One month after heavily armed masked agents entered the fields of Glass House Farms, one of the largest legal marijuana growing companies in Camarillo and Carpinteria, immigrant workers live in constant anguish.

"We're very scared. The field where we work is close to the immigration office, and they can come in and take us away. We saw ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) patrols passing by on their way to La Tomatera. They were accompanied by the Guardia, says a Oaxacan worker who asks not to be identified by his real name, and to be called Julio. .

Despite our fear, we didn’t stop working, he says.

On July 10, the largest raid in California in recent years took place, leading to the arrest of 360 workers and the death of Jaime Alaniz, a worker who fell from the roof of the Glass House Farms greenhouse in Camarillo while trying to escape immigration agents.

Many of the detained workers lived in Oxnard. They are indigenous to Oaxaca and Guerrero.

Four friends of mine were caught in La Tomatera in Camarillo, says Julio, who lives in Oxnard with his wife and four children.

The workers identify the Glass House ranch that was razed by immigration agents as La Tomatera, since in addition to legal marijuana, tomatoes are grown or were grown there.

Julio is 40 years old. He was born in San Martin Peras, near the mountains of Oaxaca. His first language is Mixtec.

He arrived in California almost 20 years ago. He and his wife work together in the strawberry plantation. They have four children, two girls and two boys. The oldest is 18 and the youngest is 12. The children were born in this country.

Fear of being arrested in a raid keeps Julio in constant communication with the organization MICOP (Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project).

We spoke to Jorge (MICOP's organizer manager), and he helped us understand what was happening. That's the only way we have to protect ourselves and find out where the Immigration is, says Julio.

But he and his wife have also started talking about who would take care of their children if they were detained.

There's a woman who looks after my children. I always tell her that if anything happens to us, she should take care of them. I'm not afraid to return to Oaxaca. I worry about my children. The school is very far away. You have to walk an hour and it rains every day. It rains a lot. Lightning strikes and something could happen.

Jorge says his wife lives in panic.

"She says that one day it's going to happen to us like it happens to the others who are arrested. It's very sad. All this makes me very sad," says Julio.

A shared fear

Felix Vazquez Lopez is a 42-year-old Mixtec worker, father of four children aged 18, 17, 16 and 15, born in California.

At the beginning of the current administration, she admits that she thought Trump would be a better president and that he would even grant farmworkers a work permit.

Things got ugly. We walk around scared all the time. We don't know who's waiting for us at the door. In the morning when we leave, it's dark. We don't know where they're going to come from. We don't know if a bounty hunter will cross our paths or how to identify him, she says.

If we go to the stores to buy food, we come back and don't go out.

Felix, who emigrated from San Miguel de las Peras, Oaxaca, says that to protect themselves from immigration, he and his wife talk about how it would be good if they worked on different ranches.

"We work on the same strawberry ranch. We go to and from work together in the same car. If they catch us, they'll take us both, and then who's going to stay with the children? he says.

And he adds that since driver's licenses were authorized for undocumented workers in California, the raiteros, the people who made a living taking workers to and from the fields, have been eliminated.

Now with driver's licenses, everyone takes a car, and no one wants to give a ride.

Jorge Toledano, manager of community organizers from the Mixteco/Indigenous Community Organizing Project (MICOP), says that with President Trump, you never know because it all depends on how he wakes up.

One day he might say one thing, another day he might ask that 'they don't touch the field workers.' But they raid stores, bakeries, places where people go to buy things. Those who buy are those who work in the fields. ICE doesn't go to the fields, but they do go to where the workers go to buy things. Eighty percent of Oxnard's population works in the fields,50% are indigenous people from Oaxaca and Guerrero, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs. In Santa Paula, a city in Ventura County, about a 20-minute drive from Oxnard, are the Purepechas, indigenous people from the state of Michoacan, Mexico.

"To a certain extent, it's calm. We activists have a network that monitors the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). How they've been operating is that those who have a deportation order are waited for outside their homes; or if you go to the Court in Ventura, they'll catch you there.

The first attack by ICE came on June 10 when they entered the strawberry fields and some agricultural product warehouses in Oxnard.

That day the farmers called MICOP to ask if they were arresting anyone, I said no, but when they entered the fields on June 10, I was worried about having made a bad impression.

He says that many people said it was a raid.

We had to say that it wasn't a raid, but that they took some people they were looking for.

On that occasion, ICE agents visited around nine ranches in the Oxnard area, but since they didn't have a search warrant, they couldn't enter. Some activists estimate that they arrested around 35 immigrants in the surrounding streets.

For Jorge, that was a prelude to what would come a month later, on July 10 at Glass House Farms.

A Light in the Darkness

Faced with this hell that farmworkers are living through, MICOP has become the light in the darkness.

Anything that happens, whether they don't get paid, if they're fired, if a crime occurs, everything is reported here and workers come to learn about their rights, says Jorge.

In response to the growing fear, MICOB is educating farmworkers about their rights as migrants.

We help them fill out a family plan so they can talk to their couples and decide with whom they will leave their children in case of an arrest; and when they return to classes, we want them to update their information with the schools." Jorge says the common denominator in the farmworker community in Oxnard is the state of anxiety and fear with which they live day to day. "There are people who don't want to leave their homes; for those affected by Glass House and the June 10 raid, we have food supplies."

He says that at MICOP they have interpreters to help in the defense of the detainees.

We have a detained person who only speaks Mixtec, and his lawyer needs an interpreter.

Jorge says that in the face of the climate of terror, it is hard to give a message of encouragement, since it goes without saying that they must take care of themselves and know their rights.

We just ask that they have strength, courage because our farmers are brave people who are fighting and making this country great. We tell them that if there is an opportunity to tell their stories, they should speak, although we know that fear is strong and only necessity makes them go out to work. .

Julio admits that knowing his rights and the information makes him feel stronger, but it doesn't take away his fear.

Felix says that with that fear of being detained, they go to work, but always aware of ICE's movements through MICOP's Indigenous Radio or on Facebook.

We have no other choice. If we stay home, we don't have money for rent or food. He says it gives him some peace of mind that his oldest daughter is already 18. They already know that if we were to pass away, they can seek help and take care of each other. They are not criminals Felix says that if he were standing in front of Trump, he would tell him that they are not criminals, rapists, murderers, or drug traffickers. I would invite him to come and see how we are working; day it rains, there we are; day it snows, there we are. No matter what the day is like, we're harvesting the crops.

And when we're not there, who's going to farm the land, he asks.

Some American citizens say we take their jobs, but since I arrived in Oxnard more than 20 years ago, I haven't seen Americans working in the fields, picking strawberries, cutting celery or lettuce.

We're not everything the president says we are. We're not murderers, drug traffickers, criminals. None of that. We just want to work and for you to support us so we can harvest the crops that come to your tables.