Summit to help farmworkers

One year ago this summer, federal agents and National Guard troops swept through Oxnard farm fields in what came to be known as the Glasshouse Raids. Hundreds of farmworkers — the same people who pick the strawberries, celery, and peppers that end up on dinner tables across the country — were caught in the operation. In the streets, protesters clashed with authorities. And a farmworker named Jaime Alanís Garcia lost his life during the raid.

Now, the grassroots group that rose up in response to those raids is planning its most ambitious gathering yet. On September 6, 2026, Ventura County Defensa — known as VC Defensa — will convene La Defensa del Pueblo: A Summit to End the Terror Against the People at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, according to a report from Vida Newspaper.

For a city where agriculture is not an industry but a way of life — where school calendars once bent to the harvest and thousands of families trace their roots to the fields — the summit is more than an event. It is a declaration that Oxnard's immigrant community intends to keep organizing, worshiping, working, and speaking out.

A community still reeling

The July 10 anniversary of the Glasshouse Raids passed this summer with vigils and remembrance, but the wounds remain fresh. In the year since the raids, according to a VC Defensa press release cited by Vida Newspaper, the group's organizers and volunteers "have faced sustained harassment and surveillance by the Trump administration for asserting their First Amendment rights and defending immigrant communities."

The group says the pressure has only intensified. According to the press release, organizers recently learned that the Department of Homeland Security has established something called Task Force Group 4 specifically to scrutinize and intimidate VC Defensa — an extraordinary claim about a small, local volunteer organization in Ventura County. The group also points to National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or NSPM-7, which it says the administration is using "as a blueprint to classify dissent against its billionaire agenda as domestic terrorism."

VC Defensa describes the summit as "a direct response to all the attacks we are facing nationally, from the ongoing violence and intimidation against our communities to the federal repression targeting those who speak out."

'VC Defensa no está sola'

The summit's name — La Defensa del Pueblo, the Defense of the People — signals its breadth. Organizers are bringing together immigrant rights activists, faith leaders, labor unions, community organizations, civil rights advocates, legal workers, and what the group calls "all people committed to defending democratic rights and civil liberties."

Lainy Yompian, a leader of VC Defensa, framed the stakes in sweeping terms in the group's press release.

"We are witnessing an intensified assault on the rights that generations of people fought to secure," Yompian said. "This is not just about immigrant rights; it is about the freedom of speech, the right to protest, labor organizing, public education, and due process. We are launching this summit to show that VC Defensa no está sola, and to fight to protect our constitutional rights for all."

That phrase — no está sola, "is not alone" — sits at the heart of the gathering's purpose. After a year in which organizers say they have been surveilled and harassed, the summit is designed as a show of numbers and solidarity: a full day of workshops, panels, and cultural performances intended to unite communities targeted by what the group calls policies of repression and exclusion.

Oxnard's long organizing tradition

The choice of Oxnard as host city is no accident. The raids that galvanized VC Defensa happened here, and the farmworker community here has deep roots. Oxnard sits in the heart of Ventura County agriculture, a region long dependent on immigrant labor, and its history includes some of the earliest farmworker organizing in California. The United Farm Workers' first successful organizing committee, the National Farm Workers Association-affiliated Oxnard strike of the early 1960s, was led by César Chávez himself years before the Delano grape strike. The tradition of workers and neighbors standing together in this city is not new — VC Defensa is the latest chapter of it.

For farmworker families, the calculus is intensely personal. Immigration enforcement in the fields doesn't just frighten workers — it disrupts harvests, empties classrooms, and ripples through the local economy that Oxnard depends on. Community groups have spent the past year doing know-your-rights trainings, rapid response work, and mutual aid, much of it coordinated through the network that became VC Defensa.

What to expect on September 6

The summit at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center promises a full schedule of workshops, panels, and cultural performances. Organizers say the programming is built to be practical as well as symbolic — equipping attendees with legal knowledge, organizing skills, and connections to unions, faith communities, and civil rights organizations from across the region.

The venue itself carries meaning. The Oxnard Performing Arts Center, long a gathering place for graduations, quinceañeras, concerts, and community celebrations in the heart of the city, will now host a summit whose organizers say the fundamental rights of the people of the 805 are on the line.

A full timeline of events and additional details are available at defensadelpueblo.org.

Whether the summit draws hundreds or thousands, its message is already clear: one year after the Glasshouse Raids took the life of Jaime Alanís Garcia and shook this community, Oxnard's defenders are not retreating. They are convening — in the heart of their own city — to say, in Spanish and in action, that here, the people defend the people.

For more information or to get involved, visit [defensadelpueblo.org](https://defensadelpueblo.org).