LAKE COUNTY >> Last week, a burst of social media conversation erupted as a result of a Facebook post on sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) task force activity around the county. Though most of the talk has slowed, one thing still lingers: fear.
At the time of the initial social media post, officials were unable to verify activity. But local residents took to social media to add what they had heard. Many testified to sightings of men, dressed in casual clothes, knocking on homes and then arresting at least one individual at each stop. One said ICE officials knocked on their neighbor’s home at 2 a.m. and detained the father of the household. Others heard of these men driving around in white vans in Clearlake and Kelseyville.
The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed rumors of ICE operations on May 23 after receiving questions from the public. LCSO has yet to update on alleged operations conducted on May 24, when the Facebook post was published. Some updates were verified, and others confirmed as false.
Officials dismissed the rumor claiming Willow Point residents were the cause of ICE agents to operate in the county as a result of their protests on May 22.
Verified or not, people took to social media and word of mouth to warn the community of last week’s sightings. But these alerts were mostly within the Hispanic community.
Lake County’s Migrant Education Instructional Program Specialist Shushan Vetzmadian has seen the effect of fear within the community when word comes around about ICE activity.
“There are so many worried families right now not going to work [or] grocery shopping,” she said. “Something should be done about this and make Lake a sanctuary county. You will see vineyards and orchards going unattended in the near future.”
Fear has created a strong bond in the Hispanic community. Local resident Tabitha Martinez said that although she is documented and is not directly affected by ICE operations, she has immediate family that live in constant fear. Communicating is essential.
“Whenever immigration is in town everybody who is undocumented knows about it within a few hours or less,” Martinez said. “They look out for each other and don’t want their friends or family to get deported. It’s pretty amazing to watch it unfold. They will tell each other to not leave their homes and to not go to stores.”
What Martinez and others cannot comprehend, however, is the 10-15 migrant workers who were allegedly detained at a Kelyseville vineyard. Elena Mendoza, who works at a nearby field said, in Spanish, that though not every worker is blood-related, “when one of us is taken away, we will know about it. We’re all a family here.”
ICE could not comment on specific locations and number of arrests conducted in Lake County, including the alleged vineyard arrests.
“ICE sometimes conducts local and national crosscheck operations that are concentrated enforcement actions targeting at-large criminal aliens, illegal re-entrants, and immigration fugitives in a set time-frame,” ICE spokesman James Schwab said.
Operations, as provided by Schwab, target individuals who allegedly pose a risk to communities, such as known street gang members, child sex offenders, and deportable foreign nationals with significant drug trafficking convictions.
The supposed arrests shocked the community. As Mendoza said, they were simply there “at the wrong time.”
In response to rumors of a vineyard arrests, Martinez said she fears for the families of those detained.
“They are hard working people that work mostly in the grapes, pears, walnuts, construction, [and] roofing,” she said. “They work long hard hours in the hot sun or when it’s freezing cold. They have to in order to feed their children. They are not bad people. They just want to live the American Dream as we do.”
Based on the official website of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE has arrested more than 41,000 individuals within the first 100 days since President Donald Trump took office. Enforcement takes place every day all over the country, including Northern California. Areas like Los Angeles have faced some of the heaviest roundups, with nearly 200 detained during a five-day expanded enforcement operation last week.
Tonya Bravo, an administrative assistant from California Human Development in Lakeport, said this is when the community needs to get informed about their rights, and “continue to stick together, even when fear is very much present.”
