The United States Killed Jaime Alanis
In a paramilitary-style DHS & ICE raid on a California farm, agents turned a greenhouse into a war zone. Jaime ran for his life. He didn’t survive.
July 10th, 2025. The morning light in Camarillo was soft, the kind that slips through rows of glass-paneled greenhouses and makes everything look sacred.
Jaime Alanis had already been working for hours, like he had for the past decade. Ten years of dawns and dirt and aching hands, all to support his wife and daughter back home in Huajumbaro.
The air was thick with the scent of soil and sweat. Jaime moved methodically, quietly, tending herbs that would end up on white plates in fancy restaurants… the kind that never knew the names of the people who fed them.
Jamie did not know it then, but that day would be his last memory on this earth.
His death came not from illness, not from accident, but from the government of the country he helped sustain. It came from a raid that made a greenhouse into a war zone. The federal government didn’t miscalculate. It executed a plan.
Let one thing be abundantly clear, ICE and DHS made a deliberate decision to turn an agricultural workplace into a battlefield.
They descended on Glass House Farms like an occupying force. Agents arrived in camouflage and military trucks, deploying smoke canisters, and even a helicopter cut through the sky above. Faces covered, they came with guns and fury not to apprehend terrorists, but to confront unarmed farmworkers with no escape.
Jaime, like many others, ran.. men terrified of the dozens of masked men with guns and grenades in their hands. As a result, a panicked Jamie climbed onto the roof of the greenhouse to seek safety and shelter. He was terrified, unarmed, and desperate to live. And that’s when he fell.
He plummeted thirty feet from the roof, fleeing our government’s war machines.
His skull fractured. His neck broken. An artery torn. He started to internally bleed out under the California sun. But Jamie was still breathing when they found him. Machines kept his heart going for a few more days, but he never woke up. Never regained consciousness.
Jamie Alanis died on July 12, 2025. He died without the two people who loved him the most by his side — his wife and daughter. They remained in Mexico, separated not just by miles but by policy.
The United States government has shown them no compassion, no gesture of humanity… not even in death. And even if they were allowed to cross, why would they come? What welcome would they find in a country that turned Jaime’s workplace into a battlefield and treated his life like collateral?
Now? His wife and daughter will receive his body in a box. Jamie paid the ultimate sacrifice to give them a better life. A price that he shouldn’t of ever of had to pay for wanting to work and provide for his family.
!! Content Warning: Graphic Images Ahead
The following images were shared by Jaime Alanis’s family. They want the world to see what was done to him to understand the cost of ICE’s violence, not just in headlines, but in human flesh.
Some of these photos are difficult to look at. You have a choice to scroll past, to look away, or to close the tab if you can’t handle it.
But Jaime didn’t have that choice the day the United States government came for him. He didn’t get to turn away. He didn’t get to survive. Now, the least we can do is bear witness.
Some of you may ask, “But, Why Did Jamie Run?”
He ran because he knew what ICE was capable of. He ran because staying still in this country while undocumented can be a death sentence of a slower kind complete with detention, separation, deportation, starvation and disappearance.
All you have to do is take one look at what the United States is doing in Alligator Auschwitz (Alcatraz). A place full of reportedly mold food, starvation, and rooms kept subzero with the lights on 24/7 as a form of torture. Something the UN has historically named as a form of torture and blatant human rights violation.
Then take a look at CECOT, the prison that brags about people only leaving “in body bags” — a place we where we, the American taxpayers — paid to send hundreds of innocent men. Men who will spend the rest of their lives being starved, beaten, and tortured on our dime.
So why did Jaime run? Because America has taught immigrants there is no mercy here.
The State’s Hands Are Bloody
DHS and ICE? They want you to believe Jaime was an unfortunate casualty.
“Not technically in our custody,” they said, “So, not our fault.”
As if their actions did not directly cause this. As if the panic he felt was not provoked. As if deploying a military-grade raid in a cannabis greenhouse wouldn’t produce chaos.
Let’s be honest… if a single white accountant had broken his ankle during a no-knock raid at Ernst & Young, the entire country would be screaming about government overreach.
But Jaime was a Mexican farmworker and this government doesn’t weep for people like him. It breaks them. So let’s not pretend this was a tragic misunderstanding. This was a predictable outcome. A policy made flesh and blood and a death born of intention.
Even in Death, Jaime Lives On
They tried to erase him but the world would not let them.
In the days after Jaime Alanis fell from that greenhouse rooftop, something extraordinary happened. His story, the real one, began to spread. Not the ICE/DHS spin, not the government gaslighting, but the raw truth. A man died fleeing state violence and people responded.
His niece, Yesenia Durán, launched a GoFundMe to return Jaime’s body to his hometown in Michoacán. The goal was modest: a few thousand dollars to cover funeral costs and flights. But the community said no. We will give more. We will carry him home together and they did.
Thousands of people donated. Many left messages in Spanish and English. Messages of rage, of sorrow, of solidarity. People who never knew Jaime called him hermano, tío, compañero. His death cracked something open and for once, it wasn’t apathy… it was action.
Meanwhile, the streets of Camarillo filled with protest.
People showed up fast and furious. They didn’t just mourn, they mobilized. They demanded answers. They demanded accountability. They stood at the gates of Glass House Farms with signs, megaphones, and prayers. They stood face to face with the paramilitary without fear. And it wasn’t just organizers but also local residents… the teachers, parents, and even teenagers all joined in the protests.
They brought water and food. They live-streamed arrests. They shielded others from rubber bullets. They bled. They chanted Jaime’s name until it echoed off the hills. They didn’t let the news cycle bury him. They lifted him up.
Because when the government showed the brutality of its power, the people showed the strength of theirs.
Jaime’s Legacy Is Still Being Written
This is not just a story of loss. It’s a story of resistance.
Jaime Alanis did not die in vain. He became a catalyst. A mirror. A rallying cry.
His fall reminded us that the war on immigrants is not metaphor but a lived reality. But it also reminded us that solidarity is real, and growing. There is a resistance in all of us that refuses to be silent. That refuses to surrender. That refuses to accept a nation where men like Jaime are hunted, hidden, and forgotten.
When the state builds walls, we will build bridges. When they turn fields into war zones, we’ll turn grief into revolution. When they chase us into rooftops, we’ll rise even higher. When they take the fathers, we’ll raise an army of sons. For every life they steal, we build a movement they can’t contain.
You can donate, you can protest, or you can bear witness. You can call Congress and demand accountability. Do whatever you can, But whatever you do, don’t turn away. Don’t let this be the last time you think of Jamie. Of the abhorrent things our government is doing to innocent people for the “crime” of being undocumented.
Do not forget and do not let them forget either. The people who planned this raid should be held accountable. The agents who carried it out should not be protected by silence. The officials who call this “law enforcement” must be reminded of what it cost. They are counting on you to look away.
Do not give them that power. Say Jaime’s name. Tell his story.
♥ Note From The Author ♥
Jaime Alanis was a father, a husband, a farmworker, and a human being. He died because the United States government turned a greenhouse into a war zone. He died running from men with guns, in a country that profits from his labor and criminalizes his existence.
But this isn’t just about Jaime. It’s about the system that made his death possible. It’s about the silence that lets it happen again, and again, and again.
This wasn’t just a tragedy. It was policy and Jamie’s story won’t be the last. If you’re paying attention, stay close. I’ll keep digging. You just keep showing up.
Thanks for being here.
— Love, Dissent.
I will never understand why the gestapo ICE army feel they have to dress & act like they are headed to a war zone, with guns drawn, heavy armor and faces hidden. These immigrants are only trying to make a living. Yes, the majority are in-country illegally with no documents, but gestapo ICE police look and act more like terrorists when they show up at places like this.
Thank you for writing this story. Charges should be brought, at least voluntary manslaughter. Or even homocide. But we know they wont. RIP Jaime.