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San Francisco Chronicle
12 hours ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Immigration raid against California farmworkers found to reduce school attendance
An increase in recent immigration enforcement in California's Central Valley appears to have caused a drop in school attendance, a Stanford University researcher has found. After a January immigration raid that targeted Kern County farmworkers, local school districts saw a 22% increase in daily student absences compared with the monthly pattern within the past two years, Stanford education professor Thomas Dee wrote in a newly published paper. The Jan. 7 to 9 raid, called Operation Return to Sender, was conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's El Centro sector days before President Donald Trump's inauguration. The first major workplace immigration raid in California since Trump's presidential election victory, it resulted in at least 78 arrests, according to the El Centro sector of the U.S. Border Patrol. Border patrol agents said they were carrying out 'a 'targeted enforcement' action focused on those with criminal histories but United Farm Workers, a California-based union, said many people arrested had no criminal records, including a lawful permanent resident who was only released when she showed the agent a picture of her green card. A U.S. district judge later barred U.S. Border Patrol agents from using practices deployed in that raid. The ruling, part of a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of farmworkers, stated border patrol agents in the raid 'more likely than not' stopped and detained people without reasonable suspicion to do so. The raid almost immediately fueled widespread fear among undocumented immigrant families, who said they were afraid to send their kids to school or leave home in case they were arrested. Since then, ICE expanded enforcement activity in Southern California's agricultural regions, including Tulare, Fresno and Ventura counties, the Los Angeles Times reported, as part of Trump's campaign promise for mass deportations of the country's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. The Stanford paper is the first research published about whether the Bakersfield raid impacted school attendance. Using three years of daily data on student absences in five Central Valley school districts where the raids took place, Dee measured whether student absences in January and February, after the raid occurred, differed from what would be expected based on seasonal trends in previous years. He also accounted for events and holidays that would have impacted attendance for other reasons, such as the first Monday in February, which was an annual public holiday in Mexico celebrating Constitution Day, and the Feb. 3 Day Without Immigrants protest, which saw at least 700 Kern County high schoolers walking out of class to protest Trump's policies. The results indicated a sharp increase of more than 20% in student absences in January and February, with absenteeism increasing particularly among younger students. 'Using unique data from school districts in California's Central Valley, this study presents leading evidence that the recent surge in interior immigration enforcement significantly increased student absences from school,' the report stated. 'The increased absences can also be understood as a leading indicator of broad and developmentally harmful stress these raids create for students and their families.' The harm to student learning is substantial, Dee said, compounding the post-pandemic spike in chronic absenteeism, making it hard for teachers to pace instruction when some students miss school, and potentially causing anxiety disorders in children and compromising long-term academic success. California is one of the few states that base state funding for schools on average daily attendance. Dee said that the raid-induced increases in absences will reduce state funds available to affected districts. Michele Copher, superintendent of schools in Fresno County, which has been impacted by immigration raids against farmworkers, said that in the late winter, Fresno County school districts reported a drop in attendance that coincided with reported Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the area. 'Attendance has since stabilized, and districts have worked hard to help families feel confident sending their children to school,' Copher said.
Boston Globe
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Immigration raids add to absence crisis for schools
Last week, the administration deployed troops to Los Angeles in response to protests against deportations. Absences went up, even though the district tried to reassure families that schools were safe. Advertisement The new paper looked at attendance data from five school districts in the southern part of the Central Valley, serving a total of over 100,000 children. Public schools do not track immigration status. But a majority of students in the region are Latino, many that arechildren of farm workers with uncertain legal status. Those workers help produce about a quarter of the nation's food — fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Dee examined three years of attendance data. He found an unusual spike in absences in January and February following 'Operation Return to Sender,' a series of immigration sweeps conducted by US Customs and Border Protection. Dozens of day laborers and field workers were arrested at a Home Depot, in parking lots, and at gas stations. Advertisement The operation took place in the final days of President Joe Biden's term. But it was seen as a sign of the immigration enforcement agency's enthusiasm for Trump's agenda. Since then, immigration sweeps in California and across the country have been sporadic, though highly publicized. And on Friday, immigration officials paused raids targeting farmworkers, among others, after the president acknowledged earlier in the week that the raids were hurting the agricultural industry. In the Central Valley, immigrant parents said that after the January raids, they feared being arrested while their children were at school and being deported without them. Rather than risk separation, some parents kept children home. The spike in absences is equivalent to the average student missing about 15 days of school each year, up from 12 days, according to Dee's paper. He called the findings 'a canary in the coal mine' for public education. If absences continue to be elevated, they could threaten student learning and children's mental health. Funding is also at risk, since schools in California are paid according to student attendance. Teachers may have to adjust the curriculum to meet the needs of students who have fallen behind after missing class. School counselors and social workers are already devoting more of their hours to tracking down missing children and to treating their anxiety about deportation, according to educators in the region. The new paper echoes past research that found that under Trump, Biden, and President Barack Obama, immigration raids led to decreases in student attendance at nearby schools. Many immigrants in the Central Valley said that while fears of deportation had always hung over them, anxiety has never been higher. It is fueled by Trump's aggressive agenda and rhetoric, and by stories of family separation and children placed in foster care, often shared via social media. Advertisement One Mexican father of two schoolchildren in Fresno, ages 14 and 6, said that deportation alongside his wife and children would mean losing possessions, wealth, and his work as a mechanic. In California, he and his wife, a farmworker, had carefully built a life. But while losing that life would be difficult, deportation without their children, he said, was simply unthinkable. Like other migrant parents, the man asked to remain unnamed because of his uncertain legal status. He has cut out many of his family's nonessential trips outside their home but has continued to send his children to school. Many others have not. A Fresno mother, also from Mexico, was so fearful of being deported if she left her home that she paid someone else to drive her daughter to school. She also asked that her name not be used. She eventually resumed drop-offs, which is when she noticed a change at the school's doors. There were fewer children waiting in line to file into the building. Half a dozen families she used to see at drop-off were no longer there. In a written statement responding to the research findings, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said, 'Illegal immigration is incredibly disruptive to all Americans, including families, students, and teachers. The Trump administration won't apologize for enforcing the law and restoring order to American communities.' This article originally appeared in Advertisement
San Francisco Chronicle
25-05-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
Border Patrol is conducting legally dubious raids across California — and bragging about it online
By any reasonable measure, Ernesto Campos Gutierrez is a pillar of his Bakersfield community. A resident of more than two decades, he is a homeowner. He is a business owner. He is an active member of his church. There's no clear reason why he was stopped by an unmarked SUV as he drove to his gardening job on Jan. 8, with a mini trailer containing his equipment in tow. He wasn't speeding, and his license and registration were up to date, according to court documents. More than five months later, there are even fewer answers as to why the encounter turned violent. Campos Gutierrez handed officers his ID, but when they refused to say why he'd been pulled over and demanded his keys, he said no, according to court documents. Agents then forcibly removed his passenger after threatening to shatter his windows with a handheld tool. Then an officer slashed his tires. Campos Gutierrez was arrested, he was told, for 'alien smuggling' — and detained for hours in a facility about 20 minutes away, despite telling officers he was a U.S. citizen. He was far from the only one swept up in Bakersfield that day. Bree Bernwanger, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, represents several of those targeted by what turned out to be a series of coordinated raids. She told me immigration agents ' were sending their roving patrols to agricultural areas, to Home Depot, to places where farmworkers go for breakfast, and they were timing it with their shifts, so they were clearly going after farmworkers and day laborers.' These raids weren't just unusual for their brazenness. They were conducted by a Border Patrol unit hundreds of miles from its typical territory — one that has not just ramped up its activity far from the border but has boasted about legally dubious behavior on social media. Many of the initial reports about the raids assumed Immigration and Customs Enforcement was responsible. It didn't occur to most people that such actions would be carried out by another agency, a sector of Border Patrol based in El Centro, a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border in Imperial County, more than 300 miles away. In Facebook posts following the Bakersfield raid, which the El Centro sector named Operation Return to Sender, it boasted: 'We are taking it to the bad people and bad things in Bakersfield' and promised 'We are planning operations for other locals (sic) such as Fresno and especially Sacramento.' Since the Bakersfield episode, El Centro agents have descended on more locations far from the southern border, including El Monte and Pomona in Los Angeles County. Its in-person confrontations and its social media presence are now being closely scrutinized. In two separate legal cases over the past month, lawyers have used the agency's posts as evidence of agents' intent to act unlawfully; in both cases, judges intervened to block the Border Patrol's actions. The El Centro section is responsible for 70 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, from the Jacumba Mountains east of San Diego along the rugged desert terrain of Imperial County. Nearly 1,000 agents and 149 support staffers are spread among three stations at El Centro, Calexico and Indio. But the agency is technically allowed to operate within 100 miles of any border — including the ocean, meaning most of California and a vast majority of the U.S. population is subject to its authority. Under Trump, the El Centro Border Patrol sector in particular has seized on this authority, both to sow havoc across California and to antagonize state and local leaders who've tried to protect immigrants in their communities. Like the president himself, the agency's social media imprint is a vortex of insults, boasts and highly produced videos that paint its agents as heroes and the immigrants they encounter as a subhuman invading force. One post includes a photo of a car with its front windshield blown to bits, shards of glass pooled on the driver's seat. It was published the same day many news outlets reported that Elon Musk, in his role leading Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, would be requiring federal employees to send weekly reports laying out five things they'd done that week. The post read: ' #DOGE is really catching on! This illegal alien is listing his accomplishments for this past week: Refused to open window during an immigration inspection; Got his window shattered for an extraction, Arrested by the #PremierSector, Went to jail, Got deported.' People in the comments cheered: 'FAFO,' wrote one, an acronym for the taunt 'f— around and find out,' alongside three laughing emojis. 'FAFO in full effect,' the official El Centro account wrote back, with its own smattering of laughing and smiling emojis. The El Centro sector has at least five people working on producing videos, CalMatters reported in April. Then there's the moniker the El Centro sector has created for itself. In virtually every piece of content coming from the account, the agency refers to itself as the 'Premier Sector,' typically in the third person — but also using #PremierSector, or in photos, where it's stamped across the faces of the people it arrests. It's never a good sign, in my experience, when someone gives themselves a nickname. A spokesman for Border Patrol's El Centro sector declined to answer my questions about its approach, but wrote in a statement that it 'uses its official social media platforms to communicate directly with the American people — reinforcing our mission, highlighting operations, and offering a window into the work of our agents and officers. We actively monitor communications to ensure they reflect agency priorities and public expectations.' ACLU attorneys in their court filings provided an extensive rundown of social media posts by the El Centro Border Patrol sector to show that in its own words, the agency had expressed a clear intention of breaking the law — repeatedly. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston of Fresno cited those posts in an April 29 order sharply curtailing the agency's practices. The Border Patrol must have 'reasonable suspicion' that a crime or immigration violation has taken place in order to stop someone, under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And, absent a warrant, it cannot arrest someone without evaluating whether they present a flight risk. By constantly posting about agents' intentions to go into communities and arrest as many people as possible, agents showed they 'do not intend to comply with the requirements … but to perform warrantless arrests without probable cause,' Thurston wrote. For now, she has prohibited the agents from using the kind of tactics they deployed in Bakersfield. Bernwanger told me she's been 'floored by the brazenness with which they have operated and talked about their operations' on social media. In a separate case this month, a U.S. district judge in San Diego temporarily blocked the expedited deportations of several men arrested as part of another raid hundreds of miles from El Centro. Agents swarmed a Home Depot parking lot in Pomona, east of Los Angeles, and detained multiple people based solely on the fact that they walked or ran in the other direction when they saw a marked Border Patrol vehicle. In that case, too, an attorney for the men detailed numerous social media posts by the El Centro sector in court documents, arguing they present a pattern of flouting the limits of its authority. One of them was a post on X in which a user asked about the Border Patrol's apparent strategy of 'standing outside gas station stops at (H)ome (D)epots preying on any random person.' Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino responded: 'Undocumented means just that. I recommend returning to the country of origin, obtaining proper documents, and doing it the right way. If not, we will arrest.' U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw wrote that 'the public interest in enforcement of immigration laws, although significant, does not override the public interest in protecting the safeguards of the Constitution.' After Sabraw blocked the expedited deportations and ordered Border Patrol agents to testify in court, the agency abruptly dropped the effort and transferred the case to immigration court. 'The social media posts indicate the sector is operating in a way that doesn't comply with the law. They're basically saying, 'The gloves are off, we're coming after you regardless of the law,' ' said Niels Frenzen, co-director of the USC Immigration Clinic, who is representing three of the men facing deportation after the Pomona raid. It's perhaps not a surprise that an agency emboldened by Trump is mimicking his bombast on social media. The El Centro sector's social media accounts similarly mock and insult anyone it encounters who is not cheering agents on. Ironically, though, those posts are now interfering with Trump's desired endgame of removing thousands of immigrants. A late April Facebook post brags about arresting two legal residents who weren't carrying immigration documents when confronted by officers. One woman responded: 'I'm a US citizen and brown, what should I carry to prove my status?' The El Centro account shot back: 'Is that chip on your shoulder something you always carry?' The Facebook account frequently derides those it arrests as 'fools,' 'Jesse James wannabes' and 'baby faced criminals' and calls one woman 'devoid of motherly instincts.' A photo of a man it describes as a 'foreign fugitive' handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol vehicle, his lips turned down and eyes fixed at the camera, says: 'It's too late to pout … you're on your way OUT!' and 'Making puppy-dog eyes won't save him from answering for his criminal past.' One highly produced 30-second video is set to music and shows agents gripping various weapons in slow motion. 'M-4s up. Stack tight. Move silent. Hit hard!' it says. 'This is a message to all those who break the law. The Premier Sector gives no warnings, just boots, breaches, & warrants with names on them.' Ironically, its lack of warrants figures prominently in both legal cases against the agency. This is not how most government agencies — even those that interface with immigrants — present themselves to the public. Professionalism and upholding American immigration law are not mutually exclusive. Take the clinical way the U.S. Coast Guard described a recent encounter with a boat carrying undocumented immigrants: 'The aliens aboard the 15-foot vessel consisted of four adult males all claiming Mexican nationality. All four aliens were taken into custody by the Coast Guard and transferred to U.S. Border Patrol personnel.' Frenzen said he believes El Centro's approach to social media reflects a desire to create a sense of fear among immigrants so intense that they 'self-deport,' or leave the country voluntarily. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees Border Patrol, this week made clear she knows or cares nothing about the fundamental rights protecting people under her purview. 'Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, and suspend their right to,' she told senators at a hearing Wednesday (she was cut off based on how sideways her answer had already gone). Noem, Trump and eager Border Patrol offices like the El Centro sector are still hoping to deliver their promises of mass deportations. It's why they've cast such a wide net — one that's at times ignored due process and ensnared everyone from gardeners in Bakersfield to student activists in New York. So far, their bombast has worked against them in court. But it's unclear how long that will last. Should they prevail, Californians should prepare for their state to look and operate much differently than most of us are accustomed — or would like.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's mass deportation campaign dealt setback in California federal court
The Trump administration's mass deportation campaign was dealt a setback in a federal district court in California. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston issued a preliminary injunction barring U.S. Border Patrol from using stop-and-arrest practices that violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution, according to a media release by the ACLU. The judge's ruling applies to future Border Patrol operations conducted in the Eastern District of California, which stretches inland from Bakersfield to the Oregon border, essentially the entire Central Valley, including the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. The preliminary injunction prohibits Border Patrol agents from stopping people without reasonable suspicion that they are noncitizens and in the U.S. in violation of federal immigration law, and from arresting people without a warrant if agents don't have probable cause to believe the person is likely to flee, per the ACLU. Related: Trump's Guantanamo deportations slowed by judge's order The court also ruled that Border Patrol must document all facts and circumstances related to stops and warrantless arrests in the Eastern District and issue guidance to ensure its agents comply with the Fourth Amendment and federal law. 'Today's order affirms the dignity and constitutional rights of all people,' stated Bree Bernwanger, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California. 'Border Patrol must end its illegal stop and arrest practices now.' The ruling stems from United Farm Workers v. Kristi Noem, as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and heads of the U.S. Border Patrol and El Centro Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol. In January, Border Patrol agents from the El Centro Sector traveled to Kern County, where they stopped and arrested people and then transported them 300 miles south to El Centro as part of "Operation Return to Sender." Plaintiffs contend the Operation was 'a nearly weeklong sweep through predominantly Latino areas of Kern County and the surrounding region to stop, detain, and arrest people of color who appeared to be farm workers or day laborers, regardless of their actual immigration status or individual circumstances.' At least 40 long-term Kern County residents remain stranded in Mexico, separated from their families and community, according to the ACLU. In February, the United Farm Workers and five Kern County residents sued the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Border Patrol. The ACLU Foundations of Northern California, Southern California, San Diego & Imperial Counties represent the plaintiffs, and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP. Public records show a surge in immigration enforcement under Trump: a sharp decline in illegal border crossings, increased immigrant arrests, and a growing number of people in ICE detention. But not 139,000 deportations. "It would have required a massive shift in who is conducting deportations or how deportations are being counted to even begin to get close to the claim of 139,000," said Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University researcher who regularly compiles and analyzes immigration data. The administration hasn't produced government records that would allow for independent scrutiny – a hallmark of accountability in governance. "The administration is either engaging in a highly creative accounting scheme to inflate the perception of deportations or simply pulling these numbers out of thin air," Kocher said. There have been roughly 400 ICE deportation flights since Trump took office, according to Tom Cartwright, who tracks ICE flights daily as a volunteer for Witness at the Border. At roughly 125 people per plane, that's 50,000 people, which squares with ICE's own reporting. 'It seems ICE would have needed to operate around double the number of charter flight deportations by air other than the 400 observed to date," Cartwright said. "I just don't find these numbers plausible unless DHS is including some amorphous estimate for self-deportations. I would love to know." USA TODAY asked the White House and DHS to clarify what is counted in the deportations number. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told USA TODAY it includes removals by CBP and is based on "internal data." "We are confident in our numbers," she said. The White House press office was copied on communications with USA TODAY and DHS, but didn't offer a separate response. In past administrations, the bulk of deportations came from people who crossed the border illegally. But apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped dramatically under Trump, as illegal border crossings have declined, according to CBP data. That's made it challenging for the Trump administration to raise its deportation numbers quickly. Interior enforcement takes more time and resources. It can take as many as half a dozen ICE agents to detain a single person when targeting immigrants in the interior. Still, ICE arrests and detentions have risen, as the Trump administration has deputized other federal agents to conduct immigration enforcement, and CBP customs officers have referred more travelers to ICE for detention and deportation. "They've talked about being transparent about this," said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "And certainly they want to note their accomplishments, so what's the problem with giving some more information than just one number with no breakdown or explanation?" It's not clear what the administration is aiming to reach 139,000 deportations, Vaughan said. The administration hasn't detailed what removal categories they're including. "They have a lot to be proud of," Vaughan said of the administration. "There is no need to hide the removal statistics within a basket of other types of enforcement." USA TODAY contributed to this story. This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: California federal court stymies Trump's mass deportation campaign
Epoch Times
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Judge Bars Border Patrol From Making Warrantless Arrests of Illegal Immigrants in Parts of California
A federal judge in California has barred U.S. Border Patrol agents from arresting suspected illegal immigrants within parts of the state without a warrant or specific evidence that the individual poses a flight risk—while delivering a rebuke to tactics used during a controversial January enforcement sweep. In an April 29 The plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), alleged in their Feb. 26 Under Thurston's order, Border Patrol agents operating in California's Eastern District are now prohibited from making detentions or arrests without first establishing reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence in the country and, for arrests, probable cause that the individual is likely to flee before a warrant can be obtained. 'The evidence before the Court is that Border Patrol agents under DHS authority engaged in conduct that violated well-established constitutional rights,' Thurston wrote in the ruling. The court also restricted the agency's use of 'voluntary departure,' a process by which illegal immigrants agree to leave the United States without a hearing before an immigration judge. Going forward, agents must clearly inform individuals of their rights and obtain genuine, informed consent before initiating such removals. Related Stories 4/29/2025 4/28/2025 The judge further ordered DHS to submit regular reports documenting any warrantless stops or arrests, along with justifications, for the duration of litigation. She also instructed DHS to issue written guidelines clarifying the legal threshold for initiating stops. 'This guidance shall include, among other things, that refusal to answer questions does not, without more, constitute a basis for reasonable suspicion to justify a detentive stop,' she wrote. The case stems from allegations that, beginning in early January 2025, dozens of Border Patrol agents traveled more than 300 miles inland from the U.S.–Mexico border to Bakersfield, targeting predominantly Latino neighborhoods and day laborer gathering spots without individualized suspicion. The plaintiffs described 'Operation Return to Sender' as a sweeping dragnet based on racial and occupational profiling, claiming agents pulled over vehicles, blocked parked cars, conducted warrantless searches, and detained people without evidence of unlawful presence. Once in custody, detainees were allegedly transported to a facility near the border, denied access to attorneys, and pressured into signing 'voluntary departure' forms without understanding the consequences—a process plaintiffs described as 'summary expulsion' that can carry long-term reentry bans. Once in custody, detainees claimed they were transported to a Border Patrol facility near the border, where they were denied access to lawyers and coerced into signing 'voluntary departure' forms under misleading pretenses, which they described as a 'form of summary expulsion.' Attorneys for the Justice Department But the court rejected those arguments, finding that the plaintiffs demonstrated a credible threat of repeated harm. Thurston wrote that the new DHS policy did not eliminate the risk of future violations and 'could be withdrawn or altered in the future' without constraint. The Epoch Times contacted the Justice Department and the ACLU with requests for comment on the ruling.
