United Farm Workers v. Noem

In January 2025, U.S. Border Patrol agents based at the U.S.-Mexico border traveled over 300 miles to Bakersfield to launch “Operation Return to Sender,” a weeklong operation through predominantly Latine areas of Kern County and the surrounding region.  

In one case, Border Patrol agents required Maria Hernandez Espinoza, who had resided in Kern County for 20 years, to sign forms she was not permitted to read, without disclosing that she was agreeing to leave the country, and ignored her pleas for an opportunity to appear before an immigration judge, as is her right under federal law. Hernandez Espinoza and at least 40 others are now stranded in Mexico, separated from their families and unsure when they will see their loved ones again. 

The operation appears to have been designed to stop, detain, and arrest people of color who appeared to be farmworkers or day laborers, regardless of their actual immigration status or individual circumstances, transport them back to the El Centro Border Patrol Station, and coerce them into “voluntary” departure”, a form of summary expulsion which can result in a yearslong bar on reentry to the U.S. 

In response to these brazen and unlawful raids by federal agents in the Central Valley, the United Farm Workers (UFW) and five Kern County residents sued the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Border Patrol to prohibit them from stopping, arresting, and summarily expelling community members from the country using practices that violate the U.S. Constitution and federal law. The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU Foundations of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego & Imperial Counties, and by Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP. 

Plaintiffs seek to represent three classes of individuals who have been or will be subjected to the three unlawful practices this lawsuit challenges:

1. Stops regardless of reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence.
2. Arrests without regard to probable cause of flight risk.
3. Voluntary departure without a knowing and voluntary waiver of rights.  

Case Developments