Community groups set up strike teams to respond to Trump’s mass deportation plans
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In the early days of President Trump’s first administration, several Kern County organizations launched a tip line people could contact if they spotted immigration enforcement activities underway.
Nearly three weeks ago, the hotline started ringing again. In panicked voices, callers reported witnessing U.S. Border Patrol agents questioning Latinos in parking lots and gas stations — and detaining people in large numbers. In some cases, they said, a loved one had been detained.
The U.S. Border Patrol ran rampant through Bakersfield in what immigration advocates say was nothing but racial profiling aimed at intimidation. More such raids are coming.
The Rapid Response Network of Kern sprung into action. Organization staff and volunteers fanned out across the Bakersfield area — to a Home Depot, a swap meet and other locations where the Border Patrol had been spotted. As they confirmed the raids, they attempted to document the scenes, including any violations of rights or use of force, as well as recording the names of people being detained and interviewing witnesses.
By the time the multi-day Border Patrol operation ended, 78 undocumented immigrants had been arrested, according to the El Centro Sector of the Border Patrol.
Border Patrol Chief Agent Gregory K. Bovino, who leads the El Centro Sector in the Imperial Valley along the Mexico border, said in statements on social media that agents had detained two child rapists and “other criminals.” He said that agents also arrested people for being in the U.S. unlawfully.
Advocates on the scene, meanwhile, said that the operation indiscriminately targeted Latino farmworkers and day laborers, and that far more people were detained. They questioned why agents from El Centro — 300 miles south — were conducting operations so far away from the border.
Representatives for U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment.
While the rapid-response network is not designed to intervene in raids, its members played a vital support role by chronicling the operation and offering counsel for those who were detained, said Rosa Lopez, a senior policy advocate for the ACLU of Southern California, which is a partner in Kern County’s network.
Rapid-response networks emerged across the state during the first Trump administration. The community-led groups became a first line of defense for immigrants overwhelmed by threats of raids and mass deportation.
The premise was straightforward: People who see immigration or border agents in their community call or text a hotline. A dispatcher notifies volunteers, who respond to the reported address to confirm if there is, in fact, an active operation. If verified, the dispatcher can send out a legal observer to monitor the situation, as well as an attorney to provide legal assistance.
During the height of the pandemic, and with immigrants facing fewer deportation threats under the Biden administration, many networks pivoted to providing people with information about vaccines and food assistance.
But after Trump was elected in November amid promises to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history, local organizations are dusting off the rapid-response networks they built eight years ago.
In the first days of his new term, Trump issued a slew of executive orders closing down legal avenues to asylum and declaring illegal immigration a national emergency at the southern border. Public sentiment could be on his side. A recent poll from the New York Times and Ipsos found that 55% of Americans strongly or somewhat support deporting all immigrants in the country illegally.
Along with providing legal defense to immigrants detained by authorities, much of what the networks do is preventative. They inform community members about their rights to ask for a warrant if ICE shows up at their door and not to answer questions. They urge people to document the encounter and report the incident. They also ensure families have an emergency plan.
They use text messaging and social media to warn people of confirmed operations, and more often, to tamp down the rumors that can spur people to stay home from work and keep their kids home from school.
“Our primary goal is to build power, not panic,” said Lisa Knox, co-executive director and legal director for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, which supports rapid-response networks across the state. “One of the biggest roles that these community networks can play is in spreading accurate information and dispelling misinformation.”
If Trump’s plans for mass deportations penetrate California’s heartland, it almost surely would decimate the workforce farmers rely on to plant and harvest their crops. So, why aren’t farmers yelling in protest?
Even before Trump was inaugurated this week, rapid-response networks kicked into high gear as the Bakersfield-area raids unleashed a wave of fear across the Central Valley, where a largely immigrant workforce helps harvest a quarter of the food grown in the U.S.
At least half of the state’s 162,000 farmworkers are undocumented, according to estimates from the federal Department of Labor and research conducted by UC Merced. Many of those workers have children or spouses who were born here.
In the weeks following the Bakersfield raid, the Rapid Response Network of Kern has helped distribute groceries to more than 200 families who have been afraid to leave their homes, and coordinated rides for people fearful of driving themselves to work. Network partners are exploring emergency rental assistance for families who lost income after the raids.
“There’s high panic,” said Blanca Ojeda, an organizer for Faith in the Valley, which helms the Valley Watch Network, a rapid-response network serving communities from Kern to San Joaquin counties. “The activity in Kern … just heightened everyone’s senses and just made us a little more suspicious of everyone.”
The Inland Empire Rapid Response Network — which hadn’t received a call in eight months — has gotten nearly 140 calls and text messages alerting it to possible immigration enforcement operations in the weeks since the Bakersfield operation, according to the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice.
Volunteers with the network have responded to more than 70 reports in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The group posts updates on Instagram, which so far have mostly served to dispel rumors of immigration agent sightings. It had confirmed at least two on social media as of Friday afternoon.
Trying to respond to reports of raids in a region spanning more than 27,000 square miles is no easy task, said Javier Hernandez, the coalition’s executive director. To meet that demand, the Inland Empire network is aiming to have dispatchers who speak English and Spanish available from 4 a.m. to midnight daily, and is in the process of training 300 responders.
The Valley Watch Network faces a similar challenge. It has trained more than 90 people since late last year and is trying to recruit more legal observers to respond to possible enforcement activities in the San Joaquin Valley’s far-flung farming communities.
“We just want to be able to mobilize as quickly as possible,” Ojeda said, “because it gives ICE the opportunity to leave that spot, and then we don’t have any evidence of what occurred.”
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.
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