Trump team defends ICE raid at California marijuana farm where children were allegedly found working
The United Farm Workers union said several workers were critically injured during the raids, while other targeted workers, including a U.S. citizen, 'remain totally unaccounted for.'
Agents are accused of chasing one worker who fell 30 feet from the top of a building. He was hospitalized and placed on life support, before dying from his injuries on Friday, according to the union.
The raids — which sparked an intense standoff between heavily armed federal officers and dozens of protesters — were condemned by California Governor Gavin Newsom, whose office accused Trump's administration of wielding an anti-immigration agenda that has brought 'chaos, fear and terror' into communities.
'There's a real cost to these inhumane immigration actions on hardworking families and communities, including farmworker communities, across America,' his office said in a statement.
Agents arrived on Thursday in military-style vehicles to execute 'criminal search warrants' inside facilities operated by Glass House Farms, according to Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
The farms span 5.5 million square feet in California's Ventura County where it is legal for licensed operators to grow cannabis.
Firefighters were dispatched around 12.15 p.m. to provide medical aid. Five people were hospitalized, and four others were treated at the farm, according to the Ventura County Fire Department.
In a statement on social media, Glass House Farms said it 'fully complied with agent search warrants and will provide further updates if necessary.'
Video showed agents firing tear gas and crowd control munitions into a crowd of protesters near a farm house in Camarillo. Agents were also raiding another farm site roughly 30 miles away.
The FBI issued a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a demonstrator, who appeared to fire a pistol during the melee, according to federal prosecutors.
Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott said agents found 10 undocumented children at the facility, including eight who were unaccompanied.
It is legal in California for minors as young as 12 to work on farms but only in non-hazardous jobs and outside of school hours.
Administration officials shared photos on social media showing masked agents posing with the alleged children they discovered and accused Newsom of failing to stop 'child exploitation.'
'We prosecute criminals that break child labor laws,' Newsom replied.
'You make the kids pose for photos, tear gas them, and promote laws like this,' said the governor, sharing articles about Republican-led legislation to loosen child labor laws.
The workers, which included citizens, were held by federal authorities for more than eight hours. The American citizens were only released from custody if they agreed to delete video of the operation from their phones, according to United Farm Workers.
The union also is demanding the 'immediate facilitation' of legal representation for minors at the facility.
'Farm workers are excluded from basic child labor laws and it is unfortunately not uncommon for teenagers to work in the fields,' the group said. 'To be clear: detaining and deporting children is not a solution for child labor.'
The Trump administration's 'violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,' the union said. 'There is no city, state or federal district where it is legal to terrorize and detain people for being brown and working in agriculture. These raids must stop immediately.'
The federal operation on Thursday was the latest in a series of immigration raids that have rocked communities across California and drawn federal lawsuits to stop them.
Workplace raids spiked after the administration rescinded previous ICE policy that prohibited enforcement actions in sensitive locations such as places of worship, schools and hospitals.
Under apparent pressure from the agricultural sector, which is made up of roughly 40 percent noncitizen workers, Trump has considered limiting enforcement actions on farms and developing a program for temporary work permits.
But the president's border czar Tom Homan has said there will be 'no amnesty' for undocumented workers.
The Trump administration has deployed officers across federal law enforcement agencies to focus on immigration enforcement, with a directive from the White House to make at least 3,000 daily arrests — a quota that immigration attorneys say will almost certainly result in 'collateral' arrests that could tear apart families and communities with mixed legal status.
The president has also approved a record-breaking budget to hire more ICE officers and expand immigration detention center space across the country, making the agency one of the most expensive law enforcement agencies in the world, with a budget larger than most countries' militaries.
More than 57,000 people are currently held in ICE custody, or roughly 140 percent more than its detention capacity. A vast majority of those immigrants do not have criminal records and 93 percent have not been convicted of any violent crime.
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The Independent
25 minutes ago
- The Independent
15 children have died in hot cars in the last two months. Expert warns it could happen to anyone
A Texas mother believed she'd gone through her normal routine on Wednesday: deliver her 5-year-old son to school, as always, before heading to work next door. At the end of the school day, she went to pick him up — only for the school to inform her he'd never arrived. In a nightmare twist, he had died after spending hours in the back of her car as the temperature rose, still strapped into his seat. She had completely forgotten to drop him off. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus called it an 'extremely tragic situation.' Since 1990, more than 1,100 children have lost their lives this way. Summer is peak season — so much so that two more children died while reporting this story. Since May, 15 children have died after being left in hot cars, according to the nonprofit Kids and Car Safety. The majority of hot car deaths — 52 percent — result from someone simply forgetting their child in the vehicle, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Often caregivers believe they'd dropped them off already or fail to remember the kid was with them that day. The tragedy may even be becoming more common. In 2009, about 15 to 25 hot car deaths happened each year, the Washington Post reported at the time. Last year it happened 37 times. 'I think the real problem that we have here is this misconception that 'this would never happen to me,'' Amber Rollins-Reis, director of Kids and Car Safety, an organization focused on preventing vehicle dangers, told The Independent. Keys, wallet or phone are easily forgotten, but forgetting children seems unimaginable. These memory lapses could be explained by a 'clash between memory systems,' Dr. David Diamond, a neuroscientist and professor at the University of South Florida, told The Independent. There's the habit memory system, which allows us to do routine things automatically, like driving to work. Then there's the conscious memory system, which allows us to plan ahead. These systems compete if a routine is disrupted. For example, if a parent, who normally drives straight to work, one day has to take their child to daycare before work, the systems start competing with one another, Diamond said. That's when a child could be forgotten as the habit memory system often takes over. Sometimes small cues, like a cry from the backseat or seeing a diaper, can be the difference between life and death. 'I think that every parent on planet Earth has experienced that type of memory failure involving their child in a rear-facing car seat in the back seat of their car. But the difference is that something triggered them to remember they were back there and nothing happened,' Rollins-Reis said. If a baby is asleep in a car seat, the parent's memory may not be triggered, and they just go about their day. Perhaps that's why 88 percent of children who have died in a hot car are age three and younger, according to the nonprofit. Parents of young children are often stressed and sleep deprived, conditions that make 'it more likely you'll do something out of habit,' Diamond said. There's another issue at play here, too: If someone thinks a situation is unlikely, they aren't going to take measures to prevent it. Caregivers can take steps to prevent potential tragedies. Experts recommended putting an object, like a stuffed animal, in the backseat of the car and putting it on their lap after buckling in the child — the stuffie serving as a visual reminder that a child is in the car. There are other problems beyond memory failure. Child hot car deaths skyrocketed in the 1990s, after the government and safety advocates launched a campaign to encourage children to ride in the backseat of cars due to reports of airbag-related deaths. This new trend paired with rear-facing car seats — making it hard to tell that a child is in the back — led to an uptick in hot car deaths, Rollins-Reis said. A 2021 federal law included a mandate that the Secretary of Transportation issue a rule within two years requiring new passenger vehicles be equipped with an alert system to check the backseat after the car is off. That deadline passed in November 2023. Even without the law in place, several car manufacturers have included features that remind drivers to check the backseat. If they can afford it, caretakers can also buy technology to protect against potential tragedies, like car seats or sensor pads that alerts parents if a child is left in the car. Despite the scientific research, parents are often unfairly maligned when reports of these tragedies surface. About 25 percent of hot car deaths occur after children get into a car on their own while only 15 percent of children are knowingly left in a car, the nonprofit found. These instances are rare, but they happen — and get headlines. California mom Maya Hernandez, 20, called a medical spa last week to see if her two sons, aged one and two, were allowed inside as she underwent a lip filler procedure. An employee said they could sit in the waiting room for the 20-minute appointment, but Hernandez instead left her boys inside her car for two and a half hours, authorities say. She'd left the air conditioning running, but the car's system automaticaly shut it off after an hour. The one-year-old died while the older brother survived and was placed in child protective custody. She's now facing charges of involuntary manslaughter and child cruelty. Hernandez 'admitted that she knew it was irresponsible to leave her kids in the car' and 'thought about it when she got out of the car but had no justification as to why she left them anyway,' her criminal complaint states. Social media users swiftly condemned her. 'Well we definitely see where her priorities were,' one user wrote. Another remarked: 'How can a loving mother do that?' Yet another said: 'She could afford lip filler but not a babysitter. Wtaf??' Others have also been charged with manslaughter or other crimes. State of mind matters when it comes to bringing criminal charges; particularly since research shows most of the time, parents didn't leave their child behind knowingly. 'This is happening to the most loving, responsible parents, the infinitely organized and safety minded people. I think it continues to happen because it's not something that's on people's radar as a concern,' Rollins-Reis said. In the cases of unintentional deaths, Diamond believes charges aren't needed ebcause the driver 'will be in their own personal prison for the rest of their life because they know that their inaction led to the death of their child.' He added: 'This is not a matter of negligence, it's not a matter of lack of love. This is simply being human, and being human means catastrophic memory failures occur.'
The Guardian
40 minutes ago
- The Guardian
2024 book review: Trump, Biden, Harris and a turbulent election full of what-ifs
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The Guardian
43 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Obama's former press secretary recalls ‘emotional' mood in White House after Trump win
The hardest day on the job for the White House press secretary for most of Barack Obama's second term was right after Donald Trump was first elected president, he recently revealed during a fireside chat at a journalism convention. Speaking at the 2025 National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) conference in Chicago, Josh Earnest said it was grueling for the Obama administration to realize it would have to follow through on promises of a peaceful transfer of power despite spending the 2016 election cycle offering dire warnings 'about what could or would happen if Donald Trump were given the keys to the Oval Office'. Those warnings stemmed in part from intelligence assessments that the US's longtime geopolitical adversary Russia had interfered in the race in which Trump defeated former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Earnest said the Obama administration suddenly found itself needing to defend the validity of those assessments while saying it would peacefully transfer over the nuclear launch codes – and other levers of power – to Trump. 'Did [Obama] not mean how dangerous [Trump] could be?' Earnest asked rhetorically, referring to some of the questions he and fellow administration officials faced while briefing journalists at the time. 'It was a tough message.' The remarks on Wednesday from Earnest – who was Obama's press secretary from 2014 to 2017 – also offered a first-hand peek into the somber mood at the White House after Trump defeated Clinton. Like many, Earnest 'was very surprised'. 'I did not think he was going to win,' he said. Many Obama communications staffers were visibly demoralized, and Earnest said he and his aides decided to convene them, talk about Trump's victory and try to refocus them for the final two months in office. During that conversation, Obama summoned Earnest to go over the logistics of a nationally televised speech he was planning to give in the White House's Rose Garden. Earnest recalled Obama asking how it was going with the staff that morning – to which he replied that they were 'emotional'. Obama then asked an assistant to call the staff into the Oval Office. He stood in front of the Resolute Desk near his vice-president, Joe Biden, who would later succeed Trump in the White House – and gave them an early version of the speech he ultimately delivered that day. 'We have to remember that we're actually all on one team,' part of that speech read. 'We are Americans first. We're patriots first. We all want what's best for this country.' As Earnest noted, Obama's official White House photographer, Pete Souza, captured the scene with his camera. He recalled how it was the first time many people in the room that day had been in the Oval Office. 'It was very poignant,' Earnest told the chat's host, the ABC7 Chicago news anchor Tanja Babich. One of Earnest's most vocal critics in the aftermath of Trump's victory was the president-elect himself. Trump called Earnest a 'foolish guy' at a December 2016 rally. 'He is so bad – the way he delivers a message,' Trump said of Earnest after the latter defended the US intelligence community's assessment of Russia's interference. Earnest has been a top spokesperson for United Airlines at the company's Chicago headquarters since 2018. He spent some time being a media pundit early during the first of Trump's two presidencies. But Earnest told Babich he did not find it 'particularly fulfilling' given the way Trump's unpredictable, chaotic style of governing can often disorient news outlets. 'The questions could all be boiled down to, 'Isn't this outrageous what Trump is doing?' Earnest said. 'And it became about finding different ways to say, 'Yes.' 'I wasn't doing journalism. I was doing commentary. And it was pretty close to entertainment.'
