320 Arrested and Deported by Border Patrol : Immigration: Agency launches county’s biggest sweep in nearly a decade. Critics point to employers, say raids make little impact.

In the biggest sweep of illegal immigrants in Ventura County in nearly a decade, U.S. Border Patrol agents announced Friday that they have arrested and deported 320 undocumented workers at checkpoints and businesses in Oxnard, Camarillo, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks.

Agents on Wednesday arrested 172 immigrants they said were here illegally, taking them into custody at traffic stops in Saticoy, carwashes in Thousand Oaks and street flower vending sites in Oxnard and Camarillo.

On Thursday, agents armed with search warrants raided a strawberry farm in Oxnard and a manufacturer in Moorpark, arresting another 151 illegal immigrants. An additional 43 immigrants were arrested during the sweeps but were later released because they showed legitimate documentation, said Mike Malloy, the Border Patrol agent in charge of the operation.

All but three immigrants arrested signed voluntary departure forms and were transported by bus to Jalisco and Tijuana, Malloy said. The three immigrants who requested hearings were released and will present their cases before the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles.

“There weren’t tears, resistance or crying,” Malloy said. “A lot of joking and kidding, actually. They know what the game is--it’s something they knew when they entered this country.”

Immigration advocates on Friday criticized the raids, saying they make little impact in stemming the growing tide of undocumented immigrants entering Ventura County. Advocates argue that U.S. citizens are not willing to work in the low-income jobs that illegal immigrants fill, and that not enough pressure is put on employers to stop hiring the immigrants.

“I doubt that a United States citizen would apply for a job at a strawberry farm,” said Armando Garcia, spokesman for the Ventura County Coalition for Immigrant Rights. “As long as the jobs are available, undocumented immigrants will continue crossing the border. They’re willing to work for whatever job is available for them.”

Malloy said he decided to conduct the raids after receiving reports from former employees at Bob Jones Ranch in Oxnard and Moorpark-based Bendpak about large numbers of illegal immigrants. Usually, immigration officials put pressure on employers to fire undocumented workers, but Malloy said the raids serve as incentive for other employers to be more careful in their hiring practices.

Bob Jones Ranch and Bendpak, which makes car lifts used in many auto repair shops, will not be fined for hiring the workers because company officials were unable to determine that their employment documents were counterfeit, Malloy said. Prompted by the employee complaints, agents audited both companies’ records before obtaining search warrants and found that 60% of the employees at Bob Jones Ranch and about 70% of the employees at Bendpak had counterfeit documents.

Malloy said employers have no way of verifying the workers’ immigration documents.

Eileen McCarthy, attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, said immigration agents should concentrate on targeting the employers rather than the workers.

“If the INS is really serious about stemming illegal immigration, they have to come up with ways to dampen the employers’ enthusiasm for such labor,” McCarthy said.

Bendpak officials declined to comment, but Bob Jones, whose Oxnard farm was raided, said the arrests will make little difference to his operation.

At the beginning of next week, Jones said, he expects immigrants will be lining up as always to apply for minimum wage strawberry-picking jobs on his 250-acre ranch.

“Those are the only people willing to go out there and do that,” Jones said.

Jones’ general manager, Lucky Westwood, said about one-third of the pickers failed to report for work Friday because they were afraid immigration agents would return.

“We have done everything in our power to avoid this situation, but some of them got into the work force anyway, and Border Patrol felt they had to come and pick them up,” Westwood said. “This was not between the INS and us. It was between the INS and the immigrants.”

Malloy disagreed with Jones that undocumented immigrants are the only ones who will apply for low-income jobs.

In a raid last year at Waterway, an Oxnard-based manufacturing firm, Malloy deported 52 illegal immigrants. Executives at the company, which makes pumps, filters and other parts for swimming pools, asked Malloy to screen new applicants for the vacant positions. Waterway officials said they sent Malloy about 250 immigration documents and at least 200 were legitimate.

But workers argue that undocumented immigrants are not a threat to society and should be allowed to make a living.

Some of the women working in the packinghouse at Bob Jones Ranch witnessed the raid Thursday morning and said Border Patrol agents beat workers with their batons, kicked some of the women pickers and dragged them from their hiding places.

But Westwood, who also witnessed the raids, said he did not notice any rough treatment by the agents.

Looking at the fields where few workers were toiling on Friday, Westwood and Jones recalled the changes in immigration law enforcement in the last two decades.

“At least it was better than the old days, when the Border Patrol would come in on their motorcycles and their horses, and the workers would scatter, and you wouldn’t have anyone left,” Jones said.

Added Westwood: “It’s been a game that’s been going on for at least 30 years.”

Times photographer Carlos Chavez contributed to this story.