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Unannounced immigration raid in Kern County raises concerns among farmworkers, businesses

“It was profiling, it was purely field workers,” 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. “They didn’t stop people with FedEx uniforms, they were stopping people who looked like they worked in the fields.” Fuentes says one customer pulled in just to pump gas and agents approached him and detained him.

Fuentes has lived in Bakersfield all her life and says she’s 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’t until the local Univision station showed up that Border Patrol agents backed up their car and allowed the woman to leave.

https://syvnews.com/news/local/state-and-regional/unannounced-immigration-raid-in-kern-county-raises-concerns-among-farmworkers-businesses/article_36e1ecdf-cce6-503f-a4ac-fef3475f58a2.html

Immigration raid in Bakersfield has ‘chilling effect’ on community, United Farm Workers says

The raids have had a “rippling effect” on the communities in and around Bakersfield, Arteaga Sanders said, with parents keeping their children home from school and even putting off trips to the grocery store out of fear of being caught in a raid. Rumors of similar immigration round-ups were reported around communities in the Bay Area at the same time as the Kern County raids, but officials said they were not correct.

“This has already had a tremendous impact on the community, where folks are afraid to participate in going to work, taking their children to the doctor, taking their children to school, buying groceries,” she added.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/01/17/immigration-raid-in-bakersfield-has-chilling-effect-on-community-united-farm-workers-says/