As immigrant roundup fears swirl, local orgs are working to empower the undocumented
| Immigrants here in the wine country have been on edge ever since Donald Trump was elected president in November, given his campaign promises to deport everyone in the U.S. who hasn’t been able to obtain legal residency status. But it wasn’t until a surprise federal immigration raid down in Bakersfield on Jan. 7 — one day after the election results were certified, but two weeks before Trump’s actual inauguration — that the panic wheel really started spinning. CalMatters reported that Border Patrol officers took local farmworkers by surprise that day, showing up to businesses where they’re known to hang out. “They were stopping cars at random, asking people for papers,” a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers labor union told the news outlet. “They were going to gas stations and Home Depot where day laborers gather. It’s provoking intense anxiety and a lot of fear in the community.” More from the story: On social media, Gregory K. Bovino, the Border Patrol chief in El Centro, called the sweeps “Operation Return to Sender.” “We are taking it to the bad people and bad things in Bakersfield,” the El Centro Border Patrol said in response to a comment on its Facebook page. “We are planning operations for other locals [sic] such as Fresno and especially Sacramento.” In the end, at least 78 people were arrested during the three-day Kern County raid, according to the Border Patrol division responsible for the raid. And while that immigrant roundup was real, it has set off a chain of false rumors about additional roundups across the state — including here in the North Bay. According to multiple local organizations tracking this panicked phone tree, there have since been false reports of immigration raids at the Home Depot locations in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park, as well as the Foodmaxx in Santa Rosa’s Roseland neighborhood and Manzanita Elementary on the east side of town. More from the PD: Vikki DuRee, lead dispatcher at the 24-hour hotline run by the North Bay Rapid Response Network, said she’s been extremely busy over the past two weeks taking calls from worried residents. “I haven’t kept a tally today, but we’re getting about 25 calls a day right now, mostly people who are worried about rumors that they’re seeing on social media and anecdotally in the community,” DuRee said Thursday afternoon. For one person, all it took was a Trump sticker on a black Escalade to spark fear that immigration officers were on the road, she said. “People who call with a rumor, they’re frightened that either they or people they care about are at risk,” she said. This rapid response network mentioned by the PD is an arm of the North Bay Organizing Project, a Santa Rosa-based organization that has come to the forefront since Trump’s election. Org leaders have been posting all sorts of information for immigrants — as well as tips to avoid spreading fake news of raids — to their Facebook and Instagram pages. They’re also encouraging people who think they notice signs of la migra to reach out to their hotline first (at 707-800-4544), so they can verify the info before blasting it wide. “Together we can transform our fear and anxiety into power and action!” they say. If you want to volunteer to join the North Bay Rapid Response Network and help with this work, you can apply online. Here in Healdsburg, another well-known local nonprofit called Corazón Healdsburg is leading the charge on arming immigrants with critical info. Org leaders told me recently that me they’ve been handling raid rumors on an almost daily basis. So on Jan. 16, “our dedicated staff and volunteers… knocked on 712 doors in Windsor, Healdsburg, Geyserville and Cloverdale,” the org said on social media. Door-knockers were handing outlittle red and yellow cards with simple instructions about what to do if you encounter immigration officials. “Knowledge is power,” Corazón says. “Our goal is not to spread fear, but to empower our community. By staying informed and united, we can create a network of support and resilience.” |
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| The red and yellow cards that Corazón Healdsburg staffers have been passing out around town. (Photos: Corazón Healdsburg via Instagram) |
| Still, the thought of what actual local immigration raids would mean for community and industry here in the North Bay are haunting us all right now — some more than others, of course. School officials are worried that the children of immigrants will stop coming to class, especially now that Trump has reportedly “put an end to a longstanding policy that restricted federal agents from making immigration arrests at sensitive locations like churches, hospitals and schools.” And much like in Kern County, where farm owners said immigrants didn’t show up to work after last month’s raid, wine-industry bosses in our area — who are already fighting an uphill battle against the sober movement, and dealing with labor shortages as it is — say they’re not sure their businesses would survive if something similar happened here. A recent headline in the Daily Mail reads: “Upscale Napa Valley wineries fear Trump’s migrant raids could finish them.” Other local food and hospitality businesses — and consumer prices — would feel the burn too, naturally. (Rolando Herrera, who owns Mi Sueño Winery in St. Helena with his wife Lorena, tells the PD: “If this administration really wants to ‘make America great again,’ they should put a program together that registers these important workers and gives them a temporary work permit. That’s what they really want.”) A long list of local government agencies and police departments across Sonoma and Napa counties have vowed they won’t enforce Trump’s calls for mass deportation. Still, many activists have been urging police and politicians to go even further by explicitly cutting off all ties with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and declaring Sonoma County an official “sanctuary county” for undocumented immigrants. And although county leaders have issued some strong statements of their own in support of immigrants, they’ve stopped short of using the word “sanctuary,” the Press Democrat reports — partly because that might put “a target on Sonoma County, doing more harm than good.” And as the San Francisco Chronicle points out, none of these declarations are enough to “stop federal bodies like the U.S. Border Patrol from conducting raids.” In the meantime, looks like we’ll have to rely on local networks of concerned civilians to keep each other safe. In the words of Corazón Healdsburg: “Help us build trust in our community, spread knowledge and empower families.” You can follow them and the North Bay Rapid Response Network on Facebook for ways to get involved. |