The farm worker who died from injuries he sustained after falling from a greenhouse roof during an Ice raid of a California cannabis farm was a “hard-working, innocent farmer” and the sole provider for his wife and daughter, his family says.
Jaime Alanís died a day after a frenzied immigration raid of Glass House Farms in Ventura county where authorities arrested at least 200 workers. The 57-year-old, who was from the town of Huajúmbaro in Michoacán, Mexico, is the first known person to die during the Trump administration’s enhanced immigration enforcement operations in southern California.
The federal government’s ramped up enforcement activities have brought chaos across southern California as Ice agents descend on parks, car washes and farms. The operations – and the mobilization of US military – have sparked widespread outrage and protests as authorities arrest a growing number of immigrants with no criminal history, despite the administration’s claims that its primary concern was “violent criminals”. US citizens have also been swept up in the raids.
The Department of Homeland Security said it executed criminal search warrants on Thursday in Camarillo and Carpinteria, California, at facilities of Glass House Farms, which grows cannabis, tomatoes and cucumbers. Agents arrested hundreds of people suspected in being in the country without legal statuses and identified at least 10 immigrant children.
During the raid Alanís called his family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell about 30ft (9 metres) from the roof, according to information from family, hospital and government sources. Family members said he suffered catastrophic injuries – including a broken neck, fractured skull and severed artery – during the “reckless” raid.
Alanís was never in Customs and Border Protection or Ice custody, Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement. “Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30 feet. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
Alanís had worked at Glass House for a decade and was “his family’s only provider”, according to a GoFundMe fundraiser by his niece, Yesenia Duran.
“My uncle Jaime was just a hard-working, innocent farmer. He has his wife and daughter waiting for him,” Duran wrote.
United Farm Workers pledged to assist the family.
“Our hearts are heavy for the grieving family of Jaime Alanís, who died from injuries sustained during a chaotic raid on Thursday,” the advocacy group said. “We’ll do everything we can to support them. We continue to work with hundreds of farm worker families navigating the aftermath of this violent raid.”
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