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Alarm spread through California agricultural centers Tuesday as panicked workers reported that federal immigration authorities — who had largely refrained from major enforcement action in farming communities in the first months of the Trump administration — were showing up at farm fields and packinghouses from the Central Coast to the San Joaquin Valley.
“Today we are seeing an uptick in the chaotic presence of immigration enforcement, particularly the Border Patrol,” said Elizabeth Strater, vice president of the United Farm Workers. “We’re seeing it in multiple areas.”
Department of Homeland Security officials declined to confirm specific locations, but said enforcement actions were taking place across the southern area of the state. Advocates from numerous immigrant advocacy groups said their phones were lighting up with calls, videos and texts from multiple counties.
The Times reviewed a video that showed a worker running through a field under the cover of early morning fog, with at least one agent in pursuit on foot and a Border Patrol truck racing along an adjacent dirt road. Eventually, the worker was caught.
In Tulare County, near the community of Richgrove, immigration agents emerged near a field where farm laborers were picking blueberries, causing some