A year to the day after federal agents swept two Central Coast cannabis farms, hundreds of people marched in Carpinteria on Saturday, walking from the state beach to Glass House Farms to mark the anniversary and to argue that the immigration crackdown they protested has never really ended.
The raid that shook the region
On July 10, 2025, immigration agents descended on licensed cannabis operations, including Glass House Farms in Carpinteria and a facility in Ventura County, detaining more than 300 people in a single day, one of the larger workplace immigration actions the region has seen. The operation left families scrambling to locate relatives and cast a lasting chill over farm communities that depend heavily on immigrant labor.
It also turned deadly. Jaime Alanís García, a farmworker, died from injuries sustained during the raid, a death that organizers invoked repeatedly on Saturday as they retraced the ground where it happened.
'Ongoing detentions'
Organizers say the enforcement did not stop when the raid ended. The march, led by grassroots groups including VC Defensa and Carpinteria Sin Fronteras, was framed around detentions they describe as continuing across the Central Coast in the year since.
Speakers pointed to cases that have become local touchstones. George Retes, a U.S. citizen and military veteran working as a security guard, was detained and held without being charged before his release, an episode participants cited as evidence that the enforcement had swept up people well beyond its stated targets. A local university lecturer was also among those who faced serious charges tied to the unrest around the raids.
Voices from the march
Community figures joined residents on the route. U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal spoke at the protest, and organizers including Bianca Perez of Carpinteria Sin Fronteras and Mitch Lillie of VC Defensa helped lead the day, alongside local nonprofit leaders such as Teresa Alvarez of the Carpinteria Children's Project. Their message centered on families they say are still living with fear a year on.
The other side
Federal immigration authorities have generally declined to discuss specific Central Coast operations, and the administration has defended stepped-up enforcement nationwide as a matter of upholding immigration law. That leaves the region where much of the country sits on the issue: a community that depends on immigrant labor, an enforcement apparatus pressing forward, and a year-old raid that, for the people who marched on Saturday, has never felt like the past.
