A man in a sweatshirt lies face down on a sidewalk in Santa Maria.
Two armed figures pin him to the ground while two others hover. They wear bulletproof vests, guns strapped to their thighs, and full, black face masks.
The man, seen in video recorded by immigration advocates and circulated to local media, was one of more than 150 people netted in immigration arrests in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Santa Maria.
And he was one of 1,500 people detained by federal agents in Santa Barbara County and nearby areas last year.
The yearlong detention blitz that has swept across the country separated thousands of families in the Santa Barbara region and drove many others into hiding. It also pushed civilians into the streets to document or protest federal actions.
Even for those without an active role, the crackdown remains a presence in everyday life, as agents emerge from cars to grab people on the street.
Many of my friends are carrying their IDs to school to prove they’re citizens.
Maydeli, a high school student IN SANTA MARIA
Federal data suggests that half of the people who have been arrested had no criminal record, despite the government’s continued insistence that nationwide immigration busts are targeting hardened criminals.
The escalation in enforcement reached a boiling point on the Central Coast over the summer, with large-scale raids that left one man dead and a U.S. citizen mistakenly detained in an immigration facility for several days.
Since then, a surge of armed agents in Minnesota — where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents — prompted Central Coast residents to take to the streets again.
Santa Barbara in recent days has seen both planned protests and unscheduled encounters with unidentified agents that have led to shouting matches and pepper spray.
Even in spaces where no one has been detained, fear persists.
Maydeli, a high school student and president of the Santa Maria chapter of Future Leaders of America, a youth community education group, asked to be identified by only her first name because of her fear of federal agents. She said no one in her group has been affected — yet they all have.
“Many of my friends are carrying their IDs to school,” she said, “to prove they’re citizens.”
Immigration report: When ICE arrests U.S. citizens, there’s little clear path out
An immigration crackdown
More than 1,400 people were arrested by federal immigration agents in the area from January through mid-October 2025 — more than three times the number in all of 2024 — according to local advocacy groups and the Deportation Data Project, a team of California researchers aggregating public documentation about immigration enforcement.
Because ICE enforcement in Santa Barbara County is handled from offices in both Santa Maria and Camarillo, the data accounts for arrests linked to locations in both Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. That arrest total excludes cases from the Lompoc federal prison.
The escalation is also reflected in the patterns of who is targeted and where. Half of the people arrested in the area in 2025 had no prior criminal convictions, a strict departure from 2024 data.
The two ICE field offices also have diverging tactics and priorities.
Unlike in previous years, ICE agents began arresting immigrants at routine, annual check-ins and outside court hearings. Community patrol groups also said ICE agents began driving into immigrant neighborhoods early in the morning, waiting for farm laborers to leave for work, and then chasing them through the streets.
Some of these people were deported in a period of hours, while others were detained for months at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, transferred to facilities in other states or released with ankle monitors.
Immigrants and advocates also witnessed federal agents using more violent tactics during local arrests, including throwing people to the ground, shoving them into vans and even deploying tear gas and stun grenades.
A man who witnessed a raid near Milpas Street in October, who did not want to share his name because he is in the country illegally and fears for his safety, said agents with face masks pushed two men into the back of a white van, without asking for their citizenship status or explaining why they were being arrested.
The agents, he said, didn’t say anything at all. “I don’t even think they were the migra,” he said. “I think they were bounty hunters or something.”
A tide of fear
When federal agents raided Glass House Farms in Camarillo and Carpinteria in October, several bystanders were injured, including a child, and a man died after falling from the roof in an attempt to avoid arrest.
The agents also arrested a U.S. citizen and kept him in an immigration detention facility. George Retes, a security guard at the marijuana farm, said he was held for three days without the opportunity to call his family or a lawyer, or even change his clothes, before he was finally released.
Others across California and the country had similar stories of being detained by immigration agents. Months later, top U.S. officials continue to claim that no U.S. citizens have been arrested.
Throughout the past year, wherever immigration agents are spotted, clashes with bystanders ensue. Videos have shown ICE agents frequently yelling at civilians who were recording or following them.
In late January, local real estate agent Beth Goodman was pepper sprayed in the face by a man wearing a full face mask and a vest labeled “police” as she stood amid stopped cars on a residential street in Santa Barbara. Video circulated on social media shows the man grabbing her wrist and yanking her, then later shoving her and pepper spraying.
As immigration arrests have intensified, communities have witnessed the disappearance of neighbors who’d lived in the area for decades, and fear has rippled through worksites, churches and classrooms.
Miguel, a landscaper at a nursery in Carpinteria who did not want to share his last name out of fear of reprisal by federal officials, said the business decided to keep their main gate locked to prevent ICE agents from entering. That has resulted in a loss of business from people driving by, looking for plants.
Even with those precautions in place, ICE agents arrested one of the company’s gardeners in January. Officials arrested him at 6 a.m. as he was on his way to work, leaving his bike on the side of the road.
Immigration report: In farm fields, immigration raids compound longstanding woes
Activists on rise
To support people in the area with family members who are in the country illegally, the Santa Maria chapter of Future Leaders of America began distributing a flyer in Spanish with advice on how to prepare for possible family separations, as well as where to seek legal and mental health assistance.
The organization is among a growing network that has sprung into action in the past year. 805Undocufund, the leader of the collective, offers $1,000 in cash assistance to families facing detention or deportation, with money raised through individual donations and support from local governments.
Volunteers also patrol neighborhoods in Ventura, Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, Goleta and Santa Maria, beginning at 5 a.m., following ICE vehicles and sending real-time alerts of ICE agents’ whereabouts to the public through automated text messages.
The patrollers carry megaphones to alert residents that ICE is nearby, telling them to stay in their homes and not to sign any documents. Others act as spotters, waiting at key intersections to see whether known ICE vehicles drive past.
The 805 Rapid Response Network has at least 500 volunteers watching for ICE in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties.
Multiple groups also host frequent informational sessions, informing the community about their rights and teaching new volunteers how to conduct patrols. Pam Gates, a representative of Indivisible Santa Maria, said the Santa Barbara County organization went from 50 volunteers in January 2025 to more than 1,200 by the end of the year.
Since federal agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens who were observing immigration crackdowns in Minneapolis, local advocacy groups say recruitment has soared in Santa Barbara County, with one training session near UC Santa Barbara culminating in over 200 new volunteers.
Haley, a patroller who asked that her last name not be used because she is afraid of being targeted and retaliated against by federal agents, said the recent acts of violence “definitely made me feel unsafe, but Black and brown people have never been able to ignore this.”
“Why are so many white folks waiting for the oppression to impact us personally?” she said. “If you feel like you’re not a target, I want you to consider how selfish that is.”
Lee Heller, a volunteer with SB Resiste, echoed that statement. “As a white woman in my 60s, all I knew how to do was show up and hold signs at a protest. It became clear I could do real things.”
The organization hopes to recruit more volunteers this year and reach more local businesses and individuals to inform them of their rights during an ICE raid.
Advocates believe their work organizing and alerting local communities has prevented numerous arrests and deportations in the area over the past year. But they say there is still work to be done to assist the most vulnerable residents.
“There are still 500 families (affected by a detention or deportation) that we haven’t been able to reach,” said Primitiva Hernandez, the executive director of 805Undocufund. The group hands out red, wallet-sized cards with advice on what to do during an interaction with ICE, but there is no guarantee a person will have that card at hand at a critical moment.
After some of the roving patrols in Santa Maria earlier this year, Hernandez and other local leaders hosted an event to show residents of the most targeted neighborhoods that their pain is shared by others and they are not alone. A live band played anti-ICE songs in Spanish as participants walked through the streets, singing and dancing.
“Our existence is resistance,” Hernandez said.
On a street where 12 residents were detained over a few days in the new year, neighbors poked their heads out from behind screened doors. Small children ran into the street to accept the cards, signs and bandanas offered by the protesters.
Then, they disappeared back into the relative safety of their homes.
