Glass Home, one in all California’s largest hashish corporations, turned the main target of nationwide headlines after federal brokers carried out dramatic raids on two of its farms. The incident raised questions on how federal authorities method large-scale hashish operations and sparked heated reactions from group members and trade observers. What unfolded that day highlighted the rising pressure between state-legal hashish companies and federal enforcement businesses.
What Occurred On the Glass Home Raid?
On July 10, 2025, ICE and Border Patrol brokers raided two totally different Glass Home hashish farms in California, in accordance with AP Information. On the farm in Carmillo, masked brokers “deployed onto the property,” whereas officers fired tear gasoline at protestors. One protestor threw a gasoline canister again at Border Patrol; one other protestor “appeared to fire a gun” and is now “sought by the FBI.”
These raids got here on the finish of a month’s value of intense clashes and growing tensions between the Los Angeles group and legislation enforcement, ICE, Border Patrol, and the Nationwide Guard.
Brokers arrested over 360 folks in the course of the raid, together with at the very least 4 U.S. residents (one in all whom, George Retes, is an Military veteran). A person named Jaime Alanis Garcia tragically died after falling off a greenhouse roof whereas looking for security.
A father of two, Juve Lima was “deported to Mexico with no chance to fight for his freedom or a chance to say goodbye.” Julie Quintero recounts what Juve informed her about his expertise:
“In the limited contact we’ve had with him, Juve shared that during the raid, he attempted to hide, but ICE agents released gas into the area. The gas left him struggling to breathe, forcing him and others out of hiding. Once agents found where he was, they beat him in the back and tased him to subdue him. He witnessed agents shoot others with rubber bullets and subject them to the same suffering. During his deportation process, agents also threatened and mistreated him, creating a traumatic experience that has left him and our family in deep fear and pain. It breaks our hearts to hear the pain in his voice as he described how they tortured him.”
Many households are nonetheless unable to substantiate the place their family members are.
The United Farm Employees Launch a Assertion
The United Farm Employees of America, based within the Nineteen Sixties, is “the nation’s first enduring and largest farm workers’ union.” Most of their activism focuses on the agricultural panorama in California, although UFW contracts shield 1000’s of employees in California, Oregon, and Washington. In addition they work to develop laws to make sure the safety of non-unionized farmers, together with the nation’s first legislation requiring extra time pay for farmers.
4 days after the raid, on July 14th, the United Farm Employees launched a Assertion of Warning on Hashish, urging “workers who are not U.S. citizens to avoid working in the cannabis industry, even at state-licensed operations.” UFW continues on to clarify that “(b)ecause cannabis remains criminalized under federal law, any contact with federal agencies could have serious consequences even for people with legal status, including lawful permanent residents, DACA holders, or those with temporary status. Consequences could include detention, loss of status, or even deportation.”
This response is a humbling reminder of how precarious the hashish trade is, and the way the vast majority of that precarity falls on the shoulders of these doing an important work – rising the medication itself. It additionally highlights how the trade’s federal illegality makes it harmful even for employees who’ve correct documentation.
Glass Home Firm Response
ICE selected to focus on Glass Home, the most important authorized hashish cultivator within the state, regardless of the sheer quantity of illicit development operations taking place in California. Many trade leaders see this alternative as a deliberate assault on California’s authorized hashish trade, which remains to be federally unlawful.
An LA Instances article concerning the ICE raid attracts consideration to Glass Home’s nickname because the “Walmart of Weed,” explaining that the nickname factors to each the buyer comfort and market dominance of the model — each largely depending on its highly effective monetary backers and “streamlined, low-cost production methods.”
On August 4, Glass Home launched an announcement together with details about the raid and a bulleted record detailing methods the corporate is restructuring its “labor practices.”
The corporate says they’re “implementing best practices for determining employment eligibility for its employees and for ensuring eligibility of employees of contractors.” Glass Home Manufacturers by no means explicitly states that they’re doing all the things they’ll to keep away from having immigrants of their fields transferring ahead. Actually, the time period “immigrant” was by no means used as soon as in the complete assertion. However with some cautious studying, it’s clear that they need to ship a robust message about their dedication to vetting staff’ and contractors’ “eligibility.”
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The corporate additionally states that, past the 9 Glass Home staff detained or arrested, everybody else was both a third-party contractor or “unassociated with the Company.”
In the end, Glass Home is within the place to set the precedent for the way hashish corporations reply to ICE raids – and their response, at the very least primarily based on their assertion, appears to be to construct distance.
Rigorously Chosen Phrases
There tends to be a business-as-usual-ification in mainstream reviews of this raid (and what’s taking place with ICE at giant). The particular phrases used within the media vastly impression how we understand occasions. For instance, the Holocaust Encyclopedia states that, whereas transferring Jews to killing facilities, “The Germans attempted to disguise their intentions…as ‘resettlement to the east.’” Germans sanitized descriptions as a way to suppress public information.
However the manipulation of language within the press shouldn’t be distinctive to the Nazi Regime.
Proper now in the US, Black and Brown persons are being focused, kidnapped, placed on planes, and generally despatched to a rustic they’re not even from — all largely taking place with out due course of. That’s, ICE can take somebody in broad daylight and ship them to a different nation with out that individual ever setting foot in entrance of a choose.
The federal government and mainstream media are calling this a deportation. But there are such a lot of different phrases that additionally describe what’s taking place. Neighbors, coworkers, household, buddies, lecturers, enterprise homeowners, and so many extra are all disappearing. Being kidnapped. Stolen from their family members. Ripped away.
These trustworthy descriptions are a lot tougher to disregard than the sugarcoated and flattened catch-all time period “deportation.” Even essentially the most “factual” media will inherently impart a message by phrase alternative.
Updates and Shared Humanity
Two months in the past, a group member in California posted a masterlist of GoFundMe campaigns on Reddit for folks impacted by the Glass Home ICE raid. It’s not only a record of locations to donate; it’s an important assortment of tales concerning the folks and communities that the raid impacted. Some campaigns embody updates, so that they’re additionally a option to learn about what’s taking place to a few of the folks ICE captured.
Right here’s a small peek into a few of the aftermath. A younger man obtained a scared name from his mom in the course of the raid and hasn’t heard something since. Faculty workers members stepped as much as fundraise for college students whose households had been torn aside. Lots of the employees who had been taken had been single mother and father who additionally supported their aged mother and father, a lot of whom can’t enter the US. One mom was in custody for ten days, whereas one other didn’t have a court docket date till August, solely to be denied bond.
You’re respiration. Your coronary heart is thrashing. Sure issues all the time make you snort, and there are some matters you attempt to not discuss. Possibly there are particular childhood recollections you maintain pricey, and smells that carry you proper again to hugging somebody you’ll be able to’t hug anymore.
The identical will be mentioned about each single individual talked about on this article. In simply these easy methods, all of us have an immense quantity in widespread. Don’t let the world’s inhumanity take away your means to see your self and others as human. It’s the primary factor now we have to carry onto.
The place to Go From Right here
In Trump’s memorandum to deploy Federal Troops in LA, he wrote: “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
In different phrases, when you interact in violence or protest that stops ICE from taking members of your group, you’re formally rebelling towards the federal government. And neither “violence” nor “protest” are clearly outlined time period.
This isn’t a narrative that may be tied up, at the very least not proper now. It actually can’t be coated in full depth in a single article. You’re a part of this story too, irrespective of how eliminated you might or might not really feel.
What function do you need to play?
