How It Happened:
Timeline of Immigration Raid
in Carpinteria
On July 10, Quiet Back Road Became
Home to Political Clash in Matter of Minutes
By Ryan P. Cruz | July 16, 2025
Web Design by Elaine Sanders and Maya Johnson
Read more from
Smoke and Mirrors: Fallout from Federal Raids at Glass House Farms.
It started as a quiet Thursday morning. People who had been paying attention to recent immigration enforcement in Carpinteria were already a bit on edge because of three ICE arrests earlier in the week, including the arrest of one man who had his window shattered in the middle of a sleepy neighborhood in the small town while on his way to work.
10 a.m.
The first indication that something big was coming arrived in the form of a shaky video posted to Instagram showing more than 10 unmarked SUVs with tinted windows making their way up the coast on Highway 101. The video, reposted by three accounts tracking immigration enforcement in the area — VC Defensa, 805 Immigrant Coalition, and Ice Out of Goleta — came along with a warning in all caps: “A CARAVAN OF MORE THAN 10 ICE VEHICLES LEAVING VENTURA TOWARD CARP/SANTA BARBARA.”
10:15 a.m.
Within 15 minutes, the video had already started to spread across Instagram, Facebook, and community group chats across the Central Coast. Then the first clue into what type of operation was underway, with another Instagram post by VC Defensa: a screenshot of a text message saying, “ICE is in GLASS HOUSE.”
10:20 a.m.
The 805 Immigration Coalition, which along with 805 UndocuFund runs the 24/7 Rapid Response Hotline, sent out a community alert informing the public that a coordinated federal immigration operation was underway at both Glass House Farms locations in Camarillo and Carpinteria: “Both locations have multiple ICE vehicles and agents on the ground! Citizens, show up to protect workers!”
Some of the earliest videos from the Casitas Pass Road location of the licensed cannabis farm in Carpinteria reveal that more than one agency is present, as ICE agents in multiple unmarked vehicles are seen entering the property alongside U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers in full tactical combat gear, driving armored vehicles and carrying long rifles. Photographs of the scene later revealed that the National Guard and Homeland Security’s Investigations Division were also involved in the operations.
10:30 a.m.
Glass House manager Edgar Rodriguez recorded one of the first interactions with federal agents at the front desk, where Rodriguez sat behind a window as more than 10 armed agents — dressed in camo fatigues and arriving in a black Humvee — approach with rifles up. One agent yells, “Come out with your hands up! We have a warrant. We will be entering.”
Rodriguez, a U.S. citizen, repeatedly asks to see the warrant. He asks the masked men who they are. They say they are federal officers. “From what agency?” Rodriguez asks. Without being specific, the masked officer says he’s “not with immigration.” (The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that ICE and Border Patrol were also on scene.)
“We’re not here for you,” the agent says. “We’re not trying to deport anybody. We have a federal warrant.”
Though the agent never produces a copy of the warrant, Rodriguez reluctantly follows the armed men out of the building and is taken behind a dumpster along with another administrative employee. Without consent, Rodriguez is searched for weapons, and the agent slaps his phone from his hand as the recording stops. Rodriguez was handcuffed but later released.
10:35 a.m.
Outside the Glass House facility, concerned community members and volunteers from immigrants’ rights organizations began to arrive to document the operation. One of these legal observers was Becki Norton, a cofounder of the Carpinteria Immigrants Right Coalition who lives just minutes away from Casitas Pass Road.
Norton said when she arrived, she was shocked to see the scale of the operation, with armored vehicles and armed agents in military gear creating a barricade in the middle of a public road. Agents had blocked Highway 192 going south, and as the crowd grew, so did the tension at the scene. “It was like a war scene,” she told the Independent.
She says that the only information given to the public at the site was through a spokesperson who told them there was a “federally issued warrant to raid a cannabis farm.”
10:45 a.m.
Meanwhile, inside the facility, agents made it to the interior of the nursery, where a grainy video recorded by one of the 10 workers inside shows when ICE and Border Patrol officers make contact.
The ICE agents — donned in the now familiar uniform of T-shirts, jeans, ball caps, balaclava masks, and vests with “ERO” (Enforcement and Removal Operations) across the front — line up the 10 workers near the door while the woman recording says: “Help! Help! We’re not criminals. We haven’t committed anything. We came here to work in this country.”
Once outside, Border Patrol officers in military gear search each one of the 10 workers, then huddle them up in a group near a fence. Suddenly, one man frantically takes off running and is chased by two Border Patrol officers. The man is thrown into the dirt, and one of the armed officers places his boot on the man’s head while he is handcuffed.
11:15 a.m.
While the situation inside is winding down, the crowd in the street grew larger as more people continued to show up in protest. Norton, who had already called the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office dispatch, now called 9-1-1 to request local law enforcement presence to try and help deescalate. For the next 45 minutes, the scene became more hectic, and Norton called 9-1-1 again, to no avail. California Highway Patrol later showed up to clear up traffic.
12 p.m.
Chaos erupted over the next hour, as a crowd of more than 150 arrived at the front line of the barricade, where angry protesters faced off with a line of federal agents in military gear. As some of the crowd chanted, “Peaceful Protest,” one federal agent rolls a flash-bang into the crowd, which explodes two seconds later and sends the group scattering away in terror. The device, later identified as a Stinger Rubber Ball Grenade, is advertised as a crowd management tool meant to shock with rubber pellets, light, sound, and chemical agents.
Among those injured in the fray were schoolteachers, children, and elected officials such as Carpinteria City Councilmember Mónica Solórzano, who recounted her experience as she spoke to reporters shortly afterward, blood still dripping from her elbow.
12:30 p.m.
Congressmember Salud Carbajal arrives at the scene and attempts to cross the line of armed agents before he is pulled back to the barricade. People in the crowd yell: “Let him through! He represents us. You don’t! Are you gonna flash-bang our congressman?”
Over the next half-hour, Carbajal attempts to speak with someone in charge. He is given the card of a “public information strategist” with ICE.
1 p.m.
As things escalate, one of the federal agents begins to warn the crowd that they must disperse. “This is your final warning,” he tells the crowd. “Chemical munitions will be utilized.”
People in the crowd shout at the agents: “This is how you treat Americans? They’re gonna gas us with our congressman here!”
Carbajal calls out the operation as “political theater,” telling people at the scene: “This is overkill. I served in the Marine Corps. These folks are dressed like military personnel on our domestic U.S. street.”
One of the agents approaches with several silver canisters hanging from his vest (later determined to be Saf-Smoke grenades). He hands them off to another agent, and 30 seconds later, they pull the tabs off and drop the canisters to the ground at the feet of Congressmember Carbajal and the crowd. Soon, a wall of smoke billows up as the agents climb aboard an armored vehicle and leave. One of the agents fires what appear to be less-lethal munitions out of the back of the vehicle towards some of the protesters who give chase, tossing water bottles and and other objects.
1:05 p.m.
As the crowd begins to leave, a small group gathers around Congressmember Carbajal at the front gate of Glass House, where he is speaking with an unidentified employee. The staff member says that there was a federal judicial warrant for 12 individuals, and 10 were found and taken into custody. “They walked them out one by one,” he says.
Less than three hours after it began, the street settles down again. Community members walked back to their cars shell-shocked at what they had seen; some told reporters they spent the entire weekend processing the events.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to note that one of the videos shows agents firing what appear to be less-lethal munitions out of the back of the vehicle towards some of the protesters.
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