One Dead, Hundreds Arrested in US Farm Raid As Judge Orders Pause to Aggressive Tactics
July 12, 2025 | Source: Reuters | by Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) – A California farm worker died on Friday after U.S. immigration agents raided a cannabis nursery and arrested hundreds of workers, a worker advocacy group said, while a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily halt some of its most aggressive tactics in rounding up undocumented immigrants.
Dozens of migrant-rights activists faced off with federal agents in rural Southern California on Thursday during the operation, the latest escalation of President Donald Trump’s campaign for mass deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
A California judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from racially profiling immigrants as it seeks deportation targets and from denying immigrants’ right to access to lawyers during their detention. The Trump administration has made conflicting statements about whether immigration agents will target the farm labor workforce, about half of which is unauthorized to work in the U.S., according to government estimates. The Department of Homeland Security said approximately 200 people in the country illegally were arrested in the raid, which targeted two locations of the cannabis operation Glass House Farms.