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ICE Fenced Out. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-30
Recently I wrote a story about ICE riding into the small town of Peterborough, New Hampshire to detain the chef at a local Mexican restaurant. Now, I am going to go clear across the country to Oxnard, California.
Oxnard is a largely blue collar coastal town between Santa Barbara and Malibu. Farming is the backbone of Oxnard as its development was significantly advanced by the introduction of sugar beets. Now its claim to fame is as the strawberry capital of the world and the neighboring City of Ventura hosts an annual strawberry festival. Ventura County, where Oxnard is located, has approximately 198,000 acres of irrigated cropland and employs approximately 41,600 farm workers. And, I suspect, a large number of these farm workers are undocumented.
Since Trump took office again, ICE has made its presence known throughout Ventura County farms. Since January, the Oxnard Police Department has received 51 notifications about ICE actions in the city as compared to all of 43 notifications in the entirety of 2024 and 20 in 2023. Immigration Arrests Surge in Ventura County.
That being said, Oxnard farms are well-educated about their rights. At an Oxnard strawberry packing facility, ICE agents requested entry at the gate to the property but were turned away when they could not present a warrant.
According to Ezequiel Ochoa, a gatekeeper at the site, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrived at the entrance but left shortly afterward when they were asked to present a warrant and failed to do so. “We know not to open the gate unless a valid warrant is presented,” Ochoa said.
Potential Ice Raid Thwarted.
Now, I was prompted to write this article today because as I was driving down Victoria Avenue (which runs between a number of large farms and the local airport), I noticed one farm installing a six foot high chain link fence topped with three rows of razor wire. Now, I know the farms are plagued by raccoons and opossums coming in from nearby wetlands on the other side of these farms but I can’t imagine these farms installing such fencing as an animal deterrent. No, I believe this fencing, which will permanently scar the bucolic farming landscape of Oxnard, has been put in place to give the farm workers peace of mind that ICE will be unable to easily reach them as they perform the backbreaking work of harvesting our food. So, yes, Trump is responsible for building a wall in Oxnard — a chain link fence to protect farm workers from ICE.
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