Kern County immigration raid offers glimpse into new reality for California farmworkers | “They could be held in detention for months while awaiting deportation proceedings, or they could sign a voluntary departure order and be dropped off across the border”

> Their families have since put down roots. Along with their 11-year-old child, Marta and her husband now have three U.S.-born children — 3-year-old twins and a 4-year-old. Victoria has three children, all U.S. citizens — a 1-year-old, 2-year-old and an 11-year-old.

> On Jan. 7, Marta was harvesting mandarins alongside her husband and brother-in-law when rumors started circulating that immigration agents were swarming Bakersfield. Some people reported seeing white-and-green Border Patrol vehicles on area roadways. Others were getting pinged with warnings in texts and on social media.

> By the end of the shift, Marta said, she and her husband had picked enough mandarins to fill five huge crates, each earning $120 for the day. They joined her brother-in-law in his Honda sedan and started for home.

> Not long after, she said, Border Patrol agents pulled them over on Highway 99.

> # “Voluntary departure orders”

> **An agent accused Marta’s brother-in-law of driving the car without proper authorization, according to family members. The brother-in-law produced his auto insurance, they said, and the agent corrected himself.**

> **Nonetheless, the trio were ordered to leave the vehicle, Marta said.** They were taken to a makeshift processing center in Bakersfield, and the car was eventually impounded.

> During the wait at the center, Marta said, she cried inconsolably, worried about becoming separated from her kids. A sympathetic agent eventually set her free, she said. But her husband and brother-in-law did not make it out.

> She and her sister would learn later that their husbands had been transported to El Centro for processing.

> Marta and Victoria said their husbands, while undocumented, had not been accused of any crimes in the U.S. A Times search yielded no criminal cases for the two men in Kern County Superior Court or the Eastern District of California.

> **But according to family members who have been in contact with the men, they were given an option: They could be held in detention for months while awaiting deportation proceedings, or they could sign a voluntary departure order and be dropped off across the border.** They chose to be deported.

> By the next afternoon, the two men had been deported to Mexicali. According to their wives, they have returned to their rural village, where there’s little work and minimal cell service, making communication sporadic.

> # Possible 4th Amendment violations

> In the weeks since the operation, the ACLU of Southern California has been interviewing people affected by the raids. They have heard stories of “egregious conduct,” according to staff attorney Mayra Joachín, including Border Patrol agents stopping people without reasonable suspicion that they had violated any immigration laws, and arresting people without warrants.

> Although immigration enforcement officers have broad powers, their authority is limited by the 4th Amendment’s prohibitions on unreasonable search and seizure, according to a 2021 legal sidebar from the Congressional Research Service.

> The Bakersfield operation, Joachín said, did not comply with 4th Amendment protections and other regulations governing immigration arrests.

> **“Generally, Border Patrol cannot go about doing what they did through Operation Return to Sender, which is that they were stopping people simply because they were a person of color who appeared to be either a day laborer or an agricultural worker, and then asking them to identify themselves and, in some instances, searching them without any warrant or without consent from the individual,” she said.**

> The ACLU is still assessing a potential legal response, Joachín said.

!ping IMMIGRATION&SNEK