Hard Truths: SPECIAL UPDATE: July 10, 2025

Hard Truths is a monthly newsletter about national, state, and local issues, with some sassy personal updates from the author – Heather Schmidt, M.PA – Public Policy Advisor and Mom of Three.

THIS SPECIAL UPDATE FOR JULY 10, 2025 IS IN RESPONSE TO THE UNPRECEDENTED BORDER PATROL RAID AT GLASS HOUSE FARMS IN CAMARILLO, CA.

Earlier today, ICE/Border Patrol, accompanied by the United States National Guard, presented a warrant to enter the property at 645 Laguna Road in Camarillo, CA. This was the location of Glass House – a grower of primarily marijuana, though other reporting indicated the farm also may periodically grow tomatoes and cucumbers. 

It was reported that many workers were able to escape and hide in their vehicles, with high temperatures threatening them as they hid in their vehicles and even trunks.

Though the warrant was for the owner of Glass House for illegal documentation and child labor complaints, this coincided another raid at the second Glass House facility in Carpinteria. As has been the case with many ICE raids we have seen in recent weeks, when a warrant is served for one individual, everyone in the vicinity gets rounded up in the process. This is being reported by multiple media outlets as the largest raid to date, with hundreds of undocumented workers being arrested, including mothers, children, and entire families.

Irrespective of your views about immigration, undocumented workers, and so on, there are some fundamental truths we can all agree on. The first is that the Constitution of the United States is still a very relevant and valid document, and it guarantees citizen and non citizen residents many rights. Everyone in the United States irrespective of legal status has the right to due process. Everyone has the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and to protest. You can therefore imagine the surprise of peaceful protesters standing witness to the raids going on, simply standing in the public right of way, when they were then met with rubber bullets and tear gas.

In addition to my role as a self-employed consultant, I currently hold the position of Executive Director of a small volunteer organization whose focus is voter education and registration. In light of recent immigration activity in California, we expanded our mission to include Know Your Rights education. Upon arriving at the scene today, I was met with complete horror to see innocent people standing around being tear gassed. The United States Constitution affords us the right to peacefully protest; today, the United States government violated that right for many people.

The response of many local elected officials to the crisis that has been unfolding in our county for weeks now – in my opinion – has been insufficient. The result of this is that our organization issued the following statement, calling on the cities and counties to do more. We also quickly gathered and delivered cases of water to the enforcement and protest location, where protests have continued into the night.

Additional protests have since popped up in other areas, including at the ICE processing facility in Camarillo, and at the Saint John’s Hospital in Oxnard (I live in the neighborhood right behind it). Tomorrow, an additional rally is being held at Oxnard City Hall at 3 pm.

If you or someone you know finds yourself at a protest, please understand you have a right to be there, so long as you remain peaceful. If you are impacted by immigration and border enforcement, you have additional rights, including to due process. You have the right to see a warrant and have it be verified by a legal representative. You have the right to remain silent.

There is more that Ventura County leadership can do, and we will see in the coming weeks and months if they plan to exert those powers to do more. Know Your Rights workshops, legal aid, legal defense funds, food drives, volunteer corps… there IS more without declaring sanctuary and losing critical federal funding that can be done. Statements, press conferences, and Instagram posts though are simply insufficient at this point. They are nothing more than a performance of caring.

We may ultimately see they don’t do anything more, in which case the writing is on the wall: it’s because they don’t want to.

Until then, stay safe everyone.