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.
The business is owned by Graham Farrar, a generous donor to California Democrats including Gov. Gavin Newsom, a vocal critic of Republican President Donald Trump.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
At Glastonbury, I saw what England's silent majority really looks like. Why aren't politicians listening?
It was a hot day in July, but the headlines felt as if they could have come from any day over the last six months. While the dependably shrill TV channel GB News asked its viewers whether negotiations with France 'could signal a shift towards closer ties with the EU', Keir Starmer and his colleagues were in final talks about so-called small boats. Before he got to the diplomatic details, the BBC's Nick Robinson boiled down the views of millions of Britons to the deathless cliche: 'Why don't we just send them back to where they've come from?' Kemi Badenoch was about to make a speech about restricting non-British nationals' access to disability and sickness benefits – another instalment, it seemed, of her toxic quest to divide people into 'makers' and 'takers'. Terrifyingly, Nigel Farage's Reform UK colleagues were talking about focusing their belief in Elon Musk-style budget-cutting on children with disabilities. In the searing heat, everything felt as if it was fusing together to form the usual picture – of a stroppy little island, full of mistrust and loathing, and an angry chunk of the electorate now so huge that politicians of all parties must not just respect its collective wishes, but implement them in full. Ten days earlier – and bear with me here – I had spent three days in a rather different political atmosphere, among the multitudes at Glastonbury. Even before all that controversy had erupted over the Irish rappers Kneecap and the hitherto-obscure duo Bob Vylan, the buildup to the festival had already seen a burst of hostile commentary about Glastonbury's political side. 'Could we please drop the nonsense that it is countercultural, at the bleeding edge of interesting, against-the-grain, perhaps even revolutionary, sentiment?' asked one rather silly piece in the Telegraph. To which the correct and rather complicated response would be yes; with notable exceptions – from the ubiquity of Palestinian flags, through the debates and discussions in the festival's Left Field, to everything that happens in the area called Green Futures. But here's the thing: even if you largely accept that Glasto has long become an ordinary part of the cultural mainstream, that's actually what makes it so interesting. We are long past the point where the crowds there represent an avowedly radical subculture, which was the thrilling sense I got when I first went there (in 1990, which was a very long time ago indeed). Now, the people who go – from hard-partying twentysomethings barely cognisant of the need for a tent, to festival veterans in sensible outdoor gear who carefully plan each day's bands and go home to jobs in the public sector – are a microcosm of a vast and ever-growing part of the UK population, which is why so many people try to get tickets, and so many thousands watch it on TV. We are talking, essentially, about the Britain – or, more specifically, England – that will never, ever belong to Farage, and the mixture of kindness, ease with modernity and fuzzy liberalism that defines it. There is a kind of progressive cringe that gets in the way of acknowledging this fact. But while the media class focuses almost exclusively on a bundle of cliches about 'hero voters' in 'red wall' seats, this new England now sits at the heart of our politics. It explains why the Conservative presence in the commuter-belt home counties is shrinking fast, and the list of seats represented by the Lib Dems includes scores of traditional Tory heartlands – something Badenoch does not seem even dimly aware of. For Labour, millions of liberal, left-ish voters define a story of rising dismay about Starmer's government, and the fact that it is losing more support to the Lib Dems and Greens than it is to Reform UK. The Green party now has MPs in rural Herefordshire and ruralEast Anglia, and record-breaking numbers of councillors. Much as opinion polling remains a somewhat dismal and unreliable science, there are plenty of issue-specific statistics that paint the same picture. Even if they are presented as a way of somehow getting people into work, 40% of us are against new limitations on disability benefits. Despite politicians' reluctance to say so, 45% of British adults think Israel's actions in Gaza are genocidal. Forty-nine percent of people 'strongly support' a wealth tax. Contrary to the idea that everyone outside London, Manchester and Bristol has an essentially Farage-ist view of human movement, 45% of us think that immigration into the UK should either increase or stay the same. Sixty-one percent of people either strongly or 'somewhat' support the government's net zero target, with only 12% ticking the 'strongly oppose' box. Despite Reform UK's apparent monopoly on explanations for our fragmenting party system, all this is central to why everything is in such a massive state of flux. The Lib Dems are now almost neck and neck with the Tories in the polls. The Greens are now steady, on about 10% – a figure that would surely rocket upwards if they improved their dire PR skills. Moreover, adding these parties' share of support with Labour's usually gets you close to 50%, which only highlights how misplaced the popular idea of a seethingly reactionary country irrevocably on the path to a Reform UK government really is. As orthodox politics buckles and fragments, it feels as if, sooner or later, something will have to give. The latest manifestation of the strain Westminster orthodoxy is under is the new leftwing force being fitfully formed by Jeremy Corbyn and the former Labour MP, Zarah Sultana; but I am not sure it will quite meet the moment. If we were in some alternative universe where our party system mapped on to people's views, a modern party of the liberal left would not be hard to envisage. Its style of politics might fall somewhere between Ed Davey and the former Green leader Caroline Lucas. Though it might not be radical enough for some people's tastes (mine included, possibly) it would speak clearly about the climate emergency, be proudly and loudly European and be carefully redistributionist. Crucially, it would spurn the politics of resentment and scapegoating, and confidently fight Farage – and, for that matter, Reform-ish Tories such as Robert Jenrick – on territory Labour refuses to go near: the modern right's views about the UK and its history, who is and isn't British, and all the rest. This would, perhaps, be the kind of party many people – not least in the Guardian – are always willing the Labour party to become, even though that never seems to happen. As much as any political force could, it would speak for millions who now see the political centre being dragged further and further away from them, and quietly recoil. I see this new England every year at Worthy Farm in Somerset. Most importantly, it reveals itself whenever I visit the relevant swaths of the country. When will it finally be given its proper voice? John Harris is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Protesters gather at Disneyland as JD Vance visits resort with family
Protesters gathered at the Disneyland resort in Anaheim during Vice President JD Vance 's family holiday. The demonstrations took place amid ongoing immigration raids across California. Jane Fleming Kleeb, Chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, shared footage of the protest on X. Kleeb indicated the protest aimed to express support for immigrants and challenge Vance's and Trump's perceived negative stance towards California and Disney. Watch the video above.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Farmworker's death is first linked to Trump's ICE raids
Jaime Alanis, a 57-year-old farmworker, died after falling from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid at a California cannabis facility. His death marks the first fatality in one of the Trump administration's anti-immigration operations. Alanis was the sole provider for his family in Mexico, having worked at the farm for a decade. The Department of Homeland Security stated Alanis was not being pursued and was not in custody, claiming he climbed onto the roof and fell 30 feet. The raid led to the arrest of approximately 200 individuals suspected of being in the country illegally, alongside protests from crowds outside the facility.
