US Border Patrol arrests migrants during latest enforcement operation

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: ABC News

January 9, 2025, 5:05 PM


Immigrant communities in Kern County, California, are on edge as the U.S. Border Patrol has been seen conducting enforcement operations throughout the region this week. Videos and images that surfaced online appear to show Border Patrol agents apprehending people at various locations throughout the region. United States Customs and Border Protection has confirmed the operations, which officials describe as “targeted.”

“The USBP conducts targeted enforcement arrests of individuals involved in smuggling throughout our areas of operations as part of our efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations,” a CBP spokesperson said in a statement. However, Sarah Fuentes, a manager at a Chevron station in Bakersfield, told ABC News she saw Border Patrol officers and agents in plain clothes go up to several of her customers, ask them about their immigration status, and arrest multiple people.

Fuentes says she thought the officers were serving a warrant, but noticed “it was only Hispanics and field workers that they were putting aside.” “Then we seen it again, and we're like, wait a minute, this is a raid, they're picking up random people like the field workers. They don't have an order to do that,” she said in a phone interview. “It's just random people that are walking in that work in the field.”

Fuentes shared photos and videos she took of the incident, including one she says shows a woman who locked herself in her car as a person in plain clothes allegedly urged her to open her door. “10-15 minutes after she refused, they got a Border Patrol truck to park behind her vehicle so she wouldn’t be able to leave,” she said. When press arrived, the agents allegedly let the woman go, according to Fuentes. United Farm Workers members were detained throughout Kern County as part of the operation , the union said in a post on X.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-border-patrol-arrests-migrants-latest-enforcement-operation/story?id=117515205

[pfitz59]

1. It will only get worse

The majority of folk are legal residents or guest workers. Hopefully they will be carrying the proper documents, or whoosh, off they go into bureaucratic nightmare world.

[Buddyzbuddy]

2. Be a witness America, film at 11.

Don't look away, pull out your phones and film it. Each and every fu..ing time. Share the videos everywhere.
It's easier said than done but migrants need to stand up and walk out of the fields, no more watching their kids, no maid service, no gardening, no anything. No construction. Power outages happen all the time, materials get lost, work safe, slowdown. We can help. We need to share resources, bilingual information on where to go for help. Legal, food, a contact for children when the parents are taken. Parents need to run drills with their kids in case. Have children memorizing phone numbers in case they're taken.

[Unladen Swallow]

3. That's a pretty good ways north...

For the BP to be doing interior enforcement.

[Buddyzbuddy]

4. Actually it's at the heart of California's immigrant workers.

It's the southern end of Central California and Sacramento would be the Northern end. In between is the agricultural industry. You have farm laborers bent over for 12 plus hours during 100 degree plus temps during the summer for low wages. Farm owners have been known to provide dilapidated housing for which they deduct rent for, from the pickers pay. Farm owners and contractors have also been known to tip off ICE so they can conduct raids at the end of picking season or the end of a lucrative job so they don't have to pay.
You can see ICE driving up and down highway 5 and 99 all day, every day. It will definitely be part of the new administration's strategy to come after California. In addition to holding back FEMA help during disasters and any other Federal money they can withhold.