfield field office.<\/p>\n
That field office is located on Truxtun Avenue, just down the street from the train station. It\u2019s where the men released today came from, and it\u2019s where the newly released detainees processed at this office usually end up.<\/p>\n
Larralde says over the last two years that he has worked at the terminal, he has met people from New York, Maryland, Florida and even as far as Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s learned how to spot someone who just got out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey come in with red bags. There are documents inside, like onion sacks. A lot of times they just show up with a yellow envelope,\u201d Larralde said.<\/p>\n
As the number of detainees filling the nation’s immigration detention centers grows, so does the amount of people who manage to be released, with an increasing number of people filing for petitions of habeas corpus. That\u2019s a legal filing that challenges the government\u2019s reasoning to hold someone in detention.<\/p>\n
ICE data shows more than 2,500 detainees have come through Kern County just this year. Their average detention was between 25 and 69 days.<\/p>\n
Of the two men waiting in the terminal that day, only one man agreed to talk with KVPR.<\/p>\n
He requested his name not be used. He\u2019s scheduled to appear in immigration court the following month and doesn\u2019t want to jeopardize his case.<\/p>\n
The man said he\u2019d been living and working in Salt Lake City for nine years with a legal work permit. But over the summer, ICE officers detained him on his way to a grocery store. He spent the past two months in the California City Detention Facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn reality, they\u2019re rounding up a lot of people, including those who have [work] permits or who have started the paperwork process – and they\u2019re just taking everyone indiscriminately,\u201d the man said in Spanish.<\/p>\n
He said he was granted release after filing for habeas corpus. He said he and his fellow detainees also prayed a lot in detention, and that he believed his release was a miracle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would get on my hands and knees, praying to God with a pool of tears,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Earlier that morning, Jeannie Parent had been alerted by a network of volunteers that someone was being released from detention and needed assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we’re trying to work together to get him home. That’s the main priority,\u201d Parent said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s the founder of Kern Welcoming and Extending Solidarity to Immigrants<\/a> (KWESI<\/a>). The organization provides aid to people held in detention centers, and responds when someone is released.<\/p>\n Jeannie Parent is the co-founder of the nonprofit Kern Welcoming and Extending Solidarity to Immigrants. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n