During the federal official’s mass sweep across the central and northern California, 26 farm workers in Kern County got detained for deportation. The sweep was targeted for convicted criminals.
Armando Elenes, the vice president of United Farm Workers of America, said that many of the detained workers had no criminal background.
Elenes said that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took some innocent people. The agents were looking for a particular person at a particular address. When they found that that person, no more lives in that area, they started questioning the person living at that address at present.
According to Elenes, the Trump administration is using divisive tactics and is not focusing on the valid solutions. He said that the farm workers detained were trying to do work and make their ends meet. The act has created fear among the agricultural community in the area.
According to ICE officials, 232 people were detained from different parts of the state during the operation to sweep individuals causing a threat to national security. 180 people among the arrested were either convicted criminals or illegal entrants to the U.S. 115 people arrested had felony convictions for offenses like child sex crimes, assault, and weapons charges or had convictions for different misdemeanors.