Advocates on the scene said the Border Patrol raid in Kern County last month indiscriminately targeted Latino farmworkers commuting from the fields and day laborers soliciting work in the parking lots of big box stores.

Three former officials with the Biden administration, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to share operational details, said [Border Patrol Chief Agent Gregory] Bovino “went rogue” with the January raid. No higher-ups knew about the operation before watching it unspool, two of the former officials said.

Instead, said one, it seemed to be a play by some Border Patrol agents, on the eve of President Trump’s return to office, to “show that there was a new boss coming and that that’s where their loyalties lay.”

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Advocates on the scene, meanwhile, said the operation indiscriminately targeted Latino farmworkers commuting from the fields along California Route 99 and day laborers soliciting work in the parking lots of big box stores. They estimate close to 200 people were detained.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250227120712/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-25/kern-county-immigration-raid-new-reality-farmworkers