Border Patrol Arrest Claims From Bakersfield Raid Don't Match Records

Here are this morning’s top stories for Thursday, April 10th, 2025:

• In early January, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents from El Centro near San Diego launched a deportation raid in Kern County, more than six hours from their usual area of operation. The man behind the effort is Gregory Bovino, head of CBP’s El Centro sector. He claimed the operation targeted criminals that were illegally in the US, but arrest data show that, of the nearly 80 people that were swept up by the El Centro agents, Border Patrol had an arrest record for just one individual.
• Ultra low-budget airliner, Avelo, is shuttering its Bay Area hub at Sonoma County’s Charles M. Schultz Airport, after it got tapped by the Trump Administration to conduct mass deportation flights. One Sonoma County Supervisor is condemning the move, saying it would hurt the local economy in the long-run.
• Prop 36, California’s voter-approved “tough on crime” bill,  is still a  head-scratcher for lawmakers in Sacramento, who are still debating on how to actually fund its rollout statewide.

CalMatters Investigates the Fallout From Jan. Border Patrol Raid in Bakersfield

On January 7th, a day after President Trump’s 2024 election win was ratified by Congress, Gregory Bovino, the head of Border Patrol’s El Centro sector near San Diego, California, decided to send his agents more than 300 miles away from the US-Mexico Border, to Bakersfield–a city that’s more than 50-percent Latino and a hub of the state’s agriculture activity. Bovino deployed 60 agents in unmarked cars in what he dubbed “Operation Return to Sender,” which he claimed was an effort to round up nationals from Mexico, South America and China that were in the country illegally and had criminal histories. 

But once the details of the three-day operation started coming to light, Bovino’s claims about getting criminals off the streets didn’t match Border Patrol’s own data. There’s only one record of an arrest among the 78 people that El Centro border agents rounded up in the operation. Meanwhile, immigration and civil rights  advocates said the raid was fueled by racial profiling, and had little evidence-based law enforcement behind it. Lawsuits are mounting against federal agencies in the fallout from “Operation Return to Sender,” but the damage may have already been done. We speak to CalMatters reporter, Sergio Olmos, who investigated the raid, as well as its fallout.

California Lawmakers Still Unsure How to Fund Prop. 36

Voters approved California’s “tough on crime” bill in the November 5th election by nearly 70 percent. The bill re-classifies certain drug and theft crimes from misdemeanors to felonies. It also offers treatment to drug offenders as an option to avoid prosecution. Now, lawmakers are struggling to figure out how to fund the treatment programs, and other statewide initiatives linked to the bill’s passing.

Sonoma County Supervisor Condemns Budget Airliner’s Decision to Abandon North Bay to Help Deport Immigrants

In the wake of budget airliner, Avelo, partnering with the Trump Administration to conduct deportation flights across the country, it is cutting its operations from Sonoma County. That means Avelo will no longer fly from the North Bay’s Charles M. Schultz Airport to stops in Boise, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah, when it begins deportation flights on May 1st.

Sonoma County Supervisor, Lynda Hopkins, said budget airliner’s departure is a blow to the local tourism economy, and comes at a time when it’s unclear how the White House’s global trade war will impact California’s wine industry. Hopkins said it’s a shame that the Trump Administration is giving a domestic company more financial incentives to deport people than to support local and rural economies.