In a press conference Saturday, local and federal leaders announced 78 people were detained from both Fresno and Kern Counties.
"Jurisdiction for custom and border protections is delineated in federal law within 100 miles of the border clearly current county and anything north of Kern County is far from 100 miles of the border," Rep. Jim Costa said.
Costa said that the CBP commissioner told him that the mission was targeted at criminals of drug and human trafficking and that all 78 of those detained had previous criminal records.
"I asked whether or not that was the extent of it. He told me that they had concluded their effort as a result of their arrest as of a day or two ago and that they would reassess where they would go from there," he said.
State leaders though contradicting claims that only criminals were detained.
"What we know is farmworkers have been taken into custody, loaded onto Vans at gas stations stores and also at random traffic stops," State Sen. Anna Caballero said "And we verified because people have it called our office and we've been able to verify a lot of this information."
In a statement on X, the UFW confirmed that some union members were detained while traveling home from work.
These raids are stoking fear amongst uncertain immigrant communities and are already taking a toll on the Valley's agriculture industry.
"I have received reports of food processing facilities. I have absences of 15 to 20% here locally. Orders that will not be able to be fulfilled," Fresno County supervisor Luis Chavez said.
Fresno Unified is also anticipating an increase in absenteeism, as students prepare to return to school from winter break.
Service providers have been hit hard and inundated with calls.
"We are a very busy organization on a normal day. This is just threefold, fivefold what we do," Margarita with Central La Familia said.
Leaders clarified that local law enforcement resources were not used to assist in these raids, which took many by surprise.
"So this whole issue with immigration, quite frankly, was shocking and was not expected this early," Caballero said.
Action News reached out to the CBP for comment and has not heard back.
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