World
‘Fields were solitary’: Migration raids send chill across rural California
Los Angeles, California — Recent raids carried out by the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in a rural California county have struck fear into immigrant communities as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.
CBP says that the operation in Kern County, which took place over three days in early January, resulted in the detention of 78 people. The United Farm Workers (UFW) union says it believes the number is closer to 200.
“The fields were almost solitary the day after the raids,” a 38-year-old undocumented farmworker named Alejanda, who declined to give her last name, said of the aftermath.
She explained that many workers stayed home out of fear. “This time of year, the orchards are usually full of people, but it felt like I was by myself when I returned to work.”
The raids are being seen by local labourers and organisations like UFW as a shot across the bow from immigration enforcement agencies before Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
His second term as president is expected to ring in a new era of enhanced restrictions and deportation efforts.
While the number of people arrested represents a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers underpinning California’s agricultural sector, the anxieties caused by such raids extend far beyond those detained.
“On Wednesday [the day after the raids], I stayed home from work. I barely left my house,” said Alejanda, adding that she kept her five-year-old son home from daycare rather than risk driving to drop him off.
“Everyone is talking about what happened. Everyone is afraid, including me. I didn’t actually see any of the agents myself, but you still feel the tension.”
Emboldened agencies
Following a presidential campaign where he routinely depicted undocumented migrants as “criminals” and “animals”, Trump will likely try to fulfill his promise to carry out the “largest deportation programme” in the country’s history on his first day in office.
About 11 million people live in the United States without legal documentation, some of whom have worked in the country for decades, building families and communities.
The January arrests in Kern County appear to be the first large-scale Border Patrol raid in California since Trump’s victory in the November election, which set off speculation about the potential impact of mass deportations on immigrant communities and the economic sectors dependent on their labour.
About 50 percent of California’s agricultural workforce is made up of undocumented immigrants.
In California, undocumented status has been cited as a source of persistent anxiety for workers — as well as a means of leverage for employers, who often pay such labourers lower wages and grant them fewer protections in the fields.
But Alejanda says that workplace raids like the ones that took place in Kern County have not been common in the area.
“I have been here for five years and never experienced anything like this before,” she said, noting that workers were detained while leaving the fields to go home.
CBP said in a statement that the operation, named “Return to Sender”, had targeted undocumented people with criminal backgrounds and connections to criminal organisations.
#WeFeedYou pic.twitter.com/8e6GE9RRkK
— United Farm Workers (@UFWupdates) January 11, 2025
The raids were carried out by agents from the CBP El Centro Sector, located near the border between Mexico and southern California, more than five hours by car from the site of the raids.
“The El Centro Sector takes all border threats seriously,” Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino said in a press release. “Our area of responsibility stretches from the US/Mexico Border, north, as mission and threat dictate, all the way to the Oregon line.”
Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for UFW, said that the operation shows that agencies like CBP are likely to become more aggressive as Trump takes office.
He also disputed CBP’s characterisation of the raids as focused on people with criminal records, saying that the operation cast a wide net and profiled people who looked like farmworkers.
Two of those arrested were UFW members, whom the organisation described as fathers who had lived in the area for more than 15 years.
“By operating over 300 miles north of the Mexican border, and apparently conducting this untargeted sweep based on profiling on their own initiative and authority, Border Patrol has shown itself to be clearly emboldened by a national political climate of hostility towards hard-working immigrant communities,” De Loera-Brust told Al Jazeera.
“It’s certainly deeply concerning that this sort of operation could be the new normal under the incoming Trump administration.”
Published on
Ukraine struck a critically important military-industrial complex in Russia on Tuesday, just days before the Kremlin’s Victory Day parade on 9 May.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy published a video of launches of domestically-made Flamingo cruise missiles, which he said covered a distance of more than 1,500km to strike a facility in Cheboksary in the Russian Federation’s Chuvash Republic.
The facility in question is a Russian state institute that produces components for high-precision weapons used by Moscow to attack Ukraine.
“The struck military production facility manufactured relay protection systems, automation equipment, and low-voltage apparatus,” Zelenskyy wrote.
“Russia must end its war and move to real diplomacy. We have made our proposal.”
Zelenskyy announced on Monday that Ukraine is declaring a ceasefire beginning at midnight on Wednesday. The proposal came in response to Russia’s unilateral declaration of a ceasefire for its Victory Day parade.
“We believe that human life is far more valuable than any anniversary ‘celebration’,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Russia’s upcoming 9 May commemorations.
He warned that the timeframe of the proposed truce at midnight on the night of 5–6 May would be enough to test whether a genuine pause in fighting could be respected.
“We will act reciprocally starting from that moment,” Zelenskyy said.
“It is time for Russian leaders to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia’s defence ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill.”
Victory Day blackout
Russia has reportedly started cutting off mobile internet services to many users starting from Tuesday.
Russian banks, including the country’s largest, Sberbank, also cautioned that there could be issues with mobile internet and cash withdrawals.
This year the parade in Moscow will also be significantly scaled back, according to the Kremlin.
It would not feature military vehicles or cadets due to what the Kremlin described as “current operational situation”.
“All measures are being taken to minimise the danger,” Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said earlier as he referred to what Moscow called a “terrorist threat” from Ukraine.
The fact that the parade is scaled down is seen as an important indicator of the situation in Russia’s military and of personnel and equipment shortages.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank assessed that in April, Russian forces lost territory they occupied in Ukraine for the first time in over a year and a half.
The ISW said it has evidence that Moscow lost control of 116 square kilometres over the course of last month.
The think tank explained that the Russian rate of advance across the battlefield has been steadily declining since November 2025,” as continued Ukrainian ground counterattacks and mid-range strikes, the February block on Russia’s use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s throttling of Telegram have exacerbated existing problems within the Russian military.
A drone slammed into a high-rise apartment building a few miles from the Kremlin on Monday, a rare attack on Moscow that came as Ukraine has expanded its long-range strikes inside Russia.
The breach of air defenses in the Russian capital occurred five days before the annual Victory Day parade, a major event on Red Square marking the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Last week, Russia said that the parade would be significantly downsized, in an acknowledgment of the growing threat from Ukrainian drones.
In an effort to damage Russia’s oil-dependent economy, Ukraine has conducted several strikes in recent weeks on facilities deep inside Russian territory. Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine had attacked an important oil-exporting station on the Black Sea, and Ukraine said its forces had struck two ships in the Russian “shadow fleet” — vessels that surreptitiously transport oil in violation of sanctions — in another Black Sea port.
The drone strike on the Moscow apartment building took place in the early hours of Monday, the city’s mayor, Sergei S. Sobyanin, said in a statement. There were no casualties, he added. The Russian authorities did not directly attribute the attack to Ukraine, and Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the attack.
It was not clear whether the upscale apartment building, which soars 54 stories in a leafy, quiet neighborhood of low-rise buildings, was the intended target. The tower, the tallest in Moscow’s southwest, is about four miles from the city center, in an area named after Mosfilm, the Moscow film studio.
Videos and photos from the scene showed part of one floor in the tower gutted by the drone hit. The drone’s evasion of air defenses was an embarrassment for the Kremlin. In recent days, city officials had reported several interceptions of Ukrainian drones in the Moscow suburbs.
Last week, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called for a cease-fire on May 9, the day of the Victory Day parade. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine rejected the offer, saying his country would welcome a lasting cease-fire, not a day off for Russia to celebrate itself.
On Monday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that Mr. Putin had declared a cease-fire for May 8 and 9, and that it hoped Ukraine would follow suit. Mr. Zelensky followed up hours later by announcing a cease-fire of his own — for May 6.
“We believe that human life is far more valuable than any anniversary ‘celebration,’” he said, adding that “it is time for Russian leaders to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia’s Defense Ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill.”
Because of the threat of Ukrainian drones, Russia will hold the parade without heavy military equipment for the first time in nearly two decades. The Kremlin also canceled the participation of students from military secondary schools.
The Russian Defense Ministry statement said that if Ukraine attacked Moscow during the parade on Saturday, it would retaliate with a “massive” missile strike on the center of Kyiv.
Mr. Putin has portrayed Russia’s war in Ukraine as an extension of the Soviet Union’s struggle in World War II, falsely asserting that the government in Kyiv has been taken over by Nazis.
In the past, the Victory Day parade has been an important foreign policy event for Russia, attracting heads of state including President George W. Bush and Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader. This year, Robert Fico, the Russia-friendly prime minister of Slovakia, is expected to be the main foreign dignitary.
Mr. Zelensky made a vague reference to the drone attack during a speech in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, on Monday. He said that Russia’s decision to scale back the May 9 parade showed its weakness.
“They cannot afford military equipment,” Mr. Zelensky said, “and they fear drones may buzz over Red Square.”
Mr. Zelensky was in Armenia, a traditional ally of Russia, as it hosted a summit of leaders from a grouping known as the European Political Community. While Armenia is the site of a Russian military base, the country has been moving away from Moscow after the Kremlin did not come to its aid in a 2023 conflict with Azerbaijan.
Pro-war commentators in Russia have been seething over Armenia’s decision to welcome Mr. Zelensky and European leaders. Oleg Tsaryov, a former member of the Ukrainian Parliament who is now a pro-Kremlin blogger, asked in a post on the message service Telegram on Sunday what was stopping the 5,000 Russian troops in Armenia from arresting Mr. Zelensky on arrival.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
An explosion at a fireworks factory in a central Chinese province killed at least 21 people and injured 61 others, according to state media.
The blast happened at a fireworks plant in Liuyang, a city administered by Changsha in Hunan province, on Monday afternoon, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported.
The plant was operated by Liuyang Huasheng Fireworks Manufacturing and Display Co. in Liuyang, which is under the jurisdiction of Hunan’s capital, Changsha. Liuyang is home to a hub for fireworks manufacturing, state media China Daily reported.
MASSIVE FIRE DESTROYS UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA LABORATORY BUILDING: ‘TOTAL LOSS’
Fire crews work to put out a fire after an explosion at a fireworks plant in Liuyang, Hunan Province of China. (Yang Huafeng/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
Aerial footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed white smoke still billowing on Tuesday in parts of the area, with facilities collapsed or damaged and debris scattered around.
Nearly 500 firefighters, rescuers and medical personnel responded to the scene, according to the South China Morning Post. People in danger zones were evacuated because of what authorities described as high risks posed by two black powder warehouses at the site.
An explosion at a fireworks factory in Liuyang, Hunan Province of China, killed at least 21 people and injured 61 others. (Yang Huafeng/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for “all-out efforts” to save injured victims and to search for people who remain unaccounted for, Xinhua reported. He called on authorities to probe the cause and pursue serious accountability. Xi also ordered effective risk screening and hazard control in key industries and the strengthening of public safety management.
Xi often issues “important instructions” to local officials after deadly accidents and disasters, according to reports.
CREWS RESPOND TO MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS AT FIREWORKS FACILITY IN CALIFORNIA
Fire rescue forces carry out rescue operations after an explosion at a fireworks plant in Liuyang, Hunan Province of China. (Yang Huafeng/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Authorities launched an investigation into the cause of the blast, and unspecified “control measures” were taken against those in charge of the company.
In an effort to avoid additional accidents during the search for survivors, rescuers adopted measures such as spraying and humidification to eliminate potential hazards. Robots were also used to assist with the search and rescue operation.
-
Sports5 minutes agoWhy the Pistons at -3.5 is the play as the NBA Playoffs second round gets underway in Detroit
-
Technology11 minutes agoHumanless big rig completes first US freight run
-
Business17 minutes ago
Commentary: How many Cybertrucks has Tesla sold to the public? Fewer than you might think
-
Entertainment23 minutes agoThe full list of 2026 Tony Awards nominations
-
Lifestyle29 minutes agoKoreatown’s Wi Spa ups its game with a head spa, AI robot masseuse and more
-
Politics35 minutes ago‘Ceasefire is not over,’ Hegseth says as U.S. acts to reopen Strait of Hormuz
-
Sports47 minutes agoPrep talk: Verbum Dei set to honor football grads Kenechi Udeze, Hardy Nickerson
-
World59 minutes agoUkraine strikes Russian army facility 1,000km into Moscow’s territory
