Pot farm raided by immigration agents has open child labor complaint, state says
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The coastal pot operation that was raided by a massive force of federal immigration agents last week is the subject of a state investigation into illegal child labor, state officials said Monday.
Officials with the state Department of Cannabis Control said they have launched “an active investigation” after receiving a complaint that Glass House, one of the state’s largest legal cannabis companies, had employed minors. The company has facilities in Camarillo and Carpinteria, Calif.; it’s unclear where the complaint was directed.
In a statement, state officials said they had conducted a site visit at Glass House in May and found no violations. But later that month, the department received a complaint and opened the investigation.
“The employment of individuals under the age of 21 in the cannabis industry is strictly illegal, a serious matter, and is not tolerated,” the statement said. “We encourage anyone with information about child labor or trafficking at any facility to immediately contact the Department.”
Glass House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. But in a statement posted to X last week, the company said it “does not and has never employed minors.”
Federal officials raided the company’s operations in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign against undocumented immigrants in California. Officials said they arrested 361 people at the two sites, including “at least 14 migrant children.”
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said it had “rescued” the children “from potential exploitation, forced labor and human trafficking.” Department officials said 10 of the children, who were unaccompanied minors, had been transferred to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Thursday raid brought chaos, panic and protests to the rural area of the Central Coast. Agents fanned out across the company’s greenhouses, and workers fled in panic, hiding in refrigerators, containers, car trunks and on the greenhouse roofs. One worker, Jaime Alanis Garcia, 57, died after he fell three stories trying to evade agents.
Meanwhile, protesters and family members of workers squared off at the company gates against federal agents, who deployed tear gas and less-than-lethal bullets.
Protesters blocked the roads in and out of one of the farms, and at one point federal agents drove their vehicles through the fields.
Among those arrested, according to the Department of Homeland Security, were “violent and dangerous criminal illegal aliens convicted of rape, child molestation and kidnapping.” The department released the names of 10 people who had been charged with crimes such as indecent exposure, felony possession of a firearm and possession with intent to sell narcotics.
Also arrested last week was Cal State Channel Islands professor Jonathan Anthony Caravello, 37, who was accused of impeding or assaulting law enforcement. Caravello appeared in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday, where he posted bond and was released with an ankle monitor.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the operation had come to the government’s attention in part because of concerns about possible child labor.
“We went there because we knew, specifically from casework we had built for weeks and weeks and weeks, that there was children there that could be trafficked, being exploited, that there was individuals there involved in criminal activity,” Noem told reporters during a weekend appearance in Florida.
Glass House is one of the largest legal cannabis operations in California, the largest taxpayer in Ventura County and one of the area’s largest employers. One of its founders, Kyle Kazan, is a former Torrance police officer.
Court filings show many of Glass House’s employees actually work for a Camarillo labor contractor. The labor contractor and the company have been accused of labor law violations in recent years, including failure to pay overtime or give meal breaks. Glass House has disputed the charges, levied in civil suits in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, which are still pending in court.
An attorney whose firm represents some Glass House workers said Monday that his firm is also investigating child labor violations, based “on our own independent investigation and information we’ve obtained.”
Among those at Thursday’s immigration action was a Trump voter who doesn’t like the president’s approach and the family of a National Guardsman who say it’s time for him to come home.
The attorney, Daniel Hyun, also said one of his cases had to be continued when the lead client, Gerardo Melendez, was picked up by immigration agents in March and put in immigration detention, making it impossible for him to participate in the suit.
An attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Yliana Johansen-Mendez, said her office had interviewed some of the children who had been detained as part of the raid.
She did not provide details about how the minors had gotten hired or how long they had lived and worked in Ventura. She said all the children now face deportation. Even those children who have family members nearby, she said, probably will not be able to reunite with them easily.
“It’s nearly impossible for undocumented family members to get children out of ORR [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] to reunite,” she said, adding that under the Trump administration, the government has been pushing to deport children who in years past may have been granted residency.
Times staff writer Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.
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