In the early days of President Trump's first term, several organizations in the core of County set up a hotline that people could turn to if they noticed ongoing measures to implement the immigration regulations.
The hotline rang again almost three weeks ago. In a panicked voice, callers reported that they had seen US border protection officers from Latinos in parking spaces and petrol stations-and people arrested in large numbers. In some cases, a beloved person was arrested, it said.
The Rapid Response Network from Kern implemented. Employees and volunteers of the organization were distributed across the entire Bakersfield area-to a building depot, a exchange exchange and other places where the border police had been sighted. When they confirmed the raids, they tried to document the crime scenes, including any violations of the law or the use of violence, as well as the names of the arrested persons and witness to question.
According to the border protection sector El Centro 78, immigrants without papers had been arrested by the end of the multi -day border protection.
Gregory K. Bovino, chief agent of the border police, who heads the El Centro sector in Imperial Valley along the border with Mexico, said in explanations on social media that agents had arrested two children's rapists and “other criminals”. He said that agents had also arrested people because they were illegally in the United States.
Proponents, meanwhile, said that the operation was randomly directed against Latin American agricultural workers and day laborers and that far more people had been arrested. They wondered why agents from El Centro – 300 miles south – carried out operations so far from the border.
Representatives of the American customs and border protection as well as the immigration and customs authority did not respond to inquiries about comments.
Although the fast reaction network is not designed to intervene in raids, its members played an important supporting role by giving the efforts and the detained advice, said Rosa Lopez, a high -ranking political advocate of the ACLU of South California is a partner in Kern County's network .
During the first Trump government, fast reaction networks were created throughout the state. The groups led by the municipality became the first line of defense for immigrants who threatened threats with raids and mass displays.
The premise was simple: people who see immigration or border officials in their community call a hotline or write them an SMS. A dispatcher notifies volunteers who respond to the reported address to confirm whether an active use is actually taking place. When checked, the dispatcher can send a legal observer to monitor the situation, as well as a lawyer who provides legal assistance.
During the peak of the pandemic and as an immigrant under the bidet government, fewer deportation threats were exposed to, many networks focused on providing people with information about vaccines and food aid.
But after Trump was chosen under the promise to carry out the greatest deportation campaign in American history in November, local organizations dust the quick reaction networks that they had built up eight years ago.
In the first few days of his new term, Trump issued a number of implementation regulations with which he blocked legal asylum paths and declared illegal immigration on the southern border as a national emergency. Public opinion could be on his side. A current survey The New York Times and Ipsos found that 55 % of Americans emphasize the deportation of all immigrants in the country.
In addition to the legal defense of immigrants who are detained by the authorities, the networks also have preventive tasks. You inform the parishioners about it Your rights To ask for a search order when ICE appears in front of your door and no questions. They ask people to document the encounter and report the incident. They also ensure that families have an emergency plan.
They use text messages and social media to warn people of confirmed operations, and even more frequently to contain rumors that can cause people to stay away from work and keep their children away from school.
“Our primary goal is to build power, not panic,” said Lisa Knox, co-managing director and legal director of the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, which supports fast reaction networks across the state. “One of the biggest roles that these community networks can play is to spread precise information and to eliminate misinformation.”
Even before Trump was introduced to office this week, the quick reaction networks ran at full speed when the raids in the Bakersfield area triggered a wave of fear in the Central Valley, where a predominantly immigrant worker helps with the harvest of a quarter of the food grown in the USA
At least half According to estimates by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Agriculture, the 162,000 agricultural workers of the state are without papers Research carried out by UC Merced. Many of these employees have children or spouses who were born here.
In the weeks after the raid in Bakersfield, the Rapid Response Network from Kern helped to distribute food to more than 200 families who were afraid of leaving their houses, and organizing trips for people who were afraid of it themselves Drive car to work. Network partners check emergency aid for rent for families who have suffered income losses according to the raids.
“There is great panic,” said Blanca Ojeda, organizer of Faith in the Valley, who heads the Valley Watch Network, a quick reaction network that looks after municipalities from the districts of Kern to San Joaquin. “The activity in the core … simply sharpened the senses of everyone and made it a little more suspicious towards everyone.”
According to the domestic coalition for immigrant Justice, the domestic Empire Rapid Response Network, which had not received a call for eight months, has received almost 140 calls and text messages in the weeks since the operation in Bakersfield, which is aware of possible measures to implement the immigration regulations made.
Volunteers of the network responded to more than 70 reports in the Riverside and San Bernardino districts. The group publishes updates on Instagram, which have so far mainly served to dispel rumors about sightings of immigration officials. At least two of them were confirmed on social media by Friday afternoon.
Javier Hernandez, the managing director of the coalition, said it is not an easy task to react to reports on raids in a region with an area of more than 27,000 square miles. In order to do justice to this demand, the network of domestic Empire strives to have dispatcher daily from 4 a.m. to midnight, which speak English and Spanish, and is to train 300 emergency services.
The Valley Watch Network faces a similar challenge. It has trained more than 90 people since the end of last year and tried to recruit more legal observers to react to possible enforcement measures in the widely scattered farmers' communities of the San Joaquin Valley.
“We just want to be able to mobilize as soon as possible,” said Ojeda, “because ICE is able to leave this place, and then we have no evidence of what happened.”
This article is part of the Times Initiative for equity reporting,, Funded by the James Irvine FoundationThe challenges with which employees are confronted with low incomes are examined and the efforts that are made to cope California's economic gap.