As reports of May immigration arrests — at an Oxnard gas station, near a babysitter’s home and elsewhere — ratchet up fear and rumors in Ventura County, concrete numbers tracking enforcement remain elusive.
Leaders of the 805 UndocuFund group that helps run an immigration hotline contend at least 53 people in Ventura, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties have been arrested by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers so far this year. They said 14 of the arrests occurred in Ventura County.
In a flurry of activity reported in early May, at least 14 people in the three counties were arrested, including three people in Oxnard and one in Ojai, the advocates said. One person was apprehended as he drove in Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood and another was arrested at a Sinclair station at a busy Oxnard intersection, they said.
All but one of the reports are unverified by ICE. A spokesperson said in April a national data dashboard that shows arrest and detention statistics through the end of 2024 will be updated every month but did not say when that will begin. He said enforcement activities have increased across the nation since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 but did not provide local numbers.
Leaders of 805 UndocuFund said they don’t have a comparable database for 2024, meaning they don’t know if enforcement has risen.
Police agencies said they are not told of ICE arrests and detentions and can’t verify any alleged operations. But the agencies are sometimes given general notifications so that they know ICE officers are in the area and may be armed in unmarked vehicles.
In Oxnard, the “check-ins” have jumped. Since late January, the Oxnard Police Department has received 51 notifications about ICE actions in the city, said Police Chief Jason Benites.
The city received 43 check-ins in all of 2024 and 20 in 2023. Benites said he has seen social media alerts about alleged arrests in the city but has no information on such actions.
“We heard the numbers of people reportedly picked up but we don’t have any way of corroborating that,” he said.
State law prohibits local law enforcement from helping ICE in enforcement actions but allows them to notify the federal agency when people convicted of certain crimes are being released from custody. ICE appears to be using the legal provision more often in Ventura County this year.
Through April 30, ICE detained 19 people who had been in Ventura County jails, said Capt. Robert Yoos of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. Over the same period in 2024, 13 people were apprehended. No such actions took place in the first four months of 2023.
Yoos said the sheriff’s office began asking for notifications of every ICE operation in the area in January but does not track the number and cannot say if actions are happening more frequently this year.
Other law enforcement agencies said they’re not aware of a rise in ICE activities.
“We get one every blue moon, and it’s still the same,” said Simi Valley Police Sgt. Rick Morton of notices from federal immigration authorities.
‘They’re taking Dad’
The arrest that has received the most public attention came the morning of May 4. That’s when Adriana Mandujano received a phone call from her 17-year-old brother. He didn’t say anything. All she heard were noises from the gas station at the corner of Wooley and Ventura Roads where the teen, his 19-year-old brother and their father, Albino Mandujano Eutimo, had gone to fill up a truck.
The silence sent her pulse racing. Then her other brother, age 19, spoke into the phone.
“They’re taking Dad,” he said.
Adriana Mandujano said her brothers told her about a half-dozen vehicles blocked the station’s exits. Eutimo, 49, of Oxnard was arrested in an action later confirmed in a tweet by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The tweet was triggered by media reports that ICE officers left the man’s two children in the truck unattended after the arrest. Federal officials denied the characterization and said the vehicle was left in possession of the older teen. They said Eutimo was allowed to make a phone call to make sure his sons were able to get home.
Because neither of the teens has a driver’s license, they called their sister, Adriana Mandujano, also of Oxnard. She listened in shock, trying to piece together what happened.
“I just knew he was taken,” she said.
Eutimo, born in Guerrero, Mexico, was taken to an ICE facility in Camarillo and later transferred to Adelanto where he remained as of May 15.
In its tweet, Homeland Security characterized the Oxnard man who worked jobs ranging from plumbing to operating a pressure washer as a “criminal illegal alien.” He was arrested for driving under the influence on a misdemeanor charge two years ago in a case that remains open with a hearing set for June 10 in Ventura County Superior Court. Eutimo pleaded not guilty.
This is FALSE. ICE agents arrested criminal illegal alien Albino Teodores Mandujano. His 19-year-old son took possession of his vehicle. ICE officers even offered to move the vehicle to a better location. Additionally, ICE allowed Mandujano to make a telephone call to ensure the… pic.twitter.com/hBfE40WTBb
ICE spokesperson Richard Beam did not respond to questions about Ventura County arrests in general but provided information about Eutimo. He said the man was convicted in 2003 in Santa Barbara County Superior Court of fighting in public. The county’s district attorney’s office said the conviction involved a misdemeanor charge of public disturbance.
Beam also alleged Eutimo entered the country illegally in September 1990, was apprehended and returned to Mexico in a pattern that occurred twice more over the next several days. He later entered the country without being apprehended, Beam said.
Adriana Mandujano said her father has a lawyer and is set to appear in court on May 19. She said he plans to fight the immigration case.
Adriana Mandujano is taking care of her brothers. She works two jobs and said she may need to work more hours to make up the missing income triggered by her father’s arrest. She worries about him. She worries too because she was born in Mexico and lives in the country under the protection of a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program that was targeted in Trump’s first term.
“I grew up knowing this was always a fear,” she said.
Growing anxiety
The apparent increase of arrests in early May marks the third enforcement surge this year, said Primitiva Hernandez, executive director of 805 UndocuFund. Activity rose in late January following Trump’s inauguration and also for about two weeks starting in late February.
She said much of the enforcement activity seems focused on indigenous communities. Many of the people work in farm fields and speak only Mixtec.
The advocacy organization Mixteco Indigenous Community Organization Group is offering legal assistance to people detained and works at making sure community members know their rights.
“I personally feel that our (Mixtec) people are being profiled,” said Genevieve Flores-Haro, associate director of the nonprofit.
Tactics have become more aggressive, Hernandez said. She alleged that in one May arrest in the Oxnard neighborhood of La Colonia, a man was either on his way to dropping off his children at the babysitter’s or had just left. When he was approached by men who appeared to be federal agents, he refused to unlock the car doors.
They broke a car window and made the arrest, Hernandez alleged. Beam, the ICE spokesperson, did not respond to questions about the incident. He previously said the agency won’t provide specifics about daily operations.
Arrests often take place on the streets or in public places in the early morning hours by plainclothes officers driving unmarked vehicles, Hernandez said. Some of the people arrested have criminal records, others do not.
Many of the strategies appear designed to increase fear about possible deportations and to convince people to leave on their own, Hernandez said.
The arrests in May triggered social media posts speculating ICE was working with law enforcement. A group called VC Defensa said ICE officers had parked at the Oxnard Police Department, alleging the agencies were collaborating.
Benites, the Oxnard police chief, said the allegation is untrue. He said the vehicle in question is not ICE’s. He said suggestions of an alliance between the agencies could prevent people who need police from seeking their help.
“We’ve been very public about our position on that. We don’t engage in that activity,” he said of working with ICE. “A narrative like that undermines the community’s sense of security with their local police.”
Other law enforcement agencies echoed the point. They said the use of plainclothes officers and unmarked vehicles makes it hard to know who is ICE and who is not.
“We’ve actually been getting a lot of false reports,” said Ventura Police Cmdr. Ryan Weeks, citing visits to the region by other government law agencies. “Any time anyone sees anything state or federal, they think it’s ICE.”
Hernandez said there’s no way to know when the next flurry of arrests could begin. Her organization continues to tell undocumented families not to open the door when strangers knock on it and to remain silent if questioned.
Adriana Mandujano, whose father was arrested by ICE, said her previous fears about immigration enforcement were always present but stayed mostly in the background. She assessed her anxiety as maybe a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10.
That has changed.
“Now, it’s a 10,” she said.
Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com.
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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Immigration arrests appear to surge in May in Ventura County; exact numbers remain unclear
Reporting by Tom Kisken, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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