In a panel discussion moderated by Ambar Tovar, Immigration Legal Services Director at the United Farm Workers (UFW) Foundation, legal advocates, organizers, and volunteers shared how enforcement operations have affected local families.
Panelists described Kern County as a testing ground for operations like “Return to Sender,” in which Border Patrol agents targeted farmworkers and Latino residents based on appearance or occupation rather than concrete evidence. While a federal injunction now limits stops and arrests without warrants or reasonable suspicion, organizers emphasized that families still face uncertainty, economic strain, and fear, and are now relying on mutual aid networks, Know Your Rights workshops, and grassroots coordination to stay supported.
“Immigration is not an abstract policy debate,” Tovar said. “It is a lived reality shaping families, workplaces, and entire communities across the Central Valley.”
The panel brought together representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Jakara Movement, Valley Voices, and Kern Welcoming and Extending Solidarity to Immigrants (KWESI), each offering a different vantage point on the current immigration climate in Kern, Tulare, and Kings counties.
Mayra Joaquin, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, described the region’s climate as a combination of “fear, resilience, and unity.”
“There’s fear because we simply don’t know what they will do next,” Joaquin said, pointing to enforcement actions she characterized as unlawful and, at times, in defiance of court orders.
She said families live with the constant threat of separation. Scared of having their breadwinners detained, loved ones deported, and uncertainty about what comes next.
But she also emphasized the strength emerging from that pressure. Community members, she said, are attending Know Your Rights workshops, learning how to identify valid warrants and supporting one another with groceries, transportation, and accompaniment to appointments.
Jagmeet Singh of the Jakara Movement said fear extends beyond undocumented residents. He referenced a recent survey of nearly 5,000 registered voters across nine Central Valley counties, which found that immigration was the second most pressing concern, after economic instability.
“That tells you this is affecting the entire community,” Singh said. “It’s tearing the tapestry of our communities apart.”
In Kings County, Ivette Chaidez Villareal of Valley Voices said anti-immigrant sentiment has intensified over the past year, making families reluctant to seek even basic services like food distribution or medical care.
“They feel everything is transactional,” she said. “We have to treat people as whole human beings.”
Panelists repeatedly referenced a multi-day enforcement action in January 2025 known as “Operation Return to Sender,” which Joaquin described as a turning point.
According to the ACLU, Border Patrol agents traveled more than 200 miles into Kern County and conducted stops that advocates argue were based on racial profiling. They targeted people who appeared Latino, farm workers, or were in locations associated with immigrant communities.
During the operation, hundreds were stopped, and 78 people were arrested. About 40 were ultimately deported, Joaquin said, including individuals who alleged they were pressured into signing voluntary departure forms.
The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the stops and arrests. A federal court later issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Border Patrol from conducting stops without reasonable suspicion and from making arrests without a warrant or a documented flight-risk determination.
The injunction applies to Border Patrol operations in Kern County and throughout the Eastern District of California, stretching north to the Oregon border, but does not apply to ICE or other agencies.
Since the injunction was issued, the government is required to submit monthly reports and train agents on lawful stop and arrest standards. Joaquin said advocates are still awaiting a ruling on whether a separate enforcement action in Sacramento violated the court order.
At the same time, enforcement tactics are shifting. Joaquin said advocates have seen an increase in targeted home and workplace arrests and the use of warrants that may not always be legally valid.
She also pointed to SB 81, a recently signed state law requiring public health facilities to implement policies protecting patients from immigration enforcement, aimed at addressing fear that has deterred people from seeking medical care.
Singh described another legal fight involving the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and commercial driver’s licenses.
He said the DMV revoked licenses from drivers whose work authorizations had mismatched expiration dates after pressure from the federal government, a move affecting roughly 25,000 commercial drivers statewide.
For many immigrant families, commercial trucking is a pathway to six-figure incomes and economic stability.
“When that income is lost, that’s college tuition gone. That’s rent gone,” Singh said. “The damage has already been done.”
Though the lawsuit may bring a limited victory, he said, it represents one of the few legal levers available to push back.
Across the region, organizers say they are adapting.
Valley Voices has shifted to smaller, invitation-only workshops, texting known contacts rather than publicly posting event locations to protect attendees. Staff conduct media literacy trainings to combat misinformation and verify reported enforcement sightings through local hotlines.
Food distributions are scheduled outside normal business hours to accommodate agricultural workers. Organizers avoid working in silos, instead coordinating with other groups to ensure families can access legal services, housing assistance, and health care.
“Now is the time for agencies to meet people where they are,” Chaidez Villareal said.
Singh echoed that sentiment, pointing to mutual aid networks, faith institutions, and rapid response hotlines as critical lifelines.
“The most powerful thing we can do is look out for one another,” he said.
Jeannie Parent of KWESI offered some of the most sobering accounts from inside detention facilities.
She described visiting asylum seekers who had already won their cases but remained detained for months while navigating complex legal processes on their own. Others are transported across state lines, then released outside local ICE offices with no phone, no money, and no way home.
“Why are people being detained who have won their cases already?” she asked.
Parent said volunteers often scramble to provide transportation, hotel stays, and commissary funds through donations. In some cases, she said, ICE has called her directly when someone is being released.
The impact, she said, ripples outward when families are evicted after a breadwinner is detained, students fail classes, and spouses return to their home countries out of financial desperation.
“The only reason they’re in detention is because they were not born here,” she said.
Yet even inside detention, she said, she sees hope.
“The only hope I get sometimes is from the folks inside,” she said. “They have nothing, and yet they still have hope.”
As the panel concluded, Tovar reminded attendees that immigration enforcement in the Central Valley is not merely a policy debate but “a human story unfolding every single day” in Kern and neighboring counties.
