{"id":516082,"date":"2026-11-02T16:04:54","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T16:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/516082\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T16:04:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T16:04:54","slug":"kern-county-immigration-sweep-sets-off-fears-of-more-ca-raids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/516082\/","title":{"rendered":"Kern County immigration sweep sets off fears of more CA raids"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sergio Olmos<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""Farmworkers\"
\n\t\t\t\tFarmworkers work on a field outside of Bakersfield in Kern County on July 25 2023. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters\/CatchLight Local<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Lea esta historia en Espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n

Acres of orange groves sat unpicked in Kern County this week as word of Border Patrol raids circulated through Messenger chats and images of federal agents detaining laborers spread on local Facebook groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Border Patrol conducted unannounced raids throughout Bakersfield on Tuesday, descending on businesses where day laborers and field workers gather. Agents in unmarked SUVs rounded up people in vans outside a Home Depot and gas station that serves a breakfast popular with field workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This appears to be the first large-scale Border Patrol raid in California since the election of Donald Trump, coming just a day after Congress certified the election on January 6, in the final days of Joe Biden\u2019s presidency. The panic and confusion, for both immigrants and local businesses that rely on their labor, foreshadow what awaits communities across California if Trump follows through on his promise to conduct mass deportations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was profiling, it was purely field workers,\u201d said Sara Fuentes, store manager of the local gas station. Fuentes said that at 9 a.m., when the store typically gets a rush of workers on their way to pick oranges, two men in civilian clothes and unmarked Suburbans started detaining people outside the store. \u201cThey didn\u2019t stop people with FedEx uniforms, they were stopping people who looked like they worked in the fields.\u201d Fuentes says one customer pulled in just to pump gas and agents approached him and detained him.<\/p>\n

Fuentes has lived in Bakersfield all her life and says she\u2019s never seen anything like it. In one instance, she said a man and woman drove up to the store together, and the man went inside. Border Patrol detained the man as he walked out, Fuentes said, and then demanded the woman get out of the vehicle. When she refused, another agency parked his vehicle behind the woman, blocking her car. Fuentes said it wasn\u2019t until the local Univision station showed up that Border Patrol agents backed up their car and allowed the woman to leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fuentes says none of the regular farm workers showed up to buy breakfast on Wednesday morning. \u201cNo field workers at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Growers and agricultural leaders in California and across the nation have warned that Trump\u2019s promised mass deportations will disrupt the nation\u2019s food supply, leading to shortages and higher prices. In Kern County this week, just the word of the deportations inspired workers to stay away from the fields.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are freaked out, people are worried, people are planning on staying home the next couple of days,\u201d said Antonio De Loera-Brust, director of communication for the United Farm Workers. De Loera-Brust said the Border Patrol detained at least one UFW member in Kern County as they \u201ctraveled between home and work.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Videos shared in local Facebook groups and Instagram pages show Border Patrol agents pulling over vehicles along the 99 Highway on Tuesday and Wednesday in Bakersfield.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were stopping cars at random, asking people for papers. They were going to gas stations and Home Depot where day laborers gather,\u201d said Antonio De Loera-Brust. \u201cIt\u2019s provoking intense anxiety and a lot of fear in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment.\u00a0On social media, Gregory K. Bovino, the Border Patrol chief in El Centro, called the sweeps \u201cOperation Return to Sender.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are taking it to the bad people and bad things in Bakersfield,\u201d the El Centro Border Patrol said in response to a comment on its Facebook page. \u201cWe are planning operations for other locals (sic) such as Fresno and especially Sacramento.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how many people have been detained by Border Patrol or how long the operation would last. <\/p>\n

“We\u2019re in the middle of our citrus harvesting. This sent shockwaves through the entire community,\u201d said Casey Creamer, president of the industry group California Citrus Mutual, on Thursday. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t going to work and kids aren\u2019t going to school. Yesterday about 25% of the workforce, today 75% didn\u2019t show up.”<\/p>\n

He pushed back on the Border Patrol\u2019s claims they\u2019re targeting bad people. He said they appeared to be general sweeps of workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this is the new normal, this is absolute economic devastation,\u201d said Richard S. Gearhart, an associate professor of economics at Cal State-Bakersfield.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the short term, he predicted farms and dairies could make up the losses, but that homebuilders, restaurants and small businesses would be most hurt financially.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s worried about the long-term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are talking about a recession-level event if this is the new long-term norm,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Agriculture comprises about 10 percent of Kern County\u2019s gross domestic product and undocumented workers may comprise half of the workforce, he said. And the Central Valley provides about a quarter of the United States\u2019 food.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you WILL see, in the long run, food inflation and food shortages,\u201d he wrote in a text message.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He predicted immigrants, even ones with documents, would stop shopping, going to school and seeking health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, this could have some serious deleterious long run impacts beyond lost farm productivity. Losses in education and health would be catastrophic,\u201d he said. \u201cBasically, you know how Kern County complains about oil? This event would be analogous to shutting down oil production. Economic catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the record: The first paragraph of this story has been updated to reflect that orange groves went unpicked. The original version referred to grape fields. However, this time of year, grape fields are being pruned, not picked.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sergio Olmos, CalMatters Farmworkers work on a field outside of Bakersfield in Kern County on July 25…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,536,14],"class_list":["post-516082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-immigration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}