Oxnard is still reeling from the Glass House immigration raids, deportations

OXNARD – A father who has become the sole carer of his two young children after his wife was fired. The school district is seeing absenteeism similar to what it experienced during the violence. Businesses are struggling because customers are afraid to go outside.

These are just a few examples of how this part of Ventura County is dealing with the aftermath of the Glass House marijuana farm raids six months ago, where hundreds of workers were arrested and families were torn apart. In some cases, there is still uncertainty about what happens to children left behind after one or both parents are deported. Now, while Latino families gather for the holidays, businesses and restaurants are largely quiet as concerns about more raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue.

“There is a lot of fear that the community is alive,” said Alicia Flores, executive director of La Hermandad Hank Lacayo Youth and Family Center. At this time of year, customers often ask him about his holiday plans, but now no one is asking him. Families are separated by the US border or have loved ones in immigration detention. “They were ready for Christmas, making tamales, making pozole, making something and celebrating with the family. And now, there’s nothing.”

At the time, the immigrant raids on the Glass House farms in Camarillo and Carpinteria were some of the largest of their kind in the country, leading to scenes of chaos, confusion and violence. At least 361 undocumented immigrants have been arrested, many of them Glass House contractors. One of those contractors, Jaime Alanis Garcia, died after falling from the roof of a greenhouse during a raid on July 10.

The raids sparked mass protests on the Central Coast and silenced the atmosphere in Oxnard, a tight-knit community where many families work in the suburbs and live in multi-generational homes that are more modest than many on the Ventura coast. It has also reignited fears about how farmworker communities — often among the lowest-income and most vulnerable segments of the workforce — will be targeted during the Trump administration’s deportation campaign.

In California, undocumented workers represent about 60% of agricultural workers, and many of them live in mixed housing situations or in homes where there are no residents, said Ana Padilla, executive director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center. After the Glass House attack, Padilla and UC Merced professor Edward Flores identified an economic trend similar to the Great Recession, when jobs in the private sector declined. Although undocumented workers contribute to state and federal taxes, they are not eligible for unemployment benefits that can lessen the impact of losing a job after a family member is incarcerated.

“These are the households that have been more affected by the economic consequences than any other group,” Padilla said. He added that California should consider distributing “recovery money” to workers and families who lost money due to immigration enforcement.

The owner of an Oxnard store that sells quinceañera and christening dresses — and who asked that his name not be used — says he has lost 60% of his business since immigrants raided this year’s Glass House farms.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Local businesses are also feeling the effects. Silvia Lopez, who has owned Divine Hair Design in downtown Oxnard for 16 years, said she lost about 75 percent of her business after the July attack. He said the salon usually sees 40 customers a day, but the day after the raid, it had only two customers – and four stunned stylists. She said some salon owners have already had to close, and she has reduced her hours to help her remaining stylists make enough each month.

“Everything changed for everyone,” she said.

In another part of the city, the owner of a shop selling quinceañera and christening gowns said his sales had dropped 60% every month since August, and customers were putting off purchases. The owner of the auto shop, who declined to be identified because he was afraid of paying back the government, said he supports President Trump because of his campaign promise to help small businessmen like him. But federal loans have been hard to come by, he said, and he feels betrayed by the president’s deportation campaign targeting communities like Oxnard.

“There is a lot of fear that the community is alive,” said Alicia Flores, executive director of La Hermandad Hank Lacayo Youth and Family Center in the city of Oxnard, on December 19, 2025.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“The Glass House had a huge impact,” he said. “It makes people realize, ‘Oh s—, they hit us hard.’ ”

The impact of these raids has raised concerns about the welfare of the children living in the affected homes. Immigration enforcement actions can have devastating effects on young children, according to the American Immigration Council, and they can be at risk of experiencing severe psychological distress.

Olivia Lopez, a community organizer at the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, highlighted the plight of single fathers. He became the sole carer of his infant and four-year-old son after his wife was deported, and he could not afford childcare. He is considering sending the children across the border to his wife in Mexico, who misses her children.

In one case, Lopez said, an 18-year-old was thrown into the care of her two siblings after her mother, a single parent, was deported.

Additionally, he said he has heard of stories of children left behind, including a 16-year-old who did not want to leave the US and reunite with his mother who was deported after the Glass House attack. He said he suspected that at least 50 families – and up to 100 children – had lost both or one parent in the raid.

“I have questions after hearing all these stories: Where are the children, in cases where two parents, those who were responsible for the children, are deported? Where are those children?” he said. “How did we get to this point?”

Robin Godfrey, public information officer at the Ventura County Human Services Agency, which oversees the welfare of children in the county, said he could not answer specific questions about whether the agency knows about children left behind after their parents are arrested.

“Federal and state laws prevent us from confirming or denying if children from Glass House Farms families enter the child welfare system,” he said in a statement.

The raid was at the height of the Oxnard School District, which was closed for summer vacation but reopened on July 10 to contact families and ensure their well-being, Supt. Ana DeGenna said. His staff called all 13,000 families in the district to ask if they needed resources and if they wanted access to virtual classrooms for the upcoming school year.

Even before the July 10 attack, DeGenna and his staff were preparing. In January, after Trump’s inauguration, the district moved to install doorbells on all school grounds in case immigrants tried to enter. Refer families to organizations that will help them write affidavits so that their US-born children have legal guardians, in case the parents are deported. They asked parents to send not just one or two, but up to 10 emergency contacts in case they don’t show up to pick up their children.

Rodrigo is considering returning to Mexico after living in the US for 42 years.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

With a district that is 92% Latino, he said, almost everyone is nervous, whether they are directly or indirectly affected, regardless of nationality. Some families expel themselves, leave the country, and children change homes to continue studying. Almost every morning, as the raid continues in the county, he calls about sightings of ICE vehicles near schools. If that happens, he said, he knows attendance will drop to the level of COVID-19 in those surrounding schools, with parents afraid to send their children back to class.

But unlike this pandemic, there is no relief in knowing they have experienced the worst, like the Glass House attack, which saw hundreds of families affected in just one day, he said. The need for mental health counselors and support has only grown.

“We have to be there to protect them and take care of them, but we have to admit that it is the reality they live in,” she said. “We will not stop learning, we will not be able to stop education, because we also know that it is the most important thing that will help them in the future to avoid being abused in any way.”

Jasmine Cruz, 21, launched a GoFundMe page after her father was taken during the Glass House raid. He remains incarcerated in Arizona, and the family hired an immigration attorney in hopes of his release.

Each month, he said, it becomes difficult to pay their rent and utility bills. She was able to raise about $2,700 through GoFundMe, which didn’t fully cover a month’s rent. His mother is considering bringing the family back to Mexico if his father is deported, Cruz said.

“I tried to tell my mother that we should stay here,” she said. “But he said it was beyond our control without our father.”

Many families that were broken up by the Glass House raid had no plans, said Lopez, who is a community organizer, some families did not agree because they believed that they would not be affected. But after the raid, he received calls from several families who wanted to know if they could get family affidavit forms. One lawyer, he said, spent 10 hours working with families for free, including some former Glass House workers who fled the raids.

“The way I always explain, look, everything that this government agency does, you can’t control it,” he said. “But what you can control is to have peace of mind knowing that you have done something to protect your children and you have not left them unprotected.”

For many undocumented immigrants, the choices are few.

Rodrigo, illegal and worried about ICE reprisals, makes a living from his guitar, which he has been playing since he was 17.

When he took a break outside an Oxnard restaurant, he looked tired, wiping his forehead after entertaining two people, a couple and a group at a Mexican restaurant. He has been in the US for 42 years, but since the summer time, business has been slow. Now, people no longer want to rent house parties.

The 77-year-old man said he wants to retire but must continue working. But he is afraid of being randomly selected, according to how abusive the agents have been. He thinks about the new year, and returns to Mexico of his own accord.

“Before they take away my guitar,” he said, “I better go.”