Oxnard still reeling from Glass House immigration raids, deportations

OXNARD — A father who became the sole caregiver for his two young children after his wife was deported. A school district facing absenteeism similar to that experienced during the pandemic. Businesses are in a difficult situation because customers are afraid to go out.

These are just one example of how this part of Ventura County is facing the situation six months ago when federal raids on marijuana farms in Glass House detained hundreds of workers and ripped families apart. In some cases, there is still uncertainty about what happens to minors left behind after one or both parents are deported. Now, as Latino families gather for the holidays, businesses and restaurants are largely quiet as concerns remain about continued Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

“There’s a lot of fear that the community is going through,” said Alicia Flores, executive director of La Hermandad Hank Lacayo Center for Youth and Family. This time of year, customers often ask her about her vacation plans, but no one does anymore. Families are divided by the U.S. border or have loved ones in immigration detention. “They were ready for Christmas, to make tamales, to make bozole, to make something and celebrate with the family. Now there’s nothing.”

At the time, the immigration raids on Glass House Farms in Camarillo and Carpinteria were among the largest of their kind nationwide, leading to chaotic scenes, confusion and violence. At least 361 undocumented immigrants were detained many of them are third-party contractors of the Glass House. One of these contractors, Jaime Alanis Garcia, died after falling from the roof of the greenhouse during the July 10 raid.

The raids sparked mass protests along the Central Coast and sent a chill through Oxnard, a close-knit community where many families work the surrounding fields and live in multigenerational homes much more modest than many on the Ventura coast. It has also reignited fears about how farmworker communities, often among the lowest-paid and vulnerable segments of the labor pool, will be targeted during the Trump administration’s intense deportation campaign.

In California, undocumented workers represent about 60% of the agricultural workforce, and most of them live in households with mixed immigration status or in households where neither is a citizen, said Ana Padilla, executive director of the UC Merced Center for Community and Labor. Following the Glass House raid, Padilla and UC Merced associate professor Edward Flores identified economic trends similar to the Great Recession, in which private sector jobs plummeted. Although undocumented workers contribute to state and federal taxes, they are not eligible for unemployment benefits that could cushion the blow of job loss following the detention of a family member.

“These are households that are hit harder by economic consequences than any other group,” Padilla said. He added that California should consider distributing “replacement funds” for workers and families who lose income due to immigration enforcement activities.

An Oxnard store owner who sells quinceañera and christening dresses and asked that her name not be used says she has lost 60% of her business since immigrant raids on Glass House farms this year.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Local businesses are feeling the effects, too. Silvia Lopez, who has run Divine Hair Design in downtown Oxnard for 16 years, said she lost 75% of her business after the July raid. She said the salon usually sees 40 clients a day, but the day after the raid she had only two clients and four stylists were stunned. She said other salon owners have already been forced to close and have cut back their own hours to help the remaining stylists make enough income each month.

“Everything has changed for everyone,” he said.

In another part of town, a store owner selling quinceañera and christening dresses said his sales had fallen by 60 percent every month since August and customers were delaying shopping. An auto shop owner, who asked not to be named because he fears government retaliation, said he supports President Trump because of his campaign promise to help small business owners like himself. But federal loans are hard to come by, he said, and he feels betrayed by the president’s deportation campaign targeting communities like Oxnard.

“There’s a lot of fear that the community is going through,” Alicia Flores, executive director of La Hermandad Hank Lacayo Youth and Family Center in downtown Oxnard, said Dec. 19, 2025.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“Glass House had a huge impact,” he said. “It made people realize: ‘Oh, they’re hitting us so hard.’ ”

The domino effect of the crackdown has raised concerns about the welfare of children in affected households. Immigration enforcement can have harmful effects on young children. According to the American Immigration Counciland they may be at risk of experiencing serious psychological distress.

Olivia Lopez, community organizer for Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, highlighted one father’s plight. After her husband was deported, she became the sole caregiver for her baby and 4-year-old son and cannot afford child care. He is considering sending his children across the border to his wife in Mexico, who misses his children.

In a separate case, an 18-year-old suddenly had to care for two siblings after his single-parent mother was deported, Lopez said.

He said he also heard stories of children left behind, including a 16-year-old boy who did not want to leave the United States and be reunited with his mother, who was deported after the Glass House raid. He said he suspected at least 50 families and as many as 100 children lost their parents or only parents in the raid.

“After listening to all these stories, these questions come to my mind: Where are the children in cases where the two parents responsible for the children are deported? Where are those children?” he said. “How did we get to this point?”

Robin Godfrey, public information officer for the Ventura County Department of Human Services, which is responsible for overseeing child welfare in the county, said she could not answer specific questions about whether the agency was aware of minors left behind after their parents were taken into custody.

“Federal and state laws prevent us from confirming or denying whether children from Glass House Farms families have entered the child welfare system,” he said in a statement.

Supt. Ana DeGenna said. Her staff called 13,000 families in the district to ask if they needed resources and wanted access to virtual classrooms for the upcoming school year.

Even before the July 10 raid, DeGenna and her team were preparing. After Trump took office in January, the district stepped up installing doorbells in every school building in case immigration officials tried to enter. They referred families to organizations that would help parents prepare affidavits so their U.S.-born children could have legal guardians if they were deported. They asked parents to send not just one or two people, but up to 10 emergency contacts in case they don’t show up to pick up their child.

Rodrigo is considering moving back to Mexico after living in the United States for 42 years.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

In a region that is 92 percent Latino, nearly everyone is afraid, whether directly or indirectly affected, whether they have citizenship or not, he said. While some families left the country voluntarily, children also moved homes to attend school. Almost every morning, while the raids continue in the region, he receives calls about seeing IYM vehicles near schools. He said he knew that once that happened, attendance at surrounding schools would drop to near COVID-19 levels as parents feared sending their children back to the classroom.

But unlike the pandemic, he said there was no relief in knowing they had been through the worst, such as the Glass House raid, which affected hundreds of families in just one day. The need for mental health counselors and support has only increased.

“We have to be there to protect them and take care of them, but we also have to recognize that this is a reality that they live,” he said. “We can’t stop learning, we can’t stop education, because we know that’s the most important thing that’s going to help them avoid potentially being victimized in any way in the future.”

Jasmine Cruz, 21, started GoFundMe The page after his father was kidnapped during the Glass House raid. He remains in custody in Arizona, and the family has retained an immigration attorney in hopes of his release.

He said it was getting harder to pay rent and utility bills every month. He managed to raise about $2,700 through GoFundMe, which didn’t cover a full month’s rent. Cruz said his mother is considering moving the family back to Mexico if his father is deported.

“I tried to tell my mother that we should stay here,” he said. “But he said it was too much for us without our father.”

Lopez, the community organizer, said that most of the families torn apart by the Glass House raid did not have a plan, while some families resisted because they believed they would not be affected. But after the raid, he received calls from several families wanting to know if they could have their family declaration forms notarized. He said a notary worked 10 hours without pay with families, including some former Glass House employees who fled the raid.

“I always explain: Look, you can’t control everything that is done by this government agency,” he said. “But what you can control is peace of mind knowing that you are doing something to protect your children and not leaving them unprotected.”

For many undocumented immigrants, options are few.

Rodrigo, who is undocumented and worried about ICE reprisals, makes his living with his guitar, which he has been playing since he was 17.

Taking a break outside a restaurant in downtown Oxnard, he looked tired, wiping his forehead after serenading a couple, a couple and a group at a Mexican restaurant. He’s been in the US for 42 years, but business has slowed down since the summer raid. People don’t want to hire people for house parties anymore.

The 77-year-old said he wants to retire but must continue working. However, he is afraid of being caught randomly due to the behavior of malicious agents. He thinks about the new year and returns to Mexico of his own accord.

“I better go before I get my guitar,” he said.