Merced County free from recent immigration enforcement operations, officials, advocates say

No immigration enforcement operations happened in Merced County recently, both federal agents and immigrant advocates say.

David Kim, a spokesman with the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency said that there are no current plans for any operations in Merced.

President Donald Trump’s plan to increase enforcement of undocumented residents in the U.S. has placed a number of people on edge. Reports of enforcement operations in Kern County has had residents as far north as Modesto concerned about CBP or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) taking people into custody.

However, CBP and ICE officials say there have not been any enforcement operations in those areas.

Blanca Ojeda, a community organizer with Faith in the Valley, said people in the community were reporting seeing white vans, possibly belonging to ICE, at Walmart and other retail centers near Highway 59 in Merced.

“My belief is that people were seeing these white vans, and they were assuming that they were ICE,” she said. “People were on high alert, and there was already a panic in the community.”

Ojeda, who is based in Merced, said she only saw white vans belonging to the Migrant Education program when she responded to these alerts.

Richard Beam, an ICE spokesman told the Merced Sun-Star in an email statement that ICE agents only engage in targeted operations, and do not conduct indiscriminate raids, nor do they set up checkpoints.

ICE authorities seek to arrest and remove those who compromise the safety of citizen communities and violate immigration law, Beam said.

He would not comment on any ICE operations in Merced County the week of Jan. 6.

Ojeda encouraged Merced residents to report any ICE or CBP activity to the Valley Watch Network hotline by calling or texting (559) 206-0151.

“We don’t want people being too afraid to go out, too afraid to send their children to school, too afraid to do their shopping and go to work,” she said. “That’s what we’re trying to prevent.”