Border Patrol says Central Valley raids, latest operation over, Fresno congressman reports
The head of Customs and Border Patrol told Fresno’s democratic congressman that the immigration enforcement operation it carried out in the Central Valley this week has concluded and was confined to Kern County, the U.S. representative said Saturday during a news conference.
“It’s not clear to me that that’s the case,” said Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, at the news conference in Fresno on Saturday morning. Costa added that he has heard reports that conflict with the Border Patrol’s statements to him.
The information that Costa relayed from Border Patrol Commissioner Pete Flores further confirms that ”Operation Return to Sender” is over. But the agency said in a social media post earlier this week that it is also planning operations in Fresno and Sacramento. Elected officials on Saturday spoke with uncertainty about what comes next and also denounced enforcement tactics that spread fear among working immigrants.
“He (Flores) told me that, in fact, they (Border Patrol) had concluded their effort as a result of their arrests as of a day or two ago (and would) reassess where they would go from there,” Costa said.
Fresno County Supervisor Luis Chavez, who organized the news conference, said the fear that has gripped Fresno’s immigrant families is “100% real.” Chavez said he has heard some parents who are not going to be sending their children to school this week.
“If you don’t have students in the classroom, you’re not going to get funding,” he said, “and that’s just the way the formula works. That’s going to hurt our community.”
News of Costa’s conversation with Border Patrol’s leadership comes after a week of immigration agent sightings that produced anxiety among the region’s undocumented workforce. Various reports confirmed the Border Patrol’s operations in the Bakersfield area beginning Tuesday, with indications that the raids could stretch for several days. Border Patrol then officially reported it was carrying out “Operation Return to Sender” in Kern County with more than 60 agents from El Centro, a town close to the Mexican border.
Costa said Flores told him the action yielded 78 arrests and targeted specific undocumented criminals on a list that focused on sex, drug and human trafficking crimes. But an assistant chief patrol agent said earlier in the week that there were individuals arrested who were not on the list.
The description of an operation that solely targeted criminals also has been contradicted by numerous accounts from Kern County community members. In the past week, stories have circulated about immigration agents approaching people at Home Depot and at gas stations and about farmworkers approached on their way to work. Cal Matters on Friday published an account of agents blocking one woman in her car with their vehicles before they drove away due to the arrival of local Univision news reporters.
“Let me be clear, I support getting bad people off the streets,” Costa said at the news conference. “But mass deportation reflects a different notion, and breaking families up is not the American way. And spreading fear to hard working people who are contributing every day to the betterment ... is not the way to deal with fixing our border.”
Farmworkers concerned about their children
Margarita Rocha, executive director of the nonprofit Centro La Familia, said during Saturday’s news conference that the group has begun receiving concerned calls.
“We’ve not said a lot about children,” she said, “how they don’t want to go to school because they’ve heard their parents talking about the possibility that, if dad or mom goes to work, they may not come home. What happens? The children are highly impacted and will be traumatized for years.”
The Bee contacted immigrants at the Cherry Auction flea market Saturday, which is frequented on weekends by farmworkers and their families.
One married couple who runs a daycare in the Fresno area that serves immigrant parents said clients are on edge after this week’s raids.
“We serve mostly people who work in the fields,” the wife said in Spanish. “Everyone is nervous because they don’t know if they’re going to drop off their children in the morning and not be around to pick them up at the end of the day.”
One merchant, Alejandro Padilla, who also works in the fields, said the rumors of impending raids have been rampant among farmworkers this week.
“A few people I have worked with told me they weren’t going to work this week,” he said. “They are afraid that if they are arrested, they will not be given a fair case, that they will be thrown out and separated from their children.”
Local law enforcement not involved
On Friday, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office shared on Facebook that it was not involved in any of the Border Patrol’s enforcement actions reported this week.
“Our deputies do NOT conduct enforcement actions related to immigration matters; it is not part of our job description,” the post said.