Oxnard – In a ceremony that ended in tears and hugs,, Jaime Alanís Garcia’s family said goodbye to husband and father who died after trying to escape Federal agents during an immigration descent to Glass House farms in Camallo.
Dozens of family members, friends and members of the Alanís Garcia community attended the Caminard Caminard Funeral Fair in Oxnard. Family members remembered him as a joyful and hardworking man whose death arrived too early.
“He was hiding, trying to stay alive,” said his niece, Yesenia Duran. “He was loved by the community.”
July 10 Federal immigration officers have made a descent Two cannabis greenhouse operations belonging to glass house farmstriggering an intense impasse of several hours between federal agents and demonstrators outside the company’s Camillo site. More than 300 undocumented workers have been detained, said federal officials, and demonstrators were injured after agents outside the property killed tear gas cartridges and less lethal bullets.
Alanís Garcia, 56, was fatally injured when he climbed at the top of a greenhouse and fell 30 feet by fleeing immigration agents in Glass House, his family said. He was taken to the County County Medical Center, where he was subjected to life. Duran announced his death on July 12.
The family, friends and community members attend the public vigil and the rosary of Jaime Alanís Garcia.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has weighed, saying that the government would consider legal action against the United States after his death.
“It’s unacceptable,” she said.
The Ministry of Internal Security said that Lalanís Garcia was not one of those who were prosecuted and that federal agents called a Medevac for him.
Duran rejected this story, saying they were waiting for more answers and witnesses to the death of his uncle. “It was an imprudent raid,” she said, who cost her his life uncle.
Alanís Garcia was fatally injured during an immigration raid on the farms of the glass house in Camillo.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
On Monday, the body of Alanís Garcia rested in a brown coffin with a white garnish, the head covered with a black cap. His coffin was surrounded by dozens of red roses, a photo drawn by hand surrounded by monarch butterflies and a large arrangement of white flowers in the shape of a cross, a gift from his wife and his daughter in Mexico. They should soon receive his body when he returned to his native country.
Isaac Alanis, 28, grew up living near Alanís Garcia, who was his mother’s cousin, and came to see him as an uncle. Alanís Garcia came to dinner after work almost every night, around 6 p.m., and he loved all kinds of food, from the meno and the pozole to Chinese cuisine, which he would eat with a fork, because he did not know how to use chopsticks, said Alanis.
1 and 1 Alanís Garcia was fatally injured when he climbed to the top of a greenhouse and fell. 2 The public vigil and the rosary service were crowded, with many people who left standing. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Before arriving in Glass House, Alanís Garcia spent 10 years working in a flower nursery, said Alanis.
Sometimes he said, he joined Alanís Garcia at the Oxnard Sunday flea market to walk and spend time. His uncle, he said, was an extrovert and always laughed.
“He was happy,” said Alanis, pushing tears. On his phone, he had saved a video in 2020 from his uncle dancing during a family gathering.
Yesenia Duran, on the left, the niece of Alanís Garcia, holds a painting made by a friend of the family exhibited during the public vigil and the rosary for his uncle.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Alanis said on Monday, said he was encouraged by the Mexican president’s message, and this strengthened the family determination to obtain answers on the circumstances of his death, he said. He was wearing a shirt with a photo of his uncle, and in the back, he said: “Justice for Jaime”.
The atmosphere was dark in the funeral home. Outside, a photo drawn by hand by Alanís Garcia with wings was sitting from a box of Bulches de Pan.
Representatives of the Mexican government have arrived and have offered support and condolences to the family. Oxnard’s Mexican consular staff said he would provide help, offering the family of Alanís Garcia in California and its original state, Michoacán, in the center of Mexico.
A priest led the public in a rosary service, calling Marys in Spanish while praying for Alanís Garcia and his relatives. The room was full, with a lot of standing remains, when they recited prayer. Many have suffered tears.
When the time came to say goodbye, family members stood closely as they shouted in the arms of the other. A guitarist has serenade the public with songs, including a title, Caminos de Michoacán, Roads of Michoacán, a song by Ranchera that pays homage to the homeland of Alanis Garcia.
Isaac Alanis wears a t-shirt with an image of Jaime Alanís Garcia, his mother’s cousin, who lived nearby and dined with the family most nights.
