California farmworker who fell from greenhouse roof during chaotic ICE raid dies
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die in one of the Trump administration's anti-immigration operations. Yesenia Duran, Alanis' niece, confirmed his death to The Associated Press.
Duran has posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family's only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to a wife and daughter in Mexico. The United Food Workers said Alanis worked at the farm for 10 years.
'These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,' the union said recently in a statement on the social platform X.
The UFW reported Alanis' death prematurely late Friday, but the Ventura County Medical Center later issued a statement authorized by the family saying he was still on life support.
The Department of Homeland Security said it executed criminal search warrants Thursday at Glass House Farms facilities in Camarillo and Carpinteria.
Garcia called family to say he was hiding and possibly was fleeing agents before he fell about 30 feet (9 meters) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested some 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, DHS said in a statement. Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
'This man was not in and has not been in CBP or ICE custody,' DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. 'Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30 feet. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.'
Four U.S. citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly 'assaulting or resisting officers,' according to DHS, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
During the raid crowds of people gathered outside the facility in Camarillo to seek information about their relatives and protest immigration enforcement. Authorities clad in military-style helmets and uniforms faced off with the demonstrators, and people ultimately retreated amid acrid green and white billowing smoke.
Glass House, a licensed California cannabis grower, said in a statement that immigration agents had valid warrants. The company said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation. The farm also grows tomatoes and cucumbers.
'Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,' it said.
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The Hill
27 minutes ago
- The Hill
US manufacturers are stuck in a rut despite subsidies from Biden and protection from Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much, but they share a conviction that the government should help American manufacturers, one way or another. Democratic President Joe Biden handed out subsidies to chipmakers and electric vehicle manufacturers. Republican President Donald Trump is building a wall of import taxes — tariffs — around the U.S. economy to protect domestic industry from foreign competition. Yet American manufacturing has been stuck in a rut for nearly three years. And it remains to be seen whether the trend will reverse itself. The U.S. Labor Department reports that American factories shed 7,000 jobs in June for the second month in a row. Manufacturing employment is on track to drop for the third straight year. The Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers, reported that manufacturing activity in the United States shrank in June for the fourth straight month. In fact, U.S. factories have been in decline for 30 of the 32 months since October 2022, according to ISM. 'The past three years have been a real slog for manufacturing,'' said Eric Hagopian, CEO of Pilot Precision Products, a maker of industrial cutting tools in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. 'We didn't get destroyed like we did in the recession of 2008. But we've been in this stagnant, sort of stationary environment.'' Big economic factors contributed to the slowdown: A surge in inflation, arising from the unexpectedly strong economic recovery from COVID-19, raised factory expenses and prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023. The higher borrowing costs added to the strain. Government policy was meant to help. Biden's tax incentives for semiconductor and clean energy production triggered a factory-building boom – investment in manufacturing facilities more than tripled from April 2021 through October 2024 – that seemed to herald a coming surge in factory production and hiring. Eventually anyway. But the factory investment spree has faded as the incoming Trump administration launched trade wars and, working with Congress, ended Biden's subsidies for green energy. Now, predicts Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, 'manufacturing production will continue to flatline.' 'If production is flat, that suggests manufacturing employment will continue to slide,' Zandi said. 'Manufacturing is likely to suffer a recession in the coming year.'' Meanwhile, Trump is attempting to protect U.S. manufacturers — and to coax factories to relocate and produce in America — by imposing tariffs on goods made overseas. He slapped 50% taxes on steel and aluminum, 25% on autos and auto parts, 10% on many other imports. In some ways, Trump's tariffs can give U.S. factories an edge. Chris Zuzick, vice president at Waukesha Metal Products, said the Sussex, Wisconsin-based manufacturer is facing stiff competition for a big contract in Texas. A foreign company offers much lower prices. But 'when you throw the tariff on, it gets us closer,'' Zuzick said. 'So that's definitely a situation where it's beneficial.'' But American factories import and use foreign products, too – machinery, chemicals, raw materials like steel and aluminum. Taxing those inputs can drive up costs and make U.S producers less competitive in world markets. Consider steel. Trump's tariffs don't just make imported steel more expensive. By putting the foreign competition at a disadvantage, the tariffs allow U.S. steelmakers to raise prices – and they have. U.S.-made steel was priced at $960 per metric ton as of June 23, more than double the world export price of $440 per ton, according to industry monitor SteelBenchmarker. In fact, U.S. steel prices are so high that Pilot Precision Products has continued to buy the steel it needs from suppliers in Austria and France — and pay Trump's tariff. Trump has also created considerable uncertainty by repeatedly tweaking and rescheduling his tariffs. Just before new import taxes were set to take effect on dozens of countries on July 9, for example, the president pushed the deadline back to Aug. 1 to allow more time for negotiation with U.S. trading partners. The flipflops have left factories, suppliers and customers bewildered about where things stand. Manufacturers voiced their complaints in the ISM survey: 'Customers do not want to make commitments in the wake of massive tariff uncertainty,'' a fabricated metal products company said. 'Tariffs continue to cause confusion and uncertainty for long-term procurement decisions,'' added a computer and electronics firm. 'The situation remains too volatile to firmly put such plans into place.'' Some may argue that things aren't necessarily bad for U.S. manufacturing; they've just returned to normal after a pandemic-related bust and boom. Factories slashed nearly 1.4 million jobs in March and April 2020 when COVID-19 forced many businesses to shut down and Americans to stay home. Then a funny thing happened: American consumers, cooped up and flush with COVID relief checks from the government, went on a spending spree, snapping up manufactured goods like air fryers, patio furniture and exercise machines. Suddenly, factories were scrambling to keep up. They brought back the workers they laid off – and then some. Factories added 379,000 jobs in 2021 — the most since 1994 — and then tacked on another 357,000 in 2022. But in 2023, factory hiring stopped growing and began backtracking as the economy returned to something closer to the pre-pandemic normal. In the end, it was a wash. Factory payrolls last month came to 12.75 million, almost exactly where they stood in February 2020 (12.74 million) just before COVID slammed the economy. 'It's a long, strange trip to get back to where we started,'' said Jared Bernstein, chair of Biden's White House Council of Economic Advisers. Zuzick at Waukesha Metal Products said that it will take time to see if Trump's tariffs succeed in bringing factories back to America. 'The fact is that manufacturing doesn't turn on a dime,'' he said. 'It takes time to switch gears.'' Hagopian at Pilot Precision is hopeful that tax breaks in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill will help American manufacturing regain momentum. 'There may be light at the end of the tunnel that may not be a locomotive bearing down,'' he said. For now, manufacturers are likely to delay big decisions on investing or bringing on new workers until they see where Trump's tariffs settle and what impact they have on the economy, said Ned Hill, professor emeritus in economic development at Ohio State University. 'With all this uncertainty about what the rest of the year is going to look like,'' he said, 'there's a hesitancy to hire people just to lay them off in the near future.'' 'Everyone,' said Zuzick at Waukesha Metal Products, 'is kind of just waiting for the new normal.''
San Francisco Chronicle
32 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
US manufacturers are stuck in a rut despite subsidies from Biden and protection from Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much, but they share a conviction that the government should help American manufacturers, one way or another. Democratic President Joe Biden handed out subsidies to chipmakers and electric vehicle manufacturers. Republican President Donald Trump is building a wall of import taxes — tariffs — around the U.S. economy to protect domestic industry from foreign competition. Yet American manufacturing has been stuck in a rut for nearly three years. And it remains to be seen whether the trend will reverse itself. The U.S. Labor Department reports that American factories shed 7,000 jobs in June for the second month in a row. Manufacturing employment is on track to drop for the third straight year. The Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers, reported that manufacturing activity in the United States shrank in June for the fourth straight month. In fact, U.S. factories have been in decline for 30 of the 32 months since October 2022, according to ISM. 'The past three years have been a real slog for manufacturing,'' said Eric Hagopian, CEO of Pilot Precision Products, a maker of industrial cutting tools in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. 'We didn't get destroyed like we did in the recession of 2008. But we've been in this stagnant, sort of stationary environment.'' Big economic factors contributed to the slowdown: A surge in inflation, arising from the unexpectedly strong economic recovery from COVID-19, raised factory expenses and prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023. The higher borrowing costs added to the strain. Government policy was meant to help. Biden's tax incentives for semiconductor and clean energy production triggered a factory-building boom – investment in manufacturing facilities more than tripled from April 2021 through October 2024 – that seemed to herald a coming surge in factory production and hiring. Eventually anyway. But the factory investment spree has faded as the incoming Trump administration launched trade wars and, working with Congress, ended Biden's subsidies for green energy. Now, predicts Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, 'manufacturing production will continue to flatline.' 'If production is flat, that suggests manufacturing employment will continue to slide,' Zandi said. 'Manufacturing is likely to suffer a recession in the coming year.'' Meanwhile, Trump is attempting to protect U.S. manufacturers — and to coax factories to relocate and produce in America — by imposing tariffs on goods made overseas. He slapped 50% taxes on steel and aluminum, 25% on autos and auto parts, 10% on many other imports. In some ways, Trump's tariffs can give U.S. factories an edge. Chris Zuzick, vice president at Waukesha Metal Products, said the Sussex, Wisconsin-based manufacturer is facing stiff competition for a big contract in Texas. A foreign company offers much lower prices. But 'when you throw the tariff on, it gets us closer,'' Zuzick said. 'So that's definitely a situation where it's beneficial.'' But American factories import and use foreign products, too – machinery, chemicals, raw materials like steel and aluminum. Taxing those inputs can drive up costs and make U.S producers less competitive in world markets. Consider steel. Trump's tariffs don't just make imported steel more expensive. By putting the foreign competition at a disadvantage, the tariffs allow U.S. steelmakers to raise prices – and they have. U.S.-made steel was priced at $960 per metric ton as of June 23, more than double the world export price of $440 per ton, according to industry monitor SteelBenchmarker. In fact, U.S. steel prices are so high that Pilot Precision Products has continued to buy the steel it needs from suppliers in Austria and France — and pay Trump's tariff. Trump has also created considerable uncertainty by repeatedly tweaking and rescheduling his tariffs. Just before new import taxes were set to take effect on dozens of countries on July 9, for example, the president pushed the deadline back to Aug. 1 to allow more time for negotiation with U.S. trading partners. The flipflops have left factories, suppliers and customers bewildered about where things stand. Manufacturers voiced their complaints in the ISM survey: 'Customers do not want to make commitments in the wake of massive tariff uncertainty,'' a fabricated metal products company said. 'Tariffs continue to cause confusion and uncertainty for long-term procurement decisions,'' added a computer and electronics firm. 'The situation remains too volatile to firmly put such plans into place.'' Some may argue that things aren't necessarily bad for U.S. manufacturing; they've just returned to normal after a pandemic-related bust and boom. Factories slashed nearly 1.4 million jobs in March and April 2020 when COVID-19 forced many businesses to shut down and Americans to stay home. Then a funny thing happened: American consumers, cooped up and flush with COVID relief checks from the government, went on a spending spree, snapping up manufactured goods like air fryers, patio furniture and exercise machines. Suddenly, factories were scrambling to keep up. They brought back the workers they laid off – and then some. Factories added 379,000 jobs in 2021 — the most since 1994 — and then tacked on another 357,000 in 2022. But in 2023, factory hiring stopped growing and began backtracking as the economy returned to something closer to the pre-pandemic normal. In the end, it was a wash. Factory payrolls last month came to 12.75 million, almost exactly where they stood in February 2020 (12.74 million) just before COVID slammed the economy. 'It's a long, strange trip to get back to where we started,'' said Jared Bernstein, chair of Biden's White House Council of Economic Advisers. Zuzick at Waukesha Metal Products said that it will take time to see if Trump's tariffs succeed in bringing factories back to America. 'The fact is that manufacturing doesn't turn on a dime,'' he said. 'It takes time to switch gears.'' Hagopian at Pilot Precision is hopeful that tax breaks in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill will help American manufacturing regain momentum. 'There may be light at the end of the tunnel that may not be a locomotive bearing down,'' he said. For now, manufacturers are likely to delay big decisions on investing or bringing on new workers until they see where Trump's tariffs settle and what impact they have on the economy, said Ned Hill, professor emeritus in economic development at Ohio State University. 'With all this uncertainty about what the rest of the year is going to look like,'' he said, 'there's a hesitancy to hire people just to lay them off in the near future.'' 'Everyone,'' said Zuzick at Waukesha Metal Products, 'is kind of just waiting for the new normal.''
Chicago Tribune
40 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago father becomes face of lawsuit against ICE as judge hears challenge to warrantless arrests
Abel Orozco was getting home after buying tamales for his family, like he did most weekends for the past 30 years. They would have breakfast and head to church. Instead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the Mexican immigrant outside his home in suburban Lyons without a federal warrant. Now, nearly six months later, he is still detained. Immigration and civil rights attorneys argue that his arrest was not only unfair but illegal. Thanks to the video his son recorded of the arrest, Orozco has become the face of a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Attorneys say the two government agencies violated the constitutional rights of Orozco and at least 25 other people, including one U.S. citizen, during the first week of increased immigration enforcement in the Chicago area after President Donald Trump took office. 'I'm not used to (speaking in public), it's something that's really awkward for me and embarrassing,' his son Eduardo Orozco told the Tribune. 'But even though I feel like that, I still have to do it for my father, and because there are many other people who are supporting us.' The father, 47, has a clean record. Yet he is the only plaintiff left that is still in detention. One was deported. The rest have been released. 'We are angry and concerned,' his son said. 'I hope the judge can see what we experienced on Sunday morning, and make a ruling in favor of my family and all the families affected by the cruelty of the ICE agents.' A federal judge heard arguments earlier this month for a motion filed by immigration attorneys and advocates who argued that DHS and ICE officers violated warrantless arrest policies amid sweeping arrests in the Chicago field office region in January. The motion, filed in March of this year, focuses on 25 people who were detained, including one U.S. citizen, in the Trump administration's highly publicized enforcement operation over the winter. In making arrests, the federal government allegedly went against both immigration laws and the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, the plaintiffs argue. 'It seems as if there are repeat violations,' said Mark Fleming of the National Immigrant Justice Center in his closing argument to the judge. 'There is real concern that they are not following the law.' Judge Jeffrey Cummings of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois was asked by Fleming to consider whether ICE's January arrests violated the 2022 Castañon Nava settlement agreement, which states that ICE must meet two criteria to make a warrantless arrest: probable cause that someone is in the U.S. unlawfully, and that the person is a flight risk. Immigrant advocates say ICE ignored those standards when it detained people in January without probable cause and before warrants were filled out. As for Orozco, Fleming said that federal agents allegedly created an administrative warrant while he was handcuffed. The Castañon Nava settlement agreement, which expired on May 13, had been the result of several ICE raids in the Chicagoland area in 2018 that the NIJC argued led to the collateral arrests of hundreds of individuals in vehicle stops and without warrants. Collateral arrests, or the detaining of individuals who are not targets, have become more common as the federal government ramps up daily quotas of people detained. Fleming described a pattern of reckless and unlawful enforcement actions after President Trump was sworn into office and pledged to begin mass deportations in Chicago. In some cases, he said, ICE agents will carry around blank warrants. 'That doesn't sit well with me,' Judge Cummings said, after asking to see a copy of the blank form. Defense attorneys William H. Weiland and Craig Oswald defended their policies, stating that there is nothing inappropriate about the agency's use of warrants and that ICE is entitled to continue the practice. Fleming focused on the case of Abel Orozco, who remains detained in a detention center in Indiana despite mounting legal and community pressure for his release. Abel Orozco had a prior removal order, said Fleming, but only because he wanted to see his ailing father in Mexico one more time before he died. According to the motion, ICE officers were apparently looking for one of Orozco's sons, who is decades younger but has the same name. The agents allegedly grabbed and handcuffed Abel Orozco after they saw his driver's license. His son Eduardo, 26, ran outside when he heard his father screaming, 'I can't breathe … call a lawyer.' Eduardo Orozco began questioning the agents and demanded a warrant. The agents stayed quiet and can be seen walking away from Eduardo Orozco who began recording the interaction 'knowing that something was not right,' he said. There were more than six agents with guns who surrounded their home and they refused to identify themselves. That's a scene that still haunts the family. 'They were trying to knock down the door to my house without a warrant,' Eduardo Orozco recalled. Weiland and Oswald defended the arrest by saying that assessing flight risk in real time can be difficult. But the motion argues that ICE didn't consider or document the individual's community ties — whether Abel Orozco had a home, family, or employment. Abel Orozco's wife has cancer, said Fleming. Abel Orozco had just started a tree-cutting business — a dream come true, his son said. In the months since Abel Orozco's arrest, according to Fleming, his business has floundered. Many of the other detainees were allegedly arrested after leaving their houses for work. They were often handcuffed and put in their cars, the motion states, without being allowed to call relatives and let them know what was happening. Plaintiffs cited two hours of security footage from a restaurant in Liberty, Missouri, showing 10 'heavily armed' federal agents who allegedly went into a restaurant and held 12 employees in booths before escorting them out and detaining them. Missouri is one of six states that the Chicago Field Office covers. On repeated occasions, ICE misspelled names or omitted important information while filling out warrants that were 'riddled with defects,' according to the motion. ICE was also delayed in its response after plaintiffs requested that it provide details on the arrests and paperwork, the motion states. Among other actions to prevent alleged unlawful ICE arrests, the motion seeks to extend the Castañon Nava settlement agreement for three years, demand the release of Abel Orozco, mandate the reporting of all arrests since Trump took office and order ICE officers operating in the Chicago region to be retrained. Cummings expressed that the allegations altogether seemed 'troubling,' especially considering that no one 'knows the magnitude of this problem.' The violations that the attorneys uncovered, he said, only came to light because families reached out to the immigrant advocacy organizations. Cummings did not make a ruling, but said he would try to come to a resolution as soon as possible. At a news conference after the hearing, community organizers gathered outside federal court to decry ICE's arrest practices in January. Fleming called the ICE arrests a 'parallel universe of unlawful policies' because the agency has no real method of accountability. The result is hundreds of people being taken from neighborhoods, said Xanat Sobrevilla, of Organized Communities Against Deportations. She said that after the 2018 immigration sweeps, ICE told her organization it would implement changes. 'Since January of this year, that commitment has been blatantly broken,' she said. 'We bear witness to families shattered, fathers and mothers taken from their homes.' For Eduardo Orozco and his family, the last six months have been overwhelming and heartbreaking. They missed several mortgage payments and the turmoil has caused emotional chaos to all of the family members. Still, he shows up in courtrooms, news conferences and other actions against ICE because he believes his father's story can spark change. 'We're not just fighting for him anymore,' Eduardo Orozco said. 'We're fighting for everyone who was taken like this.' As Judge Cummings weighs a decision that could set a precedent for how ICE operates in Chicago communities, immigrant rights advocates and families like the Orozcos wait. Not just for a ruling, but for repair by releasing Abel Orozco. As the elder Orozco remains in detention, Eduardo now juggles fatherhood, his father's collapsed business and caring for a sick mother, hoping to keep his family's faith that justice will be served and that his father will be released.
