CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — Federal immigration authorities said Friday they arrested about 200 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally in raids a day earlier on two California cannabis farm sites. Protesters engaged in a tense standoff with authorities at one of the farms during the operation.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that authorities executed criminal search warrants in Carpinteria and Camarillo, California, on Thursday. They arrested immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally and there were also at least 10 immigrant children on site, the statement said.
Four U.S. citizens were arrested for “assaulting or resisting officers,” the department said. Authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of one person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents. At least one worker was hospitalized with grave injuries.
During the raid, crowds of people gathered outside Glass House Farms at the Camarillo location to demand information about their relatives and protest immigration enforcement. A chaotic scene emerged outside the farm that grows tomatoes, cucumbers and cannabis as authorities clad in helmets and uniforms faced off with the demonstrators. Acrid green and white billowing smoke then forced community members to retreat.
Glass House, a licensed California cannabis grower, said in a statement that immigration agents had valid warrants. The company said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” the statement said.
It’s legal to grow and sell cannabis in California with proper licensing. State records show the company has multiple active licenses to cultivate cannabis.
Worker hospitalized after fall
On Friday, about two dozen people waited outside the Camarillo farm to retrieve the cars of loved ones and speak to managers about what happened. Relatives of Jaime Alanis, who has worked picking tomatoes at the farm for 10 years, said he called his wife in Mexico during the raid to tell her immigration agents had arrived and that he was hiding with others inside the farm.
“The next thing we heard was that he was in the hospital,” Juan Duran, Alanis’ brother-in-law, said in Spanish, his voice breaking.
It was not immediately clear how Alanis was injured. A doctor told the family that others who brought Alanis to the hospital said he had fallen from the roof of a building.
Alanis had a broken neck, fractured skull and a