Camarillo, Calif. — A large present of federal legislation enforcement brokers swept by way of rural corners of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties this week within the largest of the Trump administration’s weeks-long marketing campaign towards undocumented immigrants in California — and the deadliest.
Farmworker advocates mentioned Friday afternoon that one laborer had died from accidents sustained after falling from the roof of a greenhouse at Glass Home hashish operation whereas attempting to flee federal brokers — the primary loss of life because of an immigration sweep.
The raid by brokers from Homeland Safety Investigations, the California Nationwide Guard and the Drug Enforcement Administration, amongst others, has positioned a highlight on the well-known hashish firm, which has turn into central to the native economic system.
The operation started when immigration brokers surrounded massive greenhouse amenities in Camarillo and Carpinteria Thursday and, after presenting warrants, started getting into buildings. The consequence was hours of chaos, notably on the firm’s Camarillo outpost.
As folks screamed “La migra! La migra!” employees started to run in a panic, hiding in fridges, containers, automobile trunks and on the greenhouse roofs. Protesters massed on the gates, squaring off towards brokers, who deployed tear fuel and less-lethal bullets.
As soon as the fuel had cleared and the riot police and a whole lot of protesters had gone house, almost 200 folks, together with a number of minors, had been detained, in keeping with the Division of Homeland Safety.
“No less than 10 migrant kids had been rescued from potential exploitation, compelled labor, and human trafficking,” the company mentioned in a press release. “Federal officers additionally arrested roughly 200 unlawful aliens.”
As well as, the FBI mentioned it was investigating a attainable taking pictures that had taken place amid the hurly-burly of protests exterior the gates of Glass Home, one of many largest authorized hashish operations within the state.
The incident, with its photos of youngsters working by way of fields to flee clouds of tear fuel and employees hiding in terror amid panes of damaged glass on greenhouse roofs catapulted throughout social media, and shortly fueled dueling political narratives.
The Trump administration portrayed the occasions as an motion towards “a marijuana develop operation” that, as a Border Patrol official put it in a publish on X, “hires unlawful aliens and exploits unaccompanied minors.” The White Home account on X joined the fray, calling out Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) for defending farmworkers doing their jobs.
“That ain’t produce, holmes. THAT’s PRODUCT,” the White Home publish learn.
Native elected officers and farmworker advocates, in the meantime, decried the motion towards a authorized and extremely regulated operation.
“It was disproportionate, overkill,” mentioned Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara).
The United Farm Employees, in a press release, mentioned: “These violent and merciless federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American meals provide chain, threaten lives and separate households. There isn’t any metropolis, state or federal district the place it’s authorized to terrorize and detain folks for being brown and dealing in agriculture. These raids should cease instantly.”
The operation additionally put a highlight on Glass Home, one of many largest authorized hashish operations in California. The corporate, which counts amongst its founders a former Torrance police officer, has lately turn into the most important taxpayer in Ventura County and one of many space’s largest employers.
It has turn into a giant participant in native politics, however now, apparently, it’s within the crosshairs of the Trump administration.
Firm officers have mentioned little publicly, posting on X Friday that two of its operations, one in Camarillo in Ventura County and one close to Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County, had granted brokers entry after being introduced with a search warrant.
“Employees had been detained and we’re aiding to offer them authorized illustration,” the corporate mentioned in a press release, including that it “has by no means knowingly violated relevant hiring follow.”
Glass Home occupies a controversial place in California’s rough-and-tumble authorized hashish trade. 5 years in the past, the corporate purchased up outdated vegetable and flower greenhouses throughout the farmland south of Santa Barbara. Its development occurred at such a big scale and at such a low manufacturing price that many within the trade check with it because the “Walmart of Weed.”
The transformed greenhouses on the 165-acre Camarillo web site as soon as grew cucumbers, a nod to the sample of repurposing distressed properties employed by co-founder Kyle Kazan, a former Torrance police officer as soon as assigned to gang element who made his first hundreds of thousands constructing a property administration empire of Orange County seaside leases.
Glass Home started as a single greenhouse operation in Santa Barbara, and after a 2021 merger with a Canadian firm that allowed public buying and selling of Glass Home Manufacturers inventory, established its mammoth footprint in Ventura County.
Underneath Kazan, Glass Home has weathered allegations introduced by opponents of dumping hashish merchandise illegally in different states. Kazan, whereas not closely engaged in nationwide political battles past hashish, has been a proponent of pardons for these serving lengthy jail sentences for nonviolent drug crimes. In a Could investor presentation, Kazan praised Trump’s appointee for pardon advisor.
The corporate additionally sparked a firestorm in 2019 when it donated $189,000 to the Carpinteria Faculty District — after which received faculty board members to pose for a photograph sporting firm merchandise amid hashish crops. On the time, many residents decried the rising affect of marijuana companies on native politics and tradition, whereas others defended Glass Home and different operations for offering jobs and native tax income.
Court docket filings present a lot of Glass Home’s workers truly work for a Camarillo labor contractor. The corporate faces allegations of labor legislation violations — together with failure to pay time beyond regulation or give meal breaks — and separate sexual harassment and discrimination complaints filed by employees paid $16 an hour (minimal wage on the time) to brush plant trimmings, deal with coconut fiber mulch and have a tendency to different duties.
The corporate disputes the costs, levied in Ventura County civil lawsuits, that are nonetheless pending in court docket.
Quite a few Trump administration officers referred to as out the presence of undocumented minors working on the facility on Thursday. Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Rodney Scott posted {a photograph} on X of younger males with their faces blurred.
“These are the juveniles discovered within the marijuana facility — virtually all unaccompanied, one as younger as 14,” the publish learn. “California are you able to accomplice with us to cease baby exploitation?”
In its assertion, Glass Home mentioned it “doesn’t and has by no means employed minors.”
It additionally mentioned it didn’t count on the raid to “have an effect on operations transferring ahead” and would “present extra particulars when relevant.”
On Friday morning, the scene exterior the corporate’s Camarillo complicated was a lot calmer than it had been the day earlier than. The operation is surrounded by a steel fence with inexperienced tarp; indicators warn that the fence is charged with 7,000 volts.
Many who had been there have been attempting to recuperate automobiles left behind by employees detained within the raid. Others mentioned they believed some employees may nonetheless be hiding within the sprawling complicated.
Irma Perez mentioned her nephew, Fidel Buscio, 24, had been working on the facility after which hid on the roof earlier than later being detained. Earlier than he was taken, she mentioned, he despatched her movies, together with one wherein he stands on the roof with blood on his shirt from an harm sustained from scrambling over damaged glass.
Perez mentioned Buscio had lived along with his spouse in Tijuana however come to Ventura County after she grew to become sick. She mentioned he’s undocumented and attempting to acquire authorized standing. She mentioned her final communication from him was a name wherein he mentioned: “They received me.”
She was attempting to select up his automobile; his legal professional, she added, doesn’t know the place Buscio was taken.
Two daughters of a detained employee had been there Friday as effectively, attempting to select up their mom’s automobile. The 19- and 20-year-old didn’t need to be named to guard their household’s privateness, however they mentioned their mom advised them that she selected to not run when immigration brokers entered the complicated.
She has already signed self-deportation papers to go to Mexico and keep away from being held in a detention middle in one other state, they mentioned.
“It’s actually unhappy,” one daughter mentioned. “They’re leaving lots of people with out mother and father.”
One other employee, who’s undocumented and didn’t need to be named, mentioned he hid beneath the hashish crops for 11 hours. It was scorching, greater than 100 levels. He mentioned he might hear the sound of others being detained, and he stayed hidden till about midnight, when he lastly crept out and escaped.
Griselda Reyes Basurto, program supervisor on the Mixteco Indigena Group Organizing Venture which works with most of the space’s Indigenous employees, mentioned she was capable of entry Glass Home early Friday morning to search for anybody left behind.
She mentioned they didn’t discover anybody however they noticed remnants of the raid: a pair of footwear, damaged glass, trails of blood. Automotive home windows had been shattered, she mentioned, an indication that individuals tried to cover of their automobiles however brokers broke in anyway. She mentioned she is coordinating with households of these taken to verify they’re capable of obtain their ultimate paychecks. Thursday was payday.
The raid has terrified the immigrant populations who work within the space’s farms and the executives who run California’s hashish operation.
Activists shared photos of DEA brokers on the Camarillo immigration raid and frightened that it signaled an finish to the federal ceasefire towards hashish. Whereas most states have legal guidelines that make hashish cultivation, gross sales and use authorized in some style, it stays a Schedule I managed substance beneath federal legislation, alongside heroin and LSD.
“DOJ is aware of hashish farms are straightforward targets as a result of they violate federal legislation, and ICE can roll with the opposite three-letter companies to do a raid,” mentioned an govt at considered one of California’s largest hashish operations, who didn’t need to be named for concern of worsening the state of affairs.
People for Secure Entry and the California Hashish Trade Assn. held an emergency name Friday to organize for extra such federal actions.
“We’ve actual enemies in Washington who are actually in energy,” mentioned Steph Sherer, president of People for Secure Entry.
The Glass Home raid focused folks, not crops, however “let’s be clear, this was a warning shot and we’ve received to be ready for each,” mentioned Caren Woodson, chief govt of the Hashish Trade Assn. “Simply because it wasn’t crops this time doesn’t imply it gained’t be subsequent time.”
Among the sense of vulnerability rises from recollections of Trump’s first time period, when then-Atty. Gen. Jeff Periods in 2018 rolled again a Division of Justice memorandum that dissuaded federal prosecution of hashish legal guidelines in states the place the plant is licensed and controlled.
The specter of enforcement of federal legal guidelines criminalizing hashish carries huge dangers for hashish operators. In federal court docket, state legalization isn’t an allowed protection. Furthermore, Trump’s DEA has didn’t act on suggestions to scale back federal prohibitions towards hashish.
“That is actual. We’ve all lived by way of it, and it’s taking place once more,” Sherer mentioned.
