KOIN 6 reported that ICE raids led to the arrest of two vineyard workers within the city of Newberg, Oregon. Fox 12 Oregon reports that one of them, Moises Sotelo, was a well-respected vineyard manager in the Willamette Valley. The news was confirmed by the American congresswoman, Andrea Salinas, who issued a statement on the raids.
“There were two targeted ICE arrests of vineyard workers in Newberg,” said Salinas in a statement. “As part of my Congressional duty, I am meeting with ICE to ensure they maintain the right to due process for all detained individuals. I have also spoken at length with Latino leaders in the community to ensure individuals know their rights and how I can support them.”
According to KOIN 6, Sotelo spent 20 years working in Oregon wine country and earned multiple awards for his contributions to the industry. He was considered a leader in the field and just launched an agricultural business helping vineyards with their crops.
“He’s a good man, a taxpayer, hard-working man, proud of what he does, grandpa, dad, uncle,” his daughter said.
Sotelo’s daughter discovered he was taken after ICE raided one of the vineyards in Oregon. After she tracked his phone and discovered he was at an ICE detention center, she went to the ICE facility and saw her father, “chained at the feet,” with “a big old smile” trying to be brave for his daughter.
Recent ICE Raids have made national headlines, particularly the large sweeps within the city of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a sanctuary city, which, according to Global Refuge, is a city that limits the amount of information it shares with federal immigration law officers.
A major part of President Donald Trump’s platform involved immigration reform, and the president referred to immigrants — particularly Mexican immigrants — as “drug dealers, criminals, and rapists,” according to the BBC. The president has been no stranger to spreading misinformation about a lot of immigrants who come to America, with claims that they don’t pay their taxes and don’t contribute to society.
Yet the faces of those who have been detained in the recent ICE raids portray an incredibly different story. Sotelo is a prime example of an individual making major contributions to an industry.
The recent ICE Raids in Los Angeles proved to be incredibly unpopular among those residing in the city, which has a very diverse immigrant population. As a response to the inhumane raids, many Angelinos took to the streets in peaceful protest the week of June 9. Though certain media outlets portrayed Los Angeles as a city on the brink of destruction, the majority of the demonstrations were peaceful, save a few bad actors.
The President responded in an unprecedented fashion, calling the peaceful protests an “insurrection,” according to AP News. The President then went over California Governor Gavin Newsom’s head and deployed the National Guard and the Marines in a huge show of force on behalf of the federal government.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass denounced the recent military actions on behalf of the federal government and the raids. According to the LA Times, she referred to the negative depictions of Los Angeles as under attack from “socialists” as an “outright lie.” Bass expressed disappointment with the actions of United States Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a press conference.
“I served with the Secretary [Kristi Noem] for probably about 10 years in Congress. And Madame Secretary, I do not recognize you. I do not know the Kristi Noem I served with,” Bass explained.
Raids That Lead to Repercussions for ‘Every American Who Eats’
AP News reported on June 13 that the sweeping immigration raids in California’s agricultural areas could cause significant harm to America’s food supply. The outlet reported that somewhere within the range of 25 to 45% of farmworkers in the country have stopped showing up to work out of fear of being detained by ICE.
“When our workforce is afraid, fields go unharvested, packinghouses fall behind, and market supply chains, from local grocery stores to national retailers, are affected,” said Chief Executive of Ventura County’s Farm Bureau Maureen McGuire in a statement. “This impacts every American who eats.”
The outlet reported that farms in the Golden State yield a third of vegetables in America and the majority of America’s fruit and nuts. The majority of farmers in California tend to be Republican-leaning, which might have put some pressure on the President to turn things around.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” the President wrote on his socials. “We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
It is unclear how exactly the current administration plans to pivot regarding its large-scale deportations often executed by masked men in unmarked vans. But one thing is clear, the Trump administration’s hard, almost gleefully cruel stance on immigration as it stands is even alienating some of his staunchest supporters, like Joe Rogan. NJ.com reported that the Podcast host and friend of the president sounded off on the administration’s tactics and anybody in agreement with them.
“I see a lot of people online talking about this immigrant issue,” Rogan said on his podcast. “And they either don’t have kids or they don’t think it could happen to their kids. Their idea is, ‘Hey, you shouldn’t have f–king come here.’ You get those kind of people. ‘You broke the law. Shouldn’t have come over here if you didn’t want your kids to get separated. If you were in the presence of a woman who came over from Guatemala and she’s poor and she’s starving and they’re taking her baby away and she’s wailing and screaming from a primal place in her DNA — the one thing she loves more than anything is being taken away. A baby! If that doesn’t freak you the f–k out, you’re not a part of the team, man. You’re missing it. You’re missing it.”
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