Before July 10, 2025, Diego described life in the simplest words.
“I felt like life was good," he says. "It was good. Until that day. Until all that shit happened.”
Diego, a 16-year-old high school student, spoke with L.A TACO about his experience with the ongoing raids that ICE and Border Patrol have been conducting in Southern California.
Diego’s mother, Yolanda, was taken during the Glasshouse Farms raid in July. Four months later ICE agents returned, this time kidnapping his father, Antonio, and his uncle, Armando, just outside of their Oxnard home.
It was summer break, a quiet early morning in July. A Thursday like any other. Diego woke up to his mom’s phone call, reminding him that he needed to drop off his younger sister at summer school later.
He went on FaceTime shortly after that to speak with his girlfriend before going back to sleep. Diego says he woke up a little while after that to the sound of his phone buzzing.
He had three missed calls from his aunt and six from his uncle. He saw messages asking if it was true that his parent’s workplace at Glasshouse Farms was being raided by ICE. Diego says he immediately went to check the Instagram page of 805 Immigration Coalition, and noted that there was a raid over in Carpinteria, not Camarillo. His anxiety lowered and he called his uncle and aunt back, asking them not to scare him.
Diego explains that just thirteen minutes later, 805 Immigration Coalition posted a new video on Instagram.
It showed ICE and the National Guard, blocking off Laguna Road and Las Posas in Camarillo. They were raiding Glasshouse Farms.
“My anxiety spiked up,” says Diego. "I called my mom and she didn’t answer. I called my dad. He picked up and said that he doesn’t know if they’re inside. He was going to go check. That’s when I get a call from him 15 minutes later saying they’re raiding the building where my mom is working. They got her. I broke down. I asked my dad to find a hiding spot and he found one.”
Diego recalls his father finding refuge inside of a ventilation bag; he hid for nearly 14 hours, occasionally texting Diego to let him know he was still there. Every time his father wouldn’t reply back quickly, he would repeatedly spam him to make sure he was okay.
Protests erupted outside of the farm. Protesters clashed with the National Guard who were assisting ICE and were met with tear gas, smoke canisters, and less-lethal projectiles.
Diego's dad would eventually make it out and find his way back home to his son. He went on to tell Diego that almost all the people he knew were taken from the work site.
Later news would reveal that, during the chaotic raid, farmworker Jaime Alanis Garcia succumbed to fatal injuries after allegedly falling 30 feet.
Diego’s mother is currently being held at the El Paso Processing Center in Texas. Meanwhile, his father had initially found a new job doing landscaping and gardening with Diego’s uncle, Armando.
Then, this past Tuesday, November 4, just outside their home, Diego would face another traumatizing attack from federal agents just short of four months after his mom was taken.
“I woke up around 5:20 a.m. I was on my phone, I heard a man shouting, ‘get out of the way!,’" Diego recalls. "A funny feeling hit me. A feeling of uneasiness.”
He remembers feeling the urge to get up, but shook it off. Moments later, he received a call from his grandpa asking him if he heard what happened.
“They took your dad and your uncle,” his grandfather told him.
Diego, in shock, told his grandfather that he was lying. He had to be lying. His grandfather asked his grandson not to cry.
“This can’t be real,” Diego remembers saying. "They took my dad.”
Diego told L.A. TACO that another uncle had helped them get a lawyer for his mother when she was taken away, and this same uncle witnessed his father and his uncle Armando being kidnapped by their home.
He told Diego that when he drove by, he saw a total of four ICE vehicles there. By the time he drove by, his father had already been handcuffed and was sitting inside the car.
His uncle was being chased at the time, and was soon handcuffed. In footage that he shared, his aunt is there documenting the aftermath, in a state of despair.
Diego’s father and uncle both signed voluntary deportation orders. They were both separated from each other, his father is in Tijuana and his uncle is in Puebla.
Before July, Diego lived with his parents and siblings. He described his father, Antonio, as a genuinely loving and hard-working man. He says his dad would tell him to try his best in school so that he “wouldn’t have to work his ass off over minimum wage.” He would tell him to stay strong and always do what he loves to do.
He described his mother, Yolanda, as unique. He says that whenever he was feeling down, she would cheer him up. Whenever he craved something, she would make it or buy it for him.
“She could make anybody smile,” he says. "She was that type of person.”
Diego now lives with his grandparents, the oldest of the three kids in his family. He says he’s doing his best to remain positive and to keep himself distracted.
“It’s like a test of my faith,” he says. "I’m praying every day.”
Diego suffers from asthma, a hearing disability, epilepsy, and a condition known as hyperlipidemia. He is at risk for pre-diabetes.
Diego tells L.A TACO that the stress isn’t helping. He feels like he lost all his support, and is worried that his health is going to deteriorate.
“I feel numb, like none of this shit is real,” he says.
Diego tries to distract himself with his mariachi practice. He started in school two years ago and is now part of a mariachi band. He says that he plays the trumpet in a group in Oxnard and has even been told by his instructor that he has the potential to make it into a professional mariachi band someday.
He is getting therapy at a wellness center, but says that mariachi is the one thing that has been helping him keep his mind off of everything.
We asked Diego if he had anything he wanted to tell people.
“If you have parents that are scared, always accompany them, you never know what might happen," he recommends. "Show your affection towards them. Once they’re separated from you, you start regretting everything bad that you’ve done. You think, ‘Fuck, I should have done this instead of that. Fuck, I should have at least given them a hug.’ It’s not easy.”
“Take good care of them,” Diego said.
