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In a frightening preview of the incoming administration’s “bloody” mass detention and deportation agenda across the nation, Border Patrol agents in unmarked vehicles have reportedly been carrying out ugly, racially profiled raids in California’s agricultural heartland, including stalking immigrants outside of stores popular among farmworkers. This early example of the ‘Trump effect’ on how the on-the-ground law enforcement interprets the range of their power is a chilling reminder of what we witnessed under the first Trump administration – and what could be the start of something worse as soon as next week. 

The unmarked cars, the racial profiling, abusive harassment, and wide dragnets are likely just the tip of the spear of the incoming administration and the signs are unmistakable: there are “enemy invaders” within threatening everything “real Americans” hold dear, and the federal government will be interested in critical oversight in how local officials deals with the “enemy.”

And America’s rural and agricultural regions will be the hardest hit. In one example of the indiscriminate nature of the sweeps, agents reportedly harassed and detained a Latino U.S. citizen, including slashing his vehicle’s tires after he refused their demands to turn over his keys, local outlet KGET said. The enforcement operations across Bakersfield came just one day after Congress certified Donald Trump’s win, Sergio Olmos of CalMatters reports:

“It was profiling, it was purely field workers,” said Sara Fuentes, store manager of the local gas station. Fuentes said that at 9 a.m., when the store typically gets a rush of workers on their way to pick oranges, two men in civilian clothes and unmarked Suburbans started detaining people outside the store. “They didn’t stop people with FedEx uniforms, they were stopping people who looked like they worked in the fields.” Fuentes says one customer pulled in just to pump gas and agents approached him and detained him.

Fuentes has lived in Bakersfield all her life and says she’s never seen anything like it. In one instance, she said a man and woman drove up to the store together, and the man went inside. Border Patrol detained the man as he walked out, Fuentes said, and then demanded the woman get out of the vehicle. When she refused, another agency parked his vehicle behind the woman, blocking her car. Fuentes said it wasn’t until the local Univision station showed up that Border Patrol agents backed up their car and allowed the woman to leave.

Fuentes says none of the regular farm workers showed up to buy breakfast on Wednesday morning. “No field workers at all,” she said.

Witnesses captured videos of a number of officers and agents, some in uniform and others plain-clothed, stationed directly in front of a store’s entrance, with a parked Border Patrol truck plainly visible. The agents were visible and intimidating –  and it worked: there are ongoing reports that workers are vanishing and the agriculture businesses are bleeding out. These essential workers are critical to our economy and our communities – and this has not been isolated to this one particular location. 

Casey Creamer, president of the industry group California Citrus Mutual, told Olmos that this is one of their busiest harvesting times of the year. But following the frightening news that immigrants were getting swept up while refueling their trucks or picking up some breakfast before starting their day, 25% of citrus workers stayed home from work. The day after, 75% stayed home. The raids have “sent shockwaves through the entire community,” Creamer said. “People aren’t going to work and kids aren’t going to school,” mirroring mass school absences following past workplace raids in states like Mississippi, New Mexico, and Tennessee. “Throughout the raids, Border Patrol appeared to be profiling farm workers,” United Farm Workers said. “These raids have resulted in dozens of arrests of hardworking people, including UFW union members.” The labor union called the enforcement actions “a troubling preview of what we expect our communities to endure over the next 4 years.”

In the last decade, Georgia and Alabama learned firsthand the devastating impacts of their state anti-immigrant crackdowns, which resulted in empty worksites and crops rotting in the fields. Florida has recently as well. 

Creamer also “pushed back on the Border Patrol’s claims they’re targeting bad people. He said they appeared to be general sweeps of workers.” In a statement, CBP claimed that agents were focused on targeting alleged drug and human traffickers. If true, this would fall under current immigration enforcement priorities. But what’s actually happening on the ground is telling a different story, as the harassment of naturalized U.S. citizen Ernesto Campos amid the Bakersfield raids can attest to. 

“A 44-year-old father of four, Campos, has lived in the U.S. for 30 years and became a citizen over a decade ago,” KGET reported. “He’s lived in Bakersfield for over 20 years and owns a landscaping business with four employees.” But he was caught in this deportation dragnet despite his permanent legal status. Campos and a coworker were driving to work when they were pulled over by an unmarked vehicle. When he refused to turn over his keys to the agents, they slashed his tires, he told KGET. He was then detained for hours, and released only when his U.S. citizenship was confirmed. 

Campos had the smarts to capture some of the ordeal on video (as advocates have noted in “Know Your Rights” materials, you are permitted to record interactions with immigration agents as long as you don’t interfere with their activities):

Campos “says he’s still coping with the situation,” KGET continued, “and only half of his employees showed up to work after the raids.”  Richard S. Gearhart, an associate professor of economics at Cal State-Bakersfield, told CalMatters that if the indiscriminate arrests of workers “is the new normal, this is absolute economic devastation.” This is not hyperbole. California farmworkers, three-quarters of whom are undocumented, are the backbone of the agricultural industry. Nationally, more than one million farmworkers are undocumented.

During a segment on SiriusXM’s The Michelangelo Signorile Show, Olmos further revealed that CBP officials refused to respond to his requests for verified information about the public operation. Border Patrol “just did not reply to us.” He said he found out more about the public operation only because the border chief for the El Centro sector was posting about it on his personal Facebook page. This official said that more operations are being planned for other areas in the state, including Fresno and “especially Sacramento.” To add to this lack of transparency from this public agency, Jenn Budd, a former Senior Border Patrol agent and whistleblower, said that local reporters have told her that Border Patrol has been refusing to release the names of people apprehended by the agency. 

“I have never seen BP refuse to release criminal migrant names,” Budd noted. “They like to brag! Press would like to follow these cases in court, but can’t.” The attorney for one man who was detained outside a Bakersfield Home Depot told The Los Angeles Times that she spent three days searching for where he was being detained, including calling at least six detention facilities. Attorney Parvin Wiliani “said she only learned then that he was being held in ‘an unknown location’ near the border. ‘That’s very unusual. I can normally locate my clients within 24 hours.’”

The likeliest explanation for Border Patrol’s lack of transparency is that they are simply not detaining the priorities they claim they’re targeting, but also essential workers and other community members and contributors who are currently not a priority for detention and deportation under the Biden administration. “They were stopping cars at random, asking people for papers. They were going to gas stations and Home Depot where day laborers gather,” Antonio De Loera-Brust of United Farm Workers told Olmos. “It’s provoking intense anxiety and a lot of fear in the community.”

Unfortunately, Bakersfield is likely the prelude for what we can expect in the coming weeks and months – and worse when unconfirmed Trump appointees Stephen Miller and “border czar” Tom Homan are in charge of immigration policy. The tone and culture they set will be just as important as the policies they begin to implement. As individual law enforcement and vigilantes feel empowered to take drastic action with little concern for consequences or oversight, our situation could get out of hand quickly and mass family separations will likely begin again. And, as we saw, the impacts will be felt by families, communities, businesses – and, frankly, all of us.

Gabe Ortíz is Editor at America’s Voice. Prior to AV, Gabe was a staff writer at Daily Kos, where he focused on immigration, LGBTQ, and Latino issues. Gabe also previously served as Digital Editor and Online Organizing Manager at AV, and has contributed to outlets including The Washington Post, Univision, and The World.

The mission of America’s Voice (AV) and America’s Voice Education Fund (AVEF) is to  build the public support and the political will needed to enact policy changes that secure freedom and opportunity for immigrants in America. Priority goal: win reforms that put 11 million undocumented Americans on a path to full citizenship.