Immigration raid at cannabis farm in Ventura County sparks chaotic protest

The crowd outside Glass House Farms in Camarillo in the wake of Thursday's chaotic immigration sweep was a strange mix. There were vocal protesters hurling insults and sometimes water bottles at federal agents, and there were anxious friends and family of those who work at Glass House, a huge cannabis operation. Then there were curious bystanders like Mike Elliott, a Camarillo resident who voted for President Trump and stopped to see what was happening, saying he wanted to bear witness. Also on hand was Oxnard native Christina Muñoz, who said she brought her 2-year-old son, 5-month old daughter and her mom in hopes of getting a glimpse of her husband, a member of the National Guard whom she hadn't seen in 30 days. Federal agents raided two Glass House Farms sites on Thursday, said Maria Navarro, an Oxnard policy advocate for the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE). The organization was alerted at 10:20 a.m. that sweeps were happening at both California locations of the company, in Carpinteria and Camarillo. She hurried to the Camarillo site, where she came upon a tense scene, with protesters gathering and family members of workers trying to pick up their loved ones. But federal agents had already closed off access to the worksite. More and more people arrived, and Navarro said activists were trying to prevent trucks full of detainees from leaving. At the east entrance to the Camarillo facility, amid lush fields of blooming bush beans, the action started about 10 a.m. when federal agents entered the facility. Protesters and worried family began arriving soon afterward, and by 2:30 p.m., a line of about 30 agents, including National Guard members, was barricading nearby Laguna Road. The growing crowd was kept at least a quarter of a mile away from the facility. Protesters said that some people among the crowd had been detained. Jonathan Caravello, a philosophy professor at Cal State Channel Islands, was arrested, according to activist Angelmarie Taylor, who said she was one of his students and had accompanied him to the protest. Taylor claimed Caravello was arrested as he tried to help a man in a wheelchair when agents were pushing the crowd to move back. She said he and another individual "were piled on by multiple agents all at once" before being taken behind a line of agents to where several vehicles stood, "and we have no idea now where they are." As the sweep was underway, 24-year-old Cesar Ortiz spoke to a Times photographer outside Glass House Farms. He said he had a brother inside the facility who had only begun working there a week ago. "They are taking everyone and the truth is it's not right because these people come to work, struggle every day, to earn for bread every day. "There are no narcos here," he said, "no one is armed here and they come fully armed, full of military personnel." Ortiz said he had been in communication with his brother, who he feared would be deported. He said authorities had his brother in a container. People "are [choking] in there with the air, without air-conditioned air." He also had a message for Trump: "We all have a right to come here and work. Here, we all have a dream, we have to give it our all." Marc Cohodes, an investor and famed short-seller who has invested in Glass House, called the raid “beyond outrageous.” He added that Glass House is “the largest cannabis cultivator in the world” and “a highly regulated business fully licensed by the state of California. It’s run by a guy named Kyle Kazan, who is an ex-cop who plays by the rules and does things by the book.” Kazan, he added, is also a supporter of Trump. Glass House Farms posted a statement on X on Thursday saying that the company had been "visited today by ICE officials” and “fully complied with agent search warrants.” The statement said nothing else, except to add that the company would “provide further updates if necessary.” Ambulances were seen going in and out of the Camarillo facility, and Cohodes said as many as 14 people were injured in the action and taken to hospitals. As the protest heated up, some members of the crowd shouted obscenities at agents. When gas canisters were fired, a few hurled water bottles before running away from the fumes. One woman on a megaphone pleaded with the officers to leave their posts and join the protesters so they could be on the right side of history. But off to the side, Ricardo Mojica, a tall, silver-haired grandfather, quietly tried to talk to agents to find out what was happening with his son, who worked inside. Mojica said his 31-year-old son "has no criminal records, he has never been arrested and was born just six miles from here at St. John's Hospital. He's the father of my granddaughter, and I haven't heard anything from him since this morning." Mojica pointed to one of the Border Patrol guards and said, 'He told me my son was being detained, but then his partner told him not to talk to me. I just want to know why he's being held." Around 4:30 p.m. Oxnard native Christina Muñoz held her 2-year-old son on her hip as she strained to catch a glimpse of her husband, Christopher, a National Guardsman who she heard had been deployed that day from Los Angeles to the factory raid. Her mother stood nearby holding Christina's infant daughter. "I haven't seen him for 30 days," Muñoz said, "and I was hoping I could see him here." She and her children have been staying with her family in Oxnard since her husband was deployed. "We thought it would be for just a few days," she said, "but we didn't see him for Father's Day or the Fourth of July. We had no idea it would last this long." "He's needed at home," Muñoz's mother said, as she bounced the baby in her arms. "His family needs him." Off to the side of the protesters, David Elliott stood watching the scene with a beer in one hand and a small six-pack cooler in the other. "I'm out of beer," he joked. The Camarillo resident said he had been heading for the beach, "but I got caught up in all the traffic and I thought, 'You know what? I'm going to hang out here and see what happens.'" Elliott said he supports law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and he voted for Donald Trump to be president, but he doesn't like what's happening now with the immigration sweeps. "I voted for Trump because he said he was going to go after the bad guys, and I know they're there, but I don't like what they're doing now .... going after people at Home Depot or farmworkers in the fields. "These are hardworking people — my gardener and his crew started working for my parents 20 years ago and now they work for me, and they're illegal; they're not bad people, they're like family, and a lot of us depend on the work they do. "I voted for Trump to clean out the bad guys first and then start working on a system to get the farmworkers and gardeners, but there's got to be a better way. There should be a way to integrate them into our system because they work harder than anyone I know." Freelance photographer Julie Leopo contributed to this report.